Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to hearing and reading the propositions of the various Members. Access to affordable, safe and secure housing has shaped Irish politics since before our State was founded. Few issues are as fundamental to the social and economic well-being of any nation as housing and the security it brings. There is nothing more mentally or financially destructive than the loss of one's home and no fear is so paralysing as the potential loss of the roof over one's head. It is for all these people that I and the previous Government worked to fix our broken economy and the housing sector.

Each Government has had its approach to development and housing policies but problems have persisted across the decades. When I became Taoiseach, the country had just suffered from the worst housing crash it had ever faced. In 2006, over 93,000 new houses were built. By 2012, the figure had fallen to a little over 8,000. The property bubble trapped over 315,000 people in negative equity, the level of mortgage arrears was climbing sharply and ghost estates littered the countryside. The collapse of the construction sector was swift and brutal. House prices collapsed and workers emigrated en masseto seek employment on sites in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Since 2014, the speed of the economic recovery and the growth of employment and of household formation has dramatically overtaken the capacity of a damaged and over-borrowed house-building sector to respond. It is easy for anyone to stand in the Dáil and list these well-known problems. However, what I would like is to discover how we plan a way forward together, build on recent initiatives to improve the supply of housing and ensure that all of those involved, including first-time buyers, renters, social housing tenants and families, can live their lives without the constant threat of housing insecurity hanging over them.

The previous Government's first major intervention came in May 2014 with the Construction 2020 strategy. The main features of the strategy were enacted in the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act, which introduced a vacant site levy - to which the Minister, Deputy Kelly, referred - on developers hoarding land in high-demand areas. It reduced development charges on new construction as well as other changes to improve the economic viability of new housing construction. In the budget announced in October 2014, the Government subsequently set aside almost €4 billion to build 35,000 new social homes and expand the use of the housing assistance payment and rental accommodation scheme to help 75,000 other households to meet their housing needs. These were all significant interventions but it is clear they are taking longer than expected to have an impact in the context of the availability of new housing.

All the heart-rending stories of homelessness, rising financial pressures on families and young people being locked out of home ownership by rising prices and minimum deposits stem primarily from one inescapable fact: not enough homes are being supplied to meet the rising demand from a growing workforce and population. Unless we address the barriers to housing supply, we are simply displacing one family in distress by another.

Our most recent intervention came in November last when the Government decided on a targeted development contribution rebate initiative in Dublin and Cork for housing delivered at certain price points. This will enhance the housing supply at prices that people can afford in these areas where the demand is most acute. In addition, a number of other measures to stimulate the provision of housing supply were adopted, such as changes to planning guidelines on apartment standards which set a consistent national approach. New measures to maximise the potential of strategic development zones were also introduced. Taken together these provisions are designed to speed up the delivery of housing supply. However, it is clear that the scale of the property collapse and the subsequent dysfunction of the residential housing sector is so great that more Government intervention is required to kick-start house building in a real way.

It is imperative that a new Government takes immediate action on housing. It is my ambition that after forming a stable Government, it would introduce a new housing initiative within four weeks. Similar to the jobs initiative that the previous Government introduced within 100 days of taking office to deal with the major jobs crisis, the new housing initiative would be designed to tackle this crisis. It is also my intention to appoint a new cabinet level Minister with responsibility for housing to take the lead on the development of the initiative. The nature of the crisis, however, requires a collective approach and I hope that the design of this new initiative will be informed by input from all Oireachtas Members and other personnel interested in working for solutions to this problem. I see today's debate as the first step in this process. Once approved by Government and the Oireachtas, it will form the start of a new annual action plan on housing. Similar to the current Action Plan for Jobs, responsibility for implementation across Government would be overseen directly by the Department of the Taoiseach.

There is no shortage of development land but many urban sites remain stranded by a lack of local infrastructure. One measure that should be considered for the new housing initiative is a new local authority residential infrastructure fund in order that local authorities can bid for extra capital funding to unlock residential sites in high-demand areas. The time has come for the State to invest in this necessary local infrastructure to facilitate the development of affordable family housing in such high-demand areas. Building on the already-legislated-for vacant site levy, which will apply from 2018, I believe we should look again at tax and regulatory measures to incentivise the speedy development of zoned land and land banks that could service high-demand areas.

There are many frightened people listening to this debate today. They are frightened about the next rent review and mortgage payment as well as their prospects of ever owning their own homes.

It is our duty as national legislators to propose and debate a constructive way forward, and to alleviate their fear and not to trade off it. That is what people watching us on their screens or listening to the debate will want to hear. Thanks to their hard work and determination the Irish economy is now improving. We need to ensure that is sustained and felt inside the home of every Irish family. This has to be the singular mission of the Thirty-second Dáil and the next Government, and the first item on that agenda should be a cross-party effort on housing. I look forward to the contributions from all of the Members.

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