Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

I very much welcome this opportunity to make a statement on the current housing crisis, although I would have preferred it if the time had been used more profitably to debate proper legislation on housing that might make it easier for people to afford a home and more difficult for investors to buy up seven, eight or nine houses, as they are doing in my constituency, essentially pricing the average person out of the market.

The example of the milkman who could afford to buy a house outright at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s is sometimes used. Nowadays, it is much more difficult for a single person, unless one is a Member of the House earning a high salary, to get a house on one's own. Even ten years ago, for example, a teacher could buy a house alone. Now they must share houses. They move in with friends or buy houses with siblings because they cannot get a house on their own. Part of the reason lies in Government policy.

The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, referred to the Government moving to tackle the housing crisis. There has been movement similar to the way a turtle moves towards the sea, and that is not quick enough. House prices have risen largely because of the incentives given to private investors who are competing successfully with the first-time buyers. Every time an investor goes up against a first-time buyer, the investor wins. They have more resources and can pitch up the price a little more. In Dublin in particular, house prices overall have risen because the investors can afford to pay them. They are the ones getting the mortgages on the basis of their existing equity whereas the first-time buyer must scrimp and scrape.

It has reached the point where 110% mortgages for houses are available in some circumstances and while the current Celtic tiger economy might allow for that, the fact is that economic downturns do and will happen. The Celtic tiger economy is no more the product of the efforts of this Government or those of any other Government except on a macroeconomic scale, but I will concede that when the downturn occurs, it will not necessarily be the fault of Fianna Fáil. It is a cycle, however. It will happen and unless we prepare for it, and this is where the Government is responsible, many couples will face interest rate hikes and a situation will arise similar to that in London in the 1980s. We do not want that to happen.

How do we tackle this problem? It is a complex issue but the first step is to follow the recommendations of the NESC and forget about rent allowance. There are many houses in my constituency whose occupants receive rent allowance and they will never be able to afford their own house. Unless we bring more properly developed houses on-stream with access to public transport infrastructure and a social mix, more ghettos will be created which will result in an increase in crime. We must examine the way houses are planned and developed and forget this charade of wasting Government money by paying rent allowance to people who will never own their own house. We must forget, as the NESC said, about building more social houses on their own. The solution is for the affordable housing and shared ownership schemes to hold sway, and Government funding must be allocated to that area.

See this speech in context