Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The statistics for quarters 1 and 2 for local authority house building in 2018 have been published. The total number of new local authority builds completed by the end of June was 350. The figure for Cork city was zero. The figure for County Cork was one. Twelve of the 31 local authorities had completed zero new local authority builds by the end of June, yet we are in the middle of the greatest housing crisis in the history of the State. Clearly, the current policy is not working. Hearing alternative proposals, some of which have been outlined at this meeting, is important and useful for the committee.

Dr. Hearne has given us an interesting figure. Of the 134,000 new social housing units to be delivered under Rebuilding Ireland by the end of 2021, 85% will be private sector solutions, with the remainder to be local authority and AHB new builds, or public provision in reality. Clearly, that policy is not working. I like the fact that the speakers have identified alternative models and given examples from other European countries of different ways in which to approach the issue. Austria and Denmark were cited as examples where public housing provision was between 35% and 40% of overall stock, as opposed to a mere 10% in this country. It is interesting to consider how that came to pass. Social housing provision in Austria jumped ahead in leaps and bounds in the inter-war period. It was a society that was far less wealthy than Irish society is today. In Vienna 250,000 public apartments were built for the city's working population. The maximum rent at the time was 4% of a worker's income. If a person was sick or unemployed, he or she would not pay rent. The communities in which the apartments were provided had GP services, crèche services, communal laundries and food provisions. If a left-wing council in Vienna could do that in the poverty of the inter-war years, why can a society in one of the wealthiest countries in Europe - ours - not organise even a fraction of that public housing provision? It is a question of whether there is a will at Government level. There is not and that needs to change.

I agree that the way forward is public housing on public land. My question relates to the price of building public housing on public land and the price at which public housing can be offered to workers on average wages, including young people who have been locked out of the housing market. The Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance project in Poppintree has given us a glimpse of what might be possible. My understanding is three-bedroom homes were delivered at approximately the €170,000 mark each. As we do not want to draw conclusions from just one example, let us take a more overarching view. Some years ago, the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, produced statistics which indicated that close to 50% of the cost of a house was tied up in one of four elements: the cost of land, the developer's profit, the banker's profit and State taxes. If we were to adopt a policy of providing public housing on public land, we could fight on four fronts. The land could be provided for free by the State as a contribution to tackling the housing emergency. State taxes could be waived; that is not impossible. Bankers' profits would be significantly less because, if the State was to borrow at a rate of 1% or thereabouts, it would be far cheaper than a developer borrowing at a rate of 6%, which is probably the going rate. To factor in the risk of a private company going belly up, a bank will charge more. If there was a State construction company or, in the large cities, councils had direct labour units, there would be no need for developers' profits. If such initiatives were not in place, the State could hire builders. A profit would have to be factored in, but it would be significantly less than developers' profits.

The SCSI's figures indicate that, if a house cannot be built for half the current market price, it can be built for damn close to it. If committee members think about that-----