Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the proposal today to establish a housing and homelessness committee in the Oireachtas and the fact that it will start its work very quickly. However, I wonder about its value and what the outcome will be. While we are in this caretaker situation it seems to me the Dáil has abdicated its responsibility or role to direct the caretaker Government to actually do things. We can establish a committee and by 17 June there might still be a caretaker Government and we will not be able to do anything to direct the Government to take action on foot of the committee's report. The salient rulings of the Chair, often quoted in this House, state that in a caretaker Government the Dáil cannot take any action actually to direct the Government to do anything. At the same time, while we are in this situation and the Dáil has removed itself from the possibility of doing stuff, the Government continues to govern. Since the general election the Government has signed into law 55 statutory instruments and taken all sorts of different actions right across the role of the State. The caretaker Government is continuing to govern but the Legislature has not taken any role for itself in terms of making things happen. While the work of the committee will be very positive and very interesting and will probably come forward with very positive proposals, we are again just putting things on the long finger.

Everybody would agree that there are actions that can be taken straight away. We could take action to control rents and increase rent supplement and housing assistance payments. The Government refused to do that and would not intervene in the sacred market, or distort that market, but we should take immediate actions to end the continuing creation of homelessness in our society while we look at long-term solutions to the problem. We should also take action to end the requirement for vacant possession when a house goes on the market. This Government has signed 55 statutory instruments - surely it could bring forward a proposal to remove the section of the Residential Tenancies Act that requires vacant possession. It would be received unanimously in this House and I do not believe anybody would speak against it. Those are actions that could actually happen but that is what is lacking in this housing crisis. At best, the previous Government and the Government before which created this crisis have, by their inaction, made it worse. At worst they have done so by a deliberate policy. That is the crux of the housing and homelessness problem.

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We could also take measures such as introducing a development site tax and taxing development sites that are not being developed. We could also get building going again. The Minister quoted figures for what has been allocated to county councils and said they are not spending all that money but the fact is that during the past five or six years the capacity of the local authorities to deliver housing in the timeframe has been removed. Local authorities have not been able to purchase land banks during the past five or six years. They have not been able to go through with the planning and design process and so on. The lead-in for getting local authority building going is too long. It is easy for the Government to say we will give Donegal County Council or another county council €100 million this year because it knows full well that it has not the capacity to be able to spend that, so that money comes straight back to the Exchequer. The Government can then throw its hands up and say, "we gave you the money but you sent it back to us". That level of inaction has existed for the entire period.

Six months ago, along with Deputy Joan Collins, I raised in the Dáil the Irish League of Credit Unions proposals to fund housing development in the State but six months later we find the Department has not even engaged with it on that. If it were somebody like Donald Trump flying into Shannon, a Minister would meet them on the steps of the plane, clap them on the back and say, fair play to you, thanks very much. If they were a hedge fund coming here from America or somewhere in Europe the Government would be there with the red carpet rolled out for them, but because it is Irish citizens' money on deposit in banks here, doing nothing on behalf of Irish citizens, the Government refuses to engage with them, develop that process and allow something positive to happen within the housing sector. That is wrong and, unfortunately, this committee and this Dáil will allow that inaction to continue for the foreseeable future.

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