Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, Ms Hurley and the team for their attendance. I would like to make many points but, given the time available, I will condense them into one central point. The net effect of the failure of policies to deal with social and affordable housing and spiralling rents and property prices is social cleansing, particularly in Dublin. The Government's policies, which are reliant on the private sector to resolve this crisis, may have a marginal effect in some areas. For example, we have heard there has been significant take-up of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme in County Louth. In areas where property prices are low, one can see how acquisitions, the use of funding from the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, which is linked to getting a certain amount of affordable housing, and strategic housing developments could work to some extent.

There are many policies, including Part V, but none of them will work or works in the areas where the crisis is most acute or where rents, property prices and site values are highest and rising fastest.

The Minister will not be surprised to learn that I zoned in on that because next Saturday there is a protest in which I am involved, which is one of a series of protests organised by the National Housing and Homeless Coalition. It is a specifically Dublin-based protest as part of a series of regional protests that we are organising. We decided to zone in on what is happening in Dublin and the evidence confirms what I am saying. In all the different areas the crisis affects, average asking rents for all of Dublin rose 82% between 2011 and the end of 2018, while the number of children in emergency accommodation has risen 270% in Dublin from 726 to 2,686. The number of families in emergency accommodation has increased 278% from 231 to 1,252, while average house prices in Fingal, in the past year alone, have risen 17%, which is an increase of €55,000, and they have risen 17.5%, 15.8%, 13%, 13% in Dublin city, south Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and all areas of Dublin, respectively. Some 31,196 people are on the housing lists of the four Dublin councils, although that is an artificially low figure because it does not include HAP, RAS or other measures.

If we drill down a little further, the Minister might confirm whether Dún Laoghaire had one of the lowest approval rates for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. Some 20 out of 99 applications were approved, although I would be interested to know the figures for drawdown. I had heard that as few as three applications were drawn down but I could be wrong. Average house prices in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown are now €620,000 but the Rebuilding Ireland home loan has a limit of €320,000 and, therefore, it will not work in Dún Laoghaire. It is no wonder that there is no drawdown and it is not catching in Dún Laoghaire because it cannot. Average house prices in Dublin city are €451,000 and, therefore, it will not work there either and we should forget it.

On social housing for Dún Laoghaire, the target between 2018 and 2021, when Rebuilding Ireland expires, is 1,563. Only six units in Dún Laoghaire have thus far received Part 8 approval for that period. Proposed beyond that, rather than already with Part 8 approval, there are 13 in Rockfield Drive and 100 in Ballyogan Court, while there are 208 AHB units. It is a tiny fraction. In Shanganagh, although 540 have been approved, we do not know how much of it will be social housing. We would like it all to be social housing because we will not meet the target otherwise. Even with the figure of 200 which has been discussed, nothing has happened anyway. I brought reporters from RTÉ to Shanganagh approximately five years, showed them the site and said there should be public housing on it. We pushed and pushed, had motions passed - la-la-la - but nothing happened. If one visits the site again, it looks exactly the same as it did four years ago and nothing has happened. There is not a prayer of reaching the target in Dún Laoghaire, which is linked to the fact that we cannot get the acquisitions there. Although the Minister is welcome to tell the committee his explanation, I think Shanganagh is delayed because of the affordability that the Government wants, given that it will not build all social housing at Shanganagh. The Government cannot do the maths in Dún Laoghaire because the market prices are so high that even the Government's discount on market prices would not bring it anywhere close to affordability. It just will not work. We do not know how much LIHAF-related affordable housing we are getting in Cherrywood. I attended the Hines site and was told that it was costing €400,000 a unit to build. How will that be affordable? It will not work.

Against that background, about which I could say more, surely the only answer in places such as that is to build public and affordable housing on public land ourselves at cost price, where we are not in any way dependent on the market. Instead of that, however, in the past few weeks, DLR Properties, which is a corporate subsidiary of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown - a council controlled by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - sold Johnny Ronan a site that has the capacity to deliver 380 units. The Government allowed that to happen. For what price is Mr. Ronan going to sell them? What will happen then? We probably will not get any back under Part V because it will be too expensive for the council to buy. We will get nothing from it. On the strategic housing development, the latest project proposed is 270 units in Temple Hill in Blackrock. How much will they cost? The council will not be able to afford to buy them back. None of the measures that the Minister proposes will work in places such as Dún Laoghaire, other parts of south Dublin, large swathes of Dublin in general or the larger urban centres. I would like to hear the Minister's response.