Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I move:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"welcomes:

the launching of the Housing Policy Framework — Building Sustainable Communities in 2005, which firmly sets the housing policy objective of enabling every household to have available an affordable dwelling of good quality, suited to its needs, as far as possible at the tenure of its choice, in the broader context of building sustainable communities; and

the announcement of additional investment in the 2007 Abridged Estimates to honour the commitments entered into in Towards 2016 to increase social and affordable housing supply over the coming three years, with a view to assisting some 60,000 households;

acknowledges that evolving policy is built on the achievements of this Government in:

delivering over half a million homes since 1997 and thereby enabling unprecedented numbers of first-time buyers to access home ownership during that period;

increasing housing supply as the key response to the broad range of housing needs and demands with one third of Ireland's total housing stock being completed in the past ten years;

improving affordability for first-time buyers through targeted measures including improvements in tax reliefs and stamp duty, and investment in affordable housing initiatives;

taking steps to ensure that sufficient zoned and serviced land is available to support the achievement of ten successive years of record-breaking housing output, likely to exceed 90,000 units in 2006;

taking action to promote reform and development of the private rented sector generally, including the enactment of a modern legislative code that strengthens tenants rights and supports a more professional approach by landlords and the recent launch of an action programme to promote improvement in standards of private rented accommodation;

taking action to improve the regulation of property services and to address various issues relating to the management of common areas and facilities in private developments;

introducing the ground-breaking legislation under Part V of the Planning and Development Acts 2000 to 2006 which provides a Constitution-proofed framework through which a reasonable and proportionate share of the betterment derived from residential zoning and planning decisions is captured for social and affordable housing purposes;

significantly increasing delivery under Part V in terms of both social and affordable housing;

assigning over 70 State and local authority sites to the affordable housing initiative, as part of its commitment to affordable housing;

establishing the affordable homes partnership, which is playing an important role, in particular, in driving the delivery of affordable housing in the greater Dublin area;

bringing forward five-year housing action plans by local authorities to co-ordinate, accelerate and bring greater integration to action on housing at local level;

introducing a housing support for recipients of rent supplement with long-term housing need called the rental accommodation scheme;

dedicating significant resources to the renewal and regeneration of existing local authority estates; and

providing for the needs of 100,000 households in the last ten years through various social and affordable housing programmes;

notes the commitment of the Government in the housing policy framework and elsewhere to:

enhance the supply of affordable housing and to support paths from social housing to home ownership, involving new affordable and shared equity options and sale of flats to local authority tenants under certain conditions;

deliver additional homes to those in need of social housing through a range of options;

eliminate the long-term occupancy of emergency homeless accommodation by 2010; and

investigate the possibility of introducing a 'use it or lose it' scheme that could entail compulsory acquisition of land for housing purposes at below market value in specified circumstances."

I welcome the opportunity to comment on the call by the Labour Party for a new housing policy to ensure that everyone has access to a good quality home in a sustainable community at an affordable price. This Government has already launched that policy, entitled Housing Policy Framework — Building Sustainable Communities.

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