Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----and the difficulty with that is it massively increases the cost of housing units. For both private operators and local authorities, we are now subsidising housing units up to the scale of €100,000 or €150,000 per unit. In the city, even with those numbers, we are struggling to build units. Deputy Verona Murphy made a very good point. I said, "as a society", but she is right. I am not sure we have had that conversation about the shift towards apartments being very positive from a planning and environmental perspective, but it is having a massive societal impact on the cost per unit. In places such as the cities, you cannot go for the option of three-bedroom units because you will run out of space very quickly.

There is a broader point in other places that we need to consider. We need to consider how we will go forward as a city where, effectively, the opportunity to purchase a home will have to be subsidised by the State to the tune of €100,000 or €150,000 per unit. Even Ó Cualann, which was touted for a long time as being able to deliver not-for-profit housing, will now say that it is just not possible to deliver not-for-profit housing at affordable rates. We have to all start to accept that, essentially, the cost of building now exceeds the ability of anybody on any sort of level of income to be able to afford to purchase a home. That is a really startling fact. We have to come back to the conversation on the point raised by Deputy Murphy because the changes that we made on an environmental and planning level are having an impact. The question is whether that burden falls on society as a whole in terms of the taxpayer and so on, or on the individual who has to purchase that home.

The other side of it is we never get into this issue of viability when we talk about social housing. For people below the €44,000 limit, or €49,000 now, we never talk about whether it is viable to build those homes. We just build them because we know people need to live somewhere and it is our responsibility to house them. Unfortunately, because of the cost of building we will now have to ask that question for a much wider range. I ask the Department to look specifically at the cost-benefit analysis that is applied to some of the affordable housing units. In some cases, the Department is declining applications for affordable homes because homes are for sale on the open market for less than the cost of construction. The answer to that is not to not build those affordable homes because we know we need to increase the supply. The Finglas West-Kildonan site is one example. We are struggling to agree an affordable housing scheme at that site with the Department because there are homes for sale across the road for less than the cost of construction. We need both types of homes. We do not just need to point to the other home across the road and say it is cheaper so people should buy that. We need both types of homes because we have more people and a higher population and so on.

I spent more time talking about this than I expected, but Deputy Murphy made a very important point on the cost of our planning and environmental decisions. That is falling on individuals but it is also falling on the taxpayer. The corollary to that is the Department needs to examine how it is applying the cost-benefit analysis for applications for affordable units that are coming in from local authorities. If we accept we will always have to subsidise homes, we will always be in the situation where we will not build affordable purchase. That policy has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. The Comptroller and Auditor General referenced that idea of the output and performance versus cost in the 2019 report.

I will talk about the tenant in situ scheme because it points to the same issue of the viability of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS. The tenant in situ scheme is a transformative scheme. People are coming to my constituency offices who are in the desperate situation of being given an eviction notice. Within a matter of weeks, not only have they gone from the point of being at risk of homelessness, they have actually secured their permanent council tenancy in a home they have lived in for many years. The tenant in situ scheme is a no-brainer. The question then is what the value for money is in us continuing to rent that home. The answer is there is no value for money in RAS or HAP. We have all known that for many years. The Department needs to consider a cost-benefit analysis of extending the tenant in situ scheme beyond those people facing immediate eviction. If a tenant is seven, eight, nine or ten years on a waiting list, the Department, the council and the State should be going to the landlord and saying it will buy that home from him or her at market rates, with a voluntary relationship and all of that. There is no benefit in us continuing to rent on HAP or RAS for those tenants. We could radically transform the security of those people. It would not add to the supply and does not solve the housing crisis, but it would radically transform the security of those tenants.

When we have unreliable or unsecured corporation tax coming in from a very small number of companies that we read about, we have to find ways of purchasing assets that do not have an inflationary impact, and that do not draw on further skills that would reduce supply and all of those issues. A capital programme of purchasing RAS and HAP properties from landlords who are willing to sell would be a very sound fiscal measure. It would also reduce our current spending over time because the cost of RAS or HAP would reduce. RAS and HAP were short-term necessary measures.

At a time when we have capital money we can spend, landlords who are exiting the market and tenants who want security, it makes no sense not to go beyond the current scheme. The problem is we will run out of the allocation for the tenants in situscheme probably in August or September. Do we have the funds to continue the scheme? Has consideration been given to expanding it beyond the eviction context?