Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I will add to some of the points made. Section 28 of the Principal Act deals with ministerial guidelines for building standards. Deputy Wallace has dealt with a number of those. One of the problems we have and the reason we oppose section 3 is that we do not think concentrating more power in the hands of the Minister is the right move to make. We discussed that on Second Stage. The belief is that part of the Bill has its origin in the moves by Dublin City Council to have a higher standard than the minimum. It has been under pressure for many years to change that situation. My view is that the council was quite good in the stance it took. Not only are we providing for increased ministerial input but there is no provision for democratic oversight.

In amendment No. 1b we insert a provision that would subject any guidelines drawn up by the Minister to a vote of the Houses of the Oireachtas. That is reasonable if the views of Members are to be taken into account on a critical area of concern. In amendment No. 1a we set out minimum standards for apartments. Deputy Wallace dealt with some of them. They are not exhaustive but we see them as being basic, minimum standards for many different elements which should comprise a modern living space. It will be necessary to draw up more detailed guidelines and while we wish to leave it open to local authorities to set higher standards we think it is only right that the national guidelines should be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny. That is something that is very important and it is contained in amendment No. 1b in this group of amendments.

The Minister is on record as saying that even if the Bill is passed we will still, supposedly, have the most generous minimum apartment standards in Europe, but we cannot say that for certain because we have not seen the guidelines yet and we do not know what they are. The current national minimum guidelines might be generous compared to London, for example, but London is not a good benchmark given the problems families and others have trying to live in London. I would not set up London as an example. The reality is that our standards are miles behind other European cities. For example, the minimum guideline size for a two-bedroom family apartment in Germany is 88 sq. m. In the 2007 national guidelines, which it is unlikely the Minister will change all that much when he updates and publishes the new guidelines, the minimum size for a two-bedroom apartment is 73 sq. m, which is 15 sq. m less than the minimum in Germany. That amount of space is the size of a living room in a family home. That is the issue we are trying to address.

I agree with the points made by Deputy Wallace. We need a cultural shift in attitude to apartment living, but we are not going to get it if people are subjected to dog boxes in tiny spaces that are not suitable for family life. Current planning is based on low density housing in the suburbs which contributes to climate change because people are forced to transport their children to access amenities and that is not a good way forward. Apartment living can be good if it is done properly with the minimum standards we want to include such as decent, well insulated and sound-proofed large apartments with high ceilings that one does not bang one’s head off when one goes in, where one has enough storage space in medium density blocks with some outside space. That is the best way to raise a family but it is not the norm in this country.

It is the norm in Germany, Italy, Austria and elsewhere. It allows for a concentration of amenities such as playgrounds, shops, post offices and restaurants. Cycling and walking can be encouraged in that environment. That is the way forward rather than what we have now where people are condemned to low density, suburban living, with a long commute, adding to our climate change and emission standards.

The problem we have is that 40% of all of Ireland's residential housing stock was built between 1991 and 2010. That is the biggest proportion of new housing stock anywhere in Europe, with Spain coming second. Given that very little construction has happened since 2007 when the new national guidelines were brought in, the majority of existing units were built in that period of explosive growth when the standard size was 55 sq. m for two-bedroom apartments. I return to the point I made on Second Stage that we do not have full data on this area. We believe there is a sufficient stock of small units, of small two-bedroom apartments and small two-bedroom houses, and that we need to consider building larger apartments. That is what our amendments are geared towards because we believe that we have enough of the rest.

Ireland has the single greatest proportion of single family houses, relative to apartments, than anywhere in Europe. Some 90% of our residential stock is made up of houses but only 10% of it comprises apartments. By contrast, it is 40% in Germany and just under 35%. We have an under-provision of apartments with a knock-on effect in terms of poor transport policy, energy efficiency and a spatial strategy. What we are trying to do in these standards is to direct a new approach to a better type of living, which will provide a better quality of life and will be better in terms of meeting climate change obligations into which we must be linked.

Insulation in Ireland is laughably bad. It is frightening and, combined with the dearth of apartment living, it means that Ireland has the greatest CO₂emissions per useful floor area in its buildings by miles compared to the rest of Europe, including eastern Europe. Irish buildings emit more than 120 kg of CO per sq. m. By comparison, emissions in Italy are just over 40 kg of CO per sq. m while in Germany, emissions are around 65 kg per sq. m. The average in Europe are 54 kg per sq. m, which in light of the discussions that took place in Paris last week are incredibly important. To talk about more generous minimums, more storage space, bigger balconies and higher ceilings is not socialist utopia or anything like that, far from it. We would say that Germany, which has had quite a right-wing government since 2005, would be horrified by the quality and style of accommodation that Irish people are expected to live in and by the dreadful state of our public transport network. What we have is the legacy of a failure of successive Governments to stand up to the Construction Industry Federation and so on. Some 2,700 ha of land across all the Dublin local authorities are zoned resident. In the heart of the inner city, 60 ha are already zoned. That is about 96 football pitches worth of land that is already zoned but nothing has happened on it. We are trying to put better standards in place for such zoned land in order that we can have some quality, family-type living in the heart of the city centre.

I refer to the points Deputy Wallace made about real estate investment trusts, REITs and the role of NAMA in distorting the market. What is happening is frightening. It is not just the numbers of units that have been handed over to US vulture funds but the Irish Residential Properties REIT has become Ireland's largest landlord, acquiring 800 units from NAMA last year, and that group has decided to up the rents by 20%. The same group is on the verge of acquiring 442 units from NAMA in Tallaght for €83 million and 40 units in Terenure for €12 million. The annualised rents in these dwellings, which have 85% occupancy, are approximately €5 million, so this group is already making money. These units are being given over for a song and because of the scale and the size of these organisations, they are distorting the rental market, which is having an enormously negative impact on our citizens and leading to many of the problems all of us on all sides of House have to grapple with on a daily basis. That is why we are putting forward this group of amendments. We think it will put shape on development as we move forward, it will give some accountability to the Houses of the Oireachtas, rather than just Minister per seand it will still allow the local authorities a certain leeway to build beyond the minimum standards.

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