Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Government has been nearly five years in office but the problems have not gone away. In fact, the housing crisis has got worse.

It is not all on the Taoiseach’s plate. The housing crisis is a result of decades of housing policy that followed the private, free-market version. There is nothing wrong with the private sector making money out of building houses. That is what it does. It is not a crime to make money or lose it. The private sector looks to make a profit on whatever it does. That is accepted.

I see the role of the State as being different, however. Its role is to provide an actual service. The State is not looking to make a profit but to provide homes to people who cannot afford to buy them. For several different reasons, from land-banking to the whole thrust of housing construction, there are significant problems with affordability and homelessness. The Taoiseach can throw all he likes at the housing crisis but he will not solve it until he accepts the fact that we need to build social housing through the local authorities again.

The Government is not actually doing that. Most of the social housing it is planning to provide over the next five years will be through the private sector, not through the State. Why are the local authorities not allowed to borrow money from the European Central Bank at the cheap rates to build social housing like the approved housing bodies? I do not understand the logic of this. Will the Taoiseach explain it to me?

NAMA building 20,000 houses was much trumpeted. Only 10% of this will be social. Why will the Taoiseach not make 50% of this social housing? It should be a mix of social and private, 50% of each, in the same buildings. We have a massive housing problem and the lack of social housing is at the root of the problem. Until the Government addresses that, it will not solve the problem.

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