Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Market failure has been part of the housing story in Ireland not only in recent years but for many decades. The response to it has usually been large-scale building of local authority houses. It happened in the 1930s, it happened in the 1950s and it happened in the 1970s, although the quality of the housing stock in the 1970s in some cases was very questionable and the approach of delivering social housing in large enclaves was not one that we should repeat. We need to design sustainable communities from a financial, environmental and social point of view.

The Social Democrats produced a housing document, Unlocking Affordable Housing, during the election campaign. Our suggestions include having one Minister with responsibility for housing rather than a number of different Ministers. However, it needs to go beyond that. There is a great deal of fragmentation and a lack of co-ordination. We have a Housing Agency which gathers some of the statistics and a Housing Finance Agency which can find finance, but we really need to have a third tier - that is, where there is intervention by the State in co-ordinating delivery across the entire sector, whether it is through approved housing bodies, local authorities or private builders. Something we require - it is astonishing that we do not have this already - is a register of what land the State owns, because there is no such register of land across the various sectors. That is absolutely needed because it provides the opportunity to co-ordinate delivery.

I would agree with what Deputy Wallace said about not repeating the mistakes of the past by merely adopting a local authority response in one location. It has to be a socially sustainable response. There has to be mixed tenure. There must be a range of different housing types that deal with the entire life cycle so that people can rent or buy, or scale up or scale down as the size of their household changes. It is not a case of one size fits all, but we need to have a co-ordinated approach so that we can deliver in large conurbations. We need to build to scale in order to drive down the costs. We also need to introduce certainty into the system so that we have a sustainable response right through into the future, not just to get us out of this particular problem.

We need to build at cost, and that is about building on a much larger scale. We need not only to reduce the cost of rent but to reduce the cost of building social houses, and we need to reduce the cost of building houses both for sale and for rent in the private rented sector, but there needs to be State intervention. We also need to consider short-term responses that will get us to a stage at which supply starts to improve, and we should stop the nonsense of thinking that the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, are some sort of sustainable response. Some of what has happened with regard to the HAP, which I have always called "hapless," makes matters far worse. In fact, there are tenants who have to move out of their houses because they will not be given uplift in rent allowance due to the two-year rule but, essentially, they will get an increase if they rent a different property. That is pure bonkers in a situation in which it is not possible to find alternative accommodation.

Some of the housing associations, such as Respond, have recently put together a range of responses. The Irish Council for Social Housing catalogued the different measures that the various political parties and Independents suggested during the election campaign. There is an avenue that we could meaningfully explore over the next number of weeks whereby all parties and those who are non-aligned could come together to consider what kind of solutions could at least be examined, even in the context of putting a broad strategic framework in place.

According to the Housing Agency, we have twice the vacancy rate that would be normal in Europe. We have an 8% vacancy rate, and we need to understand why that is the case.

Some of it could be due to impediments in the fair deal scheme. Over-the-shop accommodation that is under used could be brought back into play by way of fiscal initiatives, even if they are short-term. For example, term-limited tax credits for landlords who retain tenants with rent increases limited to the cost of living increases might be considered as a tool for driving rents down.

The Tyrellstown situation could be replicated elsewhere, unfortunately. I agree with some of the points made, such as that NAMA accelerated this. Government policy has dictated that NAMA off-load properties more quickly than originally intended and more or less invited the situation down on the residents of the homes. They have received legal advice at senior counsel level that the State could exercise a compulsory purchase order, CPO. The Government should explore this possibility in such scenarios so the State can intervene appropriately. Respond has examined this and has received advice that it is a workable option.

Some years ago, some of the tier 3 housing associations identified that a lot of money was available from the European Investment Bank that could have been invested. Some of us brought the idea to the floor of the House three or four years ago, when there was no shortage of funds. Approximately €500 million was available. All it required was that the State be co-guarantor in the context of delivering these houses. Had it been taken up at the time, houses would be ready for delivery by now. It was a viable solution that was not taken up.

Due to the borrowing restrictions that were imposed on us following the European fiscal compact, much of what must happen must be off balance sheet. Given that it was supposed to be the lender of last resort, it has become an impediment to delivering something that is critical in anybody's life, namely, a secure place to live. We must take the housing first approach to homelessness. The Simon Community has advocated it and there is no other viable solution for delivering a response to homelessness in a particular category.

Children in primary schools have written proclamations outlining solutions for the future and the kind of country they want in the future. In almost every one of the proclamations I have seen, housing and homelessness has been highlighted as one of the issues which children see as a major issue. If children, who would not have the kind of expertise available to them that the Minister has had over recent years, can see this, it is amazing how the Government has not recognised the crisis. Somebody said here earlier that the crisis did not happen by accident, and I agree. Deliberate political policy got us into this mess and we must put our heads together. I have put some solutions on the table that could be considered as a response to it.

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