Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Five years ago, Fine Gael and the Labour Party came into Government with a massive majority. They promised a softer and easier way to continue to close the gap between Government revenue and expenditure. Decent people voted for them. Even some decent Fianna Fáil people chose to lend their votes to them. Five years on, 800 families are homeless and 1,600 children live in emergency accommodation. Since last January, an average of 80 families have been entering homelessness each month. There are 130,000 applicants on the waiting list. Some 350,000 people need a house they can call their home. This represents an increase of an amazing 45% since 2013. Young couples have been shut out of the housing market as the banks, aided by a Government-backed bank veto, have ramped up repossessions. That is what we have from five years of Fine Gael-Labour Party Government. It is not what decent people expected or bargained for when they chose to lend their votes to that combination, but unfortunately it is what they got.

Regardless of the criticism that is labelled at this Government, and this applies in other areas as well as in housing, it holds itself unaccountable for its five years in office. It is seeking to blame Fianna Fáil in a rerun of the 2011 general election. I wish to state clearly and unequivocally that the decisions taken by this Government had nothing to do with Fianna Fáil and everything to do with the Labour Party's incompetence and Fine Gael's hidden ideological agenda. It was this Government's choice to build 300 social housing units per year, which contrasts with the 3,600 units that were built each year by the previous Government. It was this Government's choice to halve the developers' social housing obligation. It was this Government's choice to bring in a host of extra building costs and thereby hold back house construction. It was this Government's choice to step back and let the banks run the show. It was this Government's choice to allow the banks a veto over people in mortgage distress. This Government can take full ownership of this crisis. People can consider that fact when they go to the polls.

Today we heard the Government's eighth big announcement regarding its social housing strategy, which started two years ago when it said €3 billion would be set aside to provide 110,000 units by 2021. Since then, ten local authorities have failed to build a single house. The Government has failed miserably and abysmally to meet its own targets, even against a backdrop of the recovery and a 6% economic growth rate. We are told we need to keep the recovery going, but I suggest we need to spread the recovery around the country to meet the needs of all the people. Fine Gael wants to please just 30% of the electorate. The Labour Party has been given a pat on the head and been told to paddle its own canoe, which would be grand if it could do so. The Government has failed to take the simplest measures sought by my party and by those who are at the coalface, including Deputies from all sides of the House, councillors from throughout the country and stakeholders such as the Simon Community, Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust. They have sought an increase in rent supplement and a stay in mortgage repossessions. The failure to introduce such measures shows how completely headless and adrift the Government has been. There should be no mistake about the fact that its inaction has forced and is forcing people out of their own homes and into homelessness every day.

This crisis, unlike the recovery, is countrywide. The dysfunction in the private rental market is a direct result of the Government's inaction and its incompetence in making decisions. Its members are commentators rather than decision-makers. While they commented, fumbled and fooled around in advance of the production of their rent certainty measures, we saw the largest increase in rents in more than ten years. The Simon Community has told us today that 95% of people in rental accommodation cannot afford the very accommodation in which they find themselves. How will the Government, having refused to heed our warnings, respond to the facts that have been laid on the table today by the Simon Community? Even though the Government has assigned to two Ministers and two Ministers of State to this area, its response to the housing crisis which it has been engulfed by over the past five years has been incompetent, unco-ordinated and lacklustre. A new yardstick for its incompetence emerged in recent months when we learned that it is spending €191,000 per unit on the 500 temporary modular homes that are being developed. This amounts to €95.5 million. While this has been going on, the Government has allowed NAMA to sell completed permanent homes to vulture funds for €100,000 a unit. This means €50 million is being wasted while the Government fails in its attempt to provide permanent homes through its expenditure. Would this happen in a fair society? Would it form part of a fair recovery, or a recovery for all? Does the Government expect decent people to vote to keep that kind of madness going on? I should hope not.

When the Taoiseach addressed the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, and by extension the nation, last Saturday night, he did not think it worthwhile to mention housing. As I said earlier, those who are in dire need are not in his or his party's equation for re-election. They are not in the 30% target audience he believes will get him across the line. The Government, in its dying days, is trying to throw a few dice by making announcements around the country. I was contacted this evening by my local newspaper and informed that some €3 million has been set aside for 18 homes in Tullamore. I am sure those homes formed part of the initial package that was announced by the Government two years ago when it said it would provide a total of 300 new units - newly built or otherwise - to meet the demand that exists in County Offaly and in many other counties throughout the country. Again, the Government is reannouncing what was announced two years ago to much fanfare. While I welcome any developments that may take place, I emphasise that this proposal will do little for the 2,024 people who are on the housing list in the county today. It will do as little for them as the construction of eight units over the past five years did for them.

Housing was mentioned by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, in the budget. He said he was directing NAMA to build 20,000 units, but with no provision for social housing. He said "the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government will deal very effectively with the question of social housing". How effectively have they dealt with the announcement that was made in the budget? They have dealt with it so effectively that they have used legislation to direct NAMA to ensure 2,000 of the units mentioned by the Minister for Finance on budget day, or just 10% of the total, will be social housing units.

We call on all those here to support what we say - it should be a 50-50 split. There should be 10,000 social housing units. When that question was put to the Taoiseach last week, he asked where the €2 billion would come from to provide it. When he was asked on Sunday on "The Week in Politics", he asked where the €3 billion would come from to provide it. His maths increased the figure by €1 billion in those few days. He failed to acknowledge that those costs can be recouped, that the expenditure that will be incurred has a value and that there was always provision within the NAMA legislation for a social dividend to be made available to the State. We are reliably informed that up to €2 billion of a surplus will be available to the State when NAMA ceases to be. Apart from that fact about the funding, the costs can be recouped in rent and by virtue of tenant purchase schemes in the future. The cost could be recouped by opening the market for funding to bodies such as credit unions which have €2 billion - not through their own choice - on deposit in the pillar banks. Does the Minister agree that it would be better used to assist and revitalise communities and spread the recovery, which it would undoubtedly do by funding such developments? It would also ensure the potential for those same credit unions to survive into the future considering the Government rebuked them and their members' efforts in what they sought before Christmas. The Minister signed some of the recommendations which will have great detrimental prospects for credit unions around the country. That is something that the public and the communities in which they reside will have to be reminded of when they make a decision as to who they think should take hold of and spread the recovery.

The Taoiseach tried to rubbish our proposal in the two answers he gave when confronted with these questions. I do not believe he understands the potential that exists within NAMA to make a dent into the severe crisis. He and his Government have failed abysmally and miserably over the last five years on the provision of housing. He has tried to lay the blame on the preceding Government despite the fact he has been in Government for five years. The damning housing figures are rising and have been rising constantly since he came into office. That has been laid before the House on several occasions. During the last five years, this issue has featured most prominently in Private Members' debates. Unfortunately, it is one of the main reasons why this Government will not meet with the approval it expects from the electorate because it has failed abysmally. It has left an awful curse on many aspects of society throughout the country, in particular on the huge waiting lists that exist in each local authority - no progress has been made on the matter.

I commend the motion to the House and ask all Members to consider seriously supporting it especially those on the opposite side of the House who will have to admit that this has been one of their greatest failures since coming into office.

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