Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On the same theme, we discussed this on Committee Stage and we have been trying to inject a sense of urgency in the Dáil on this issue over the past three years, because this crisis is getting worse. Finally, we have an opportunity to do something about it. When this issue was first raised and when we said the solution was to build council houses rather than rely on the private sector, the response of various Ministers was to throw up their hands and ask where we were to get the money to build council houses, because the Government did not have it. We do have the money. We have €6 billion. If we spent this money, or a significant portion of it, it would be money well spent, no matter what way we look at it. Spending it would have multiple benefits. First, it would benefit the 100,000 families on council housing waiting lists, some of whom have been waiting for ten to fifteen years for a council house. These people would benefit enormously by finally getting a secure roof over their heads and security for their children, with all the enormous benefits for the cohesion of society and the creation of a stable environment for children who lack that currently and are pushed from pillar to post in a private rental sector which is out of control and where rents are unaffordable for huge numbers of people.

The other enormous benefit would be in terms of the revenue or finances of the State. Why do private developers get involved in housing and why was housing at the centre of the boom, not just in this country but internationally? Simply, the reason private investors are interested in this area is that they know everybody needs a house. People will always require a roof over their heads. Therefore, from the point of view of investors, housing was a sure-fire way of making money. Developers were not interested in housing people, but they knew people needed to be housed and knew they could make money. Of course, that profit-first approach to housing, regardless of the impact on the economy or housing provision based on need, had disastrous consequences for this economy and the global economy.

The value for the State in taking this on would be that it could regulate a housing market that has gone out of control. That chaos in the housing market, driven by its almost complete privatisation, was what led to the collapse of our economy and the global recession. This issue was at the heart of the international crisis. This occurred because people interested in housing purely for profit completely dominated the market. If, instead, a significant proportion of housing is provided by the State on a not-for-profit basis, we can regulate the market and stop prices and rents getting out of control. Not only this; the State would save significantly in regard to all the money we are currently pouring into the pockets of private landlords. Between leasing schemes, rent allowance and so on, this probably amounts to €750 million. This is money out the door, lost for ever and of no benefit to the State. The State spends all that money but gets nothing in return. It has no assets at the end of the process. If the State built houses, it would get a return on that revenue. The private sector understands it can get such revenue, but why can the State not see that building council houses would be a secure source of revenue for it? It would save on rent allowance payments and have a regular stream of money coming into its coffers.

The Minister of State has said that in so far as the State is considering using the fund in this way - I am glad it is considering this - this housing must be co-funded with the private sector. Why is this necessary? The private sector already has enough of the housing market without letting it into this area, which the Government seems to acknowledge we must return to. Why, however, must this return be dependent on the private market? Presumably, the Minister of State will have several answers to this question.

I assume one of them involves a reference to EU state aid rules. If that is the case and the rules require that we cannot provide housing for our citizens unless some gombeen in the private sector can make money out of it, that is a terrible indictment of us for signing up to them in the first instance. What sort of rules are these? Let us consider to where they led in the context of the public private partnerships, PPPs, that were the flagship projects in housing provision in Dublin. I refer to the regeneration projects at O'Devaney Gardens, Dominick Street and St. Michael's Estate. What happened at these locations was an absolute bloody disaster and it has had devastating consequences for communities that invested a great deal in trying to make the projects work. However, I think they were always sceptical about the PPPs involving Mr. McNamara. A great deal of energy, resources and work were invested over many years in trying to achieve some balance in respect of these PPPs in order to ensure people would be provided with proper housing, but what happened? All of the resources allocated were absolutely wasted, although many consultants made a hell of a lot of money out of the entire process.

The process in question has been ongoing for ten or 15 years and the most recent indications are that we are going to return to the PPP model. What Mr. McNamara and the other guys involved in the PPPs to which I refer wanted was to grab some of the land attached to O'Devaney Gardens. As part of their agreement to co-invest in the regeneration project, they insisted on being allowed to grab approximately one third of the land involved when the flats were knocked down in order that they could make a pile of money. If the project had proceeded, the community at O'Devaney Gardens would have lost some of the space available for the building of council houses as a result of the condition in question. However, nothing happened and no houses were delivered. Would it not have been more sensible to do it the old-fashioned way and just build the houses ourselves?

It goes on and on. There are similar examples of the same carry-on in Dún Laoghaire, including at a little Ballymun flats-style complex in a place called Mounttown. It took approximately 15 years from the time the flats were condemned as being uninhabitable for a new estate to be built due to the fact that the project was completely dependent on private developers, three of whom went bust. It was an unbelievable shambles.

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