Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. The Minister is factually incorrect in claiming that the Government is the largest builder in the State. Last year, fewer than 800 new social houses were directly delivered by the local authorities and a couple of hundred houses were delivered by approved housing bodies. Almost all other housing was purchased from the private sector as turnkeys, public private partnerships or Part V provision. The main ask of many of us in the Opposition is not that we would have only public sector provision, but that the public sector would carry its fair share of the delivery, particularly of social and affordable homes.

It is also not the case that the State is the biggest investor. This year, the State will invest €1.4 billion of capital expenditure on social housing and a small number of affordable homes. That is a fraction of the total amount of money that will be invested by the private sector, including by the Housing Finance Agency, private banks and others, in the delivery of housing. Not only the Opposition, but the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, is urging the Government to double direct capital investment in social and affordable housing. This is at the heart of these amendments because it is what this Bill is about. The reason almost everybody bar Government is calling for a dramatic increase in direct State investment for the delivery of genuinely affordable housing and more social housing is because the private sector, utilising vehicles such as joint ventures and initiatives, as referenced in these sections of the Bill we are seeking to amend, cannot do that. That is why the IMF, for which I am no great advocate, increased public expenditure when Fianna Fáil was last in government. The IMF is arguing that now is the time for Government to borrow at record low interest rates to invest. That is the right approach because if the Government does not do that it costs more.

I will return to the amendments and what they seek to achieve. Let us take Kilcarbery site in my constituency as an example, where the Minister and his Government colleagues had a very nice photo shoot recently. As I understand it, the Minister has approved funding for an approved housing body to deliver cost rental units on that site. The problem, however, is that that land was previously public land, but it was sold at full market value. Unlike Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council got full market value for their lands. The Kilcarbery site was sold at full market value and a developer built properties on it. An approved housing body is now being funded by Government to buy that property, including the land that was originally sold. The consequence of that rather bizarre way of funding affordable rental is that the rents will be €1,200 per month, which is not that far off local rents in some parts of the suburbs. Many of us campaigned for years to have hat site developed. If Government had done what we are arguing for in our amendments to this Bill, that is, directly funded South Dublin County Council to deliver those homes, the rents in those units would be €800 to €850 per month. That was confirmed to us in committee hearings with the Department of Finance and Dublin City Council last year. In using joint ventures, land initiatives and commercial investment vehicles the Government is driving up development costs and, ultimately, affordable purchase and rental will be more expensive.

I would also like to correct the record. Nobody on this side of the Opposition is opposing any housing development. What we do not accept is scarce public land being gifted, as is happening in Dublin city and Fingal, through bargain basement prices and sweetheart deals. For example, 60% of the homes in Donabate will be sold for between €350,000 and €450,000 and the developers are being given ten years to roll out that site. That hardly shows the urgency or affordability that the Minister claims. The biggest objectors to actual housing in our city and county are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in terms of their objections to between 8,000 and 11,000 homes in the Clondalkin-Clonburris SDZ and the delay of that project for a year through An Bord Pleanála. That was actual votes against actual homes as opposed to voting, as we do, against sweetheart land deals for developers.

I propose to press these amendments. If we are to deliver large volumes of genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy for working people, we have to get rid of those joint ventures, land initiatives and commercial investment vehicles and do what we know works, from Ó Cualann in Poppintree to Fingal County Council in Lusk, that is, direct delivery of good quality affordable homes for working people by not-for-profits, community co-operatives and our local authorities.