Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I am disappointed that the Minister referred only in passing to the NESC report and made no reference to the all-party committee on building land.

The NESC report did not surprise the Labour Party. For the past eight years we have argued that the Government's housing policies, if they can be described as such, should be changed. Nearly eight and a half years after the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government came together in 1997 and after a period of unprecedented economic growth and revenues, several questions must be not just asked but answered. Why are twice as many people homeless? Why is there double the number of applicants on local authority waiting lists? Why have more Irish families lost their homes through eviction under this Government than did so under the British during the land war in the 19th century? Why are young working people unable to purchase a home reasonably close to their family and their work, especially in the major urban areas? Why has a generation been driven out into the commuter belt, with all the consequences for traffic, child care and personal relationships?

The answer to all these questions is that the Government, instead of pursuing policies aimed at providing homes for families and working people, has instead stimulated and stoked a market for property which has increased house prices, made the larger urban areas virtually unaffordable and increased the burden which must now be borne by the taxpayers in addressing the housing needs of our people. The Minister in his speech focused on housing as an economic activity, which is important, rather than dealing with it as a social and human need.

In the early years of rising house prices, the Labour Party argued for intervention in the housing market and was told by a succession of Ministers that housing should be left to the market, that supply would increase and that this in turn would meet demand. Supply has increased, which is welcome. However, house prices are now three times what they were eight years ago, and despite all the talk about prices stabilising, the latest official figures from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government show that the annual percentage increase in new house prices is 11.8% nationally, 7.4% in Dublin, and just over 10% for second-hand houses, or three to four times the rate of inflation. Indeed, the Bank of Ireland stated this week that house prices will rise by 10% this year and that rents are beginning to rise again.

The Government has intervened in the housing market on a few occasions but only to give a leg-up to investors and property speculators. The abolition of the first-time buyer's grant distorted the market against the first-time buyer. The reduction in stamp duty for investors did the same. The halving of capital gains tax for the sale of development land and the range of urban renewal incentives for new building were aimed at supporting the property market rather than providing homes for those in need. The only significant measure which might have assisted first-time buyers was Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which required up to 20% of development land to be set aside for social and affordable housing, but that measure was botched in its implementation. First, it was delayed and did not take effect until 2001. All unbuilt planning permissions were due to be subject to the 20% rule, with effect from the end of 2002, but builders and developers engaged in special pleading and the Government effectively handed back 80,000 affordable sites to the builders in amending legislation from that time.

According to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, over 300,000 dwellings have been built in the State since Part V became operational in 2001. To take up the Minister's challenge about mathematics, if we assume that 50% of all the houses and apartments built since 2001 were on small sites or on unzoned land, or were one-off dwellings — therefore Part V would not apply to them — there remain 150,000 dwellings to which the 20% rule should have applied and should have generated in the region of 30,000 social and affordable dwellings.

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