Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It will not work because building 100% social housing in a development is not a sustainable solution. It circumvents planning rules and will result in residents opposing all housing developments on the basis that a local authority could potentially buy out all the units in a development. A good social mix is needed and the Department must adhere to the guidelines it has set down.

The priority for the new committee should be to ensure we have new delivery structures, as well as new policy. I hope a new Minister for housing and a Department of housing and planning will be in place by the time the committee reports because the establishment of such a Department is long overdue. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has a terrible record on housing, having failed to deliver both in the good times and bad.

I believe the committee should support the idea of a housing delivery agency, a new body with a more hands-on approach to the delivery of housing and one which can do so much more to improve housing supply. Such an agency could co-ordinate between public and private housing providers. It could identify possibilities for public land banking and could identify and tackle land hoarding and speculation. It could help achieve scale and reduce costs for developers. Such a body could help reduce planning risks and, therefore, financial risks. It could also help develop master plans for sites so that everybody would know what and where something could be built and have a say in how that is decided. One of the problems over the years has been that there has been no single agency responsible for matching supply with demand over the medium to long term. That is the reason we had a glut of housing a number of years ago and now just a few short years later, there is a dire shortage of housing. There has been no long-term planning when it comes to housing provision, whether public or private.

Another important issue the committee should consider is the issue of freeing up vacant accommodation. One only has to drive around Dublin, Cork or any city to see the vast amount of vacant accommodation that exists throughout those cities. Over many shops and businesses, there are three or four storeys of accommodation lying idle. Urgent action needs to be taken to bring that accommodation into immediate use. This must be achieved through a carrot and stick approach. There is a strong case for a fiscal instrument to be used to free up that accommodation and for making it worthwhile for the owners of that accommodation to refurbish it for housing use immediately. I am not talking about something that could be done in three, four or five years. This needs to be done now.

Another issue is the number of houses that are lying vacant. In Dublin currently, the vacancy rate in housing is approximately 8%, while the standard in any city is 4%. If we could bring on stream that additional 4%, that would free up approximately 20,000 houses for use. All of us who canvassed over recent months noticed the huge number of empty houses around currently. A number of measures should be taken to deal with this, such as bringing forward the vacant site levy and reform of the fair deal scheme to make it easier to free up vacant homes.

Land hoarding and speculation are major areas that need to be examined. The Minister talks about this from time to time and suggests the Constitution is holding us back on that. It is important to look at what the Constitution says in this regard. Article 43.1 protects private property. However, Article 43.2.10 states: "The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice." If ever the principles of social justice needed to be invoked, they need to be invoked in regard to the crisis in social housing. Article 43.2.20 states: "The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good." There is a huge common good to be served by using the provisions that exist currently for compulsory purchase and to update the law as suggested by Edmund Honohan. Dealing with this would also provide security to people who are currently living in homes that have been bought out by vulture funds, rather than allowing those vulture funds to come in and buy up properties at a fraction of their value and then flip them in a short period and make huge profits. There is nothing to stop the State from compulsorily purchasing these properties from the vulture funds.

It is vital also that we put a stop to repossessions as a result of the appointment of bank receivers. We should not allow bank receivers to acquire and repossess properties given what the people have done to rescue the banks. Banks should appoint rent receivers rather than receivers to repossess houses. Any rented homes and properties owned by banks should be retained and people should not be turfed out of them to add to the existing housing problem.

A lot can be done within the law currently and we do not necessarily need a constitutional amendment. Mr. Honohan has set out a way forward to tackle this problem and it can be done. What is needed is the political will to do it.

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