Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the members of the Housing Commission who are present. It is great to have them here. I have gone through the report in detail and it is very interesting from an academic, political and social point of view. It is a pity there has not been more engagement with it. While I clearly would not agree with a certain amount in it, there is much that I do agree with.

I have many questions for the witnesses but unfortunately we do not have the time. I will try to go through a couple of them quickly. First, why does the chair think there has been such reticence from the Department of housing to engage with this report in any serious way? Second, does he see the Department and the Government taking an emergency response in its actions?

I have a question for Dr. Lyons on rents and the rental approach. What is his assessment of the sustainability of current rent levels, economically and socially? What sort of numbers does he think we will see as a result of the new measures announced today in terms of increased supply? At what point does he think rents are likely to fall?

Regarding social housing, one of the key recommendations in the report is to give local authorities increased capacity. What does Professor Norris think is needed in that regard? Perhaps she could spell out a little about the regional local authority organisations she mentioned. How can we get to that point of delivering 20,000 social and cost-rental homes, which is clearly what we need?

I have another question for the chair on affordable housing and affordable rental. How do we get genuinely affordable housing delivered and what does he think is key to that?

There is a figure thrown around that we need €20 billion but it is also in the report that if we had less density, only €16 billion would be required. Perhaps someone could comment on that.

Finally, on the right to housing, why has there been no engagement on this? The fact there was a minority report on the right to housing shows that we need to be honest - I am sure Mr. O’Flynn will come in on this - that there are different interests in housing. This is glossed over a lot. Banks want higher house prices so they can provide higher mortgages. Institutional investors want higher rents so they can increase their profits. Builders and developers want higher house prices so they can increase their profits. We should not pretend otherwise. This is the reality. That is why we need the State to regulate, intervene and deliver. Perhaps the witnesses could comment on this. Has our policy been too orientated towards trying to incentive the market rather than looking at what the State itself should be doing?