Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for affording us the opportunity to discuss the report of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness and, perhaps more importantly, to debate in this House how we can all work towards addressing the many issues regarding homelessness. I will also use the opportunity to set out the Government's priorities and intentions for the forthcoming action plan on housing.

I want to place on the record of the House the fact that I welcome and commend the excellent work of the committee. Its evidence-based report represents a valuable and informative input into the work of my Department in putting together the action plan. The broad, open and inclusive approach adopted by the committee in its engagement with some 40 stakeholders gives the report real significance and credibility.

I recognise the role of the Chairman and the non-party political nature of most of the debate that took place at that committee, which was very constructive. That is not to say that I agree with everything in the report but it has become a reference document for our process of putting together a Government response to the overall issue and to our report, which the committee will see in a couple of weeks.

The programme for Government rightly puts the homelessness and housing challenge front and centre of the Government’s ambitions. That programme outlines a range of actions that need to be taken as a matter of priority. These will be drawn together in a systematic, multifaceted and, I certainly hope, well-resourced action plan for housing, which is at an advanced stage. We will, I hope, have an opportunity to publish it and Deputy Ó Bróin has asked for an opportunity to debate it as well before we break up for the summer recess. We are trying to work towards that deadline to allow that debate happen.

Once the economy collapsed, Ireland stopped building houses, private and social, for the best part of the past decade, apart from finishing out some schemes and once-off housing. This under-provision of housing, whether by low level of construction of new housing or existing housing not being used to its full potential, such as vacant properties, is one of the final legacies of the crash that has yet to be tackled. While many important actions have been taken in recent years to boost supply and address affordability, it is clear that such actions have not been sufficient in scale and ambition to resolve a crisis in this sector. This lack of housing supply in the right locations is the critical factor underpinning the crisis. Just over 12,600 housing units were completed last year, almost half of which were once-off houses across the countryside. As I said at our stakeholders engagement today, we are only building approximately one third of what we need to build. Much of that figure last year was finishing out estates and apartment complexes that were unfinished and half of those, 6,000, were once-off houses which is not really responding to housing need where it is most acute in our cities.

We need to build in the region of 25,000 housing units per annum to meet the need. We must ensure that these are in the right locations and of the right type to meet our evolving household formation and demographic patterns. Furthermore, many of the active sites in the Dublin area are delivering houses at prices which are simply not affordable for the majority of first-time buyers. We have discussed this before, there is not a house for sale for less than €300,000. That is simply out of reach for approximately 40% of people looking for mortgages, many of them first-time buyers. If ordinary people are spending more and more of their income on rents and mortgages that leaves less for the many other demands of life. This affects the real economy and people’s quality of life. It also puts many working families in a more precarious financial position and some of the more vulnerable at risk of homelessness. The housing situation affects every sector of Irish society and puts at risk hard-won gains in terms of employment, recovery of competitiveness and the attractiveness of Ireland as a place to work and live. Some people think that a total focus on public housing programmes will solve the problem. While I agree that we need to do much more on the social housing side quickly, I do not think anyone really believes that only social housing needs to be built. We must also focus on the other parts of the housing sector, including doing all we can to keep people in their homes in the first instance and ensuring that the rental and private housing construction markets function properly and deal with the backlog of a decade of under-supply so that people do not get squeezed into homelessness and onto social housing waiting lists.

Accelerating delivery of housing for the private, social and rented sectors is the key priority for Government. Ensuring sufficient, stable and sustained provision of housing that is affordable in the right locations, meets people’s different needs and has lasting quality is the challenge we are all trying to address. The solutions to this challenge are wide-ranging and require several immediate, medium and long-term actions to increase delivery and address underlying structural issues that up to now have been obstacles to creating a more stable and sustainable housing market. The response to current housing challenges must be of sufficient scale to address both the pent-up demand from years of under supply of new housing and the projected needs in the coming years.

In the next two years Ireland will, I hope, welcome approximately 4,000 refugees under the refugee resettlement programme. When their families come with them, as they will in many cases, that figure could be somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000. Next year, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, is predicting that we will have net immigration into Ireland because of economic growth and job creation of approximately 10,000 people, most of them Irish people coming home, which is great but those figures combined are more than all of the houses completed last year, alone. Unless we have a dramatic ramping up of supply in a combination of social, private, new build, vacant properties coming back into the system, increased rental market opportunities we will go backwards quickly in terms of the pressures many families face and will face. That is just the growth story for the next year or two. On top of that we have population growth, which the Members will get detail of as we work towards putting a new national planning framework together which we also hope to have done by the middle of next year. This is a big challenge. That is why the all-party committee’s report is so important.

It is important, however, to recognise that we are not starting from scratch. The measures contained in Construction 2020, a strategy for a renewed construction sector, and the Social Housing Strategy 2020, both of which were published in 2014, include key commitments, objectives and actions to address issues and constraints in the construction and development sectors and in the provision of a range of social housing outcomes, respectively. The packages of actions being delivered through these strategies are having a positive impact but not at the pace necessary to meet current pressures and pent-up demands. We need to be upfront about that. That is why there is a need for new initiatives in this area.

We need, therefore, a practical and readily implementable set of actions that will increase housing supply to create a functioning and sustainable housing system that can provide homes for families in emergency accommodation. It is totally unacceptable that some families have been in emergency accommodation, sometimes in hotels, sometimes in bed and breakfasts for more than six months. If there is one big objective, that is measurable and I expect the Opposition will hold me to account on it when we launch the Government’s response, it is to address that issue of relying on private hotel accommodation for emergency accommodation for families. We will deal with that. It will take a little time but I suspect I will get support from everyone in this House when we outline what I hope will be a very ambitious approach towards dealing with that issue.

We need to tackle the underlying causes, addiction and otherwise, of people living on our streets. Between 70% and 80% of rough sleepers in Dublin have addiction challenges. Many also have mental health challenges and other complex issues. My job is not simply to provide emergency accommodation for those people but a pathway from the streets to emergency accommodation, to a home that is stable where they can rebuild their lives, with the support of other elements of the State. That will rely on other Ministers and Departments to be part of that solution, in particular the Departments of Health and Children and Youth Affairs. We are trying to co-ordinate that in the comprehensive response the committee is seeking.

We plan to produce a minimum of 25,000 housing units every year by 2020 and more housing to meet the demand that has built up in recent years. How fast can we get there? We have a plan to get there as fast as possible. It will take a few years. Much will depend on how quickly the private sector can deliver its end of the bargain and how quickly local authorities and approved housing bodies can also build out social housing programmes and get the funding from me within the parameters we have for operating, which is challenging but we are trying to push the boat out as far as we can. Before and beyond 2020, in response to contemporary and changing household needs, we also need to plan for the long term.

We do not want to build a lot of houses now and then in ten years have regrets and ask why we did things so badly and rushed so much. We need to ensure we have the right design, are mixing communities and are creating diverse communities so we can try to deal with the stigma some people seem to have around social housing. While we are planning to build a lot of private and social housing, we need to create the appropriate mixes that will create vibrant and diverse communities.

We need to deliver more social housing much more quickly and put in place financially sustainable mechanisms to meet current and future requirements for social housing supports. Accelerating delivery to this level is essential if we are to address the unacceptable levels of households, in particular families, in emergency accommodation, moderate rental and purchase price inflation, in particular in urban areas, address the growing affordability gap for many households wishing to purchase homes, support the emergence of a rental sector which provides choice, mobility and quality accommodation in the right locations, position the housing sector such that its contribution to the national economy is steady and supportive of sustainable economic growth, unlike the mistakes of the past and ensure that measures intended to remedy the current supply difficulties also contribute to long-standing objectives in the housing sector, such as the need to support urban development and achieve sustainable communities.

The plan will balance delivery on these fronts with the necessary financial, fiscal and structural reforms. It will also include real and innovative examples of projects and programmes to deliver across the various objective areas.

Local authorities and NAMA are bringing forward concrete proposals to boost supply in the short term on land they control or influence for all types of housing, including social housing and the wider private market. For example, NAMA aims to deliver 20,000 residential units before the end of 2020, 90% of which will be in the greater Dublin area.

We know that to deliver more quickly, we need to examine State procedures and processes, be they planning, approval of social housing or otherwise, and we are going to do that. In terms of improving the viability of construction, it is important to recognise the reforms already in place, which are beginning to have a positive impact. These include reducing development contributions, the vacant site levy, on which the committee wants us to go further but we have to follow legal advice on what is possible, and modifications to Part 5. I am a little wary of that.

In terms of getting finance, developers need certainty but we need to go way beyond 10% where possible when putting together public private projects on the many publicly owned land banks we have. There needs to be more flexible apartment guidelines, something which has been introduced, and we need to examine affordability in that area. Financing under the ISIF activate capital fund seems to be expensive for many developers and we need to examine whether we can do more.

We have already reformed planning in terms of the use of strategic development zones which will start to come in to their own now that we have viability in the building sector. Unfortunately, many STZs were put in place just before the crash. Therefore, it appears that they have not worked, but they can perform an extraordinary role in delivering the kind of houses in the quantities we need over the next five years or so, in particular in the Dublin area. We are examining what further actions may be required and in particular have responded to calls for funding to address infrastructure blockages through the establishment of a €200 million fund to support enabling infrastructure to release land for housing developments.

Like the committee Chair, I have run out of time. I suspect we will have many conversations with the new housing committee, of which many Deputies are members. I hope the strategy the Government will launch in a few weeks will respond to many of the issues raised by the committee. It has been a very helpful process and one of the good things that the Oireachtas has done since the election.

While what the Government has to offer will not commit to deliver everything Deputies are asking for, I hope they find that many key things they have sought or something similar, in terms of the areas for which they seek solutions, will provide some of the answers that can allow other parties, in particular those in opposition, to support what the Government is trying to do. That would enable all of us to focus on ensuring the rapid delivery of housing across local authority areas and getting the private construction sector to build in a sustainable manner into the future.

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