Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad for the chance to make some comments in closing. Many issues were highlighted in last week's debate, when the senior Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, and I spoke on it. We received a very good report from the committee. The committee Chairman is anxious that all the recommendations in it are adhered to and used, if not in the first action plan, then in the roll-out and as we go along. The draft action plan was a very early version, and it has been enhanced and increased during recent weeks. The Deputies' documents were a major part of it. Hopefully, we will have more than two hours to debate and discuss it next week.

The action plan for housing process is similar to that of the Action Plan for Jobs. It does not end next week; it only begins next week. The Deputies have all had a role in feeding into it. All of us have a role and a duty to ensure we start taking action and implementing actions and rolling things out with much more urgency. It is an evolving strategy. The success of the Action Plan for Jobs is based on the fact that it is an evolving document into which stakeholders and Deputies of all parties and none can feed with more ideas and actions as we go along. The process is being used and complimented around Europe. We will respond to suggestions. Much as we have tried, we will not have everything in it next week, and we need to keep adding to it. We need to focus on the area for the next couple of months and years to get it right and end the crisis. It is fixable. We must end it, one way or another.

This has been a very valuable debate about the insightful and far-reaching analysis and research that was undertaken in shaping the report of the special Committee on Homelessness and Housing. The committee used other reports and that expertise fed into it. The Government appreciates the time and effort that Deputies have put into the report and into their statements during these two days of discussion. I understand it is an important topic for most people, and it is important that people take the time to give us their ideas and concerns. Members attended stakeholder events in Cork and Dublin. They were worthwhile events, and they took time and commitment, which we acknowledge, given that Deputies have other issues on which they have to work.

From listening to the contributions from all sides, there is a shared view of the urgency and the need for swift and multi-stranded actions to tackle the housing and homelessness situation, although we might not all agree on the specific means of addressing them. This is why the action plan for housing, all going well, will be published next Tuesday, as the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, said in the Seanad. It has yet to be finalised and go through Cabinet. We want to reflect the mood from the Deputies that it is urgent and must be dealt with.

As the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, pointed out last Thursday, the Government is not at all shying away from the challenges the housing crisis brings, but is readying a comprehensive action plan for housing to be published next week, before the Dáil rises. This is well inside the ambitious 100-day target that was set down in the programme for Government. We will be delivering the plan within the first 80 days, a strong sign of our commitment to it, given the breadth and scale of actions proposed across the full range of housing sectors.

This commitment reinforces the priority that the Government has given to addressing the homeless and housing challenge, and that this House has given because this is what people have demanded. We all are working here together on this issue and everyone demands that it be tackled as quickly as we possibly can.

While many important actions, including fundamental reforms in planning and housing policy, have been taken over the last few years to boost supply and address affordability, it is clear that such actions have not been at the level and indeed scale of ambition to resolve the challenges we currently face. That goes without saying. Efforts have been made and measures have been tried but they have not solved the problem and we still have emergency situations that we have to deal with as well.

As the Minister, Deputy Coveney, indicated last week, Construction 2020 - A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Sector and the Social Housing Strategy 2020, both published in 2014, include specific commitments, aims and actions to address constraints in the construction and development sectors and in the provision of a range of social housing outcomes. They are having a positive effect, but not quickly enough to address our urgent shortfall in supply.

We all know where we need to be in terms of significantly increasing housing output across all tenures — social, rented, private housing, student accommodation, accommodation for older people, accommodation for people with disabilities, and including urban regeneration and bringing vacant houses back into use - to meet current demand and also the pent-up demand from years of under-supply since the economic collapse. Deputy Casey and I discussed that this morning. I am not sure who won the debate on it but I think he would agree that more is being spent there because there is nothing worse than having vacant units or voids, call them what you like, when people are in emergency accommodation. It is just not on. A lot has been achieved there, bringing 5,000 units back in to play. Hopefully, this year we will see 1,300 more coming through that system as well. That should end those long-term voids, apart from the ones that are there for permanent reconstruction. It is not acceptable and Deputy Casey was correct in saying so this morning. I totally agree with him. We must acknowledge that the matter has been dealt with and put to bed this year. The funding is set aside. We will still have temporary vacancies and we must set a limit for what we believe is acceptable. In a commercial market, probably four or five weeks would be acceptable. If someone is in local authority housing, it will take six, seven or eight weeks. We need to agree on what is acceptable and ensure the funding is there. If everything is managed properly, there should be enough money coming through the rent system on a local basis to constantly turn those houses around and put them out there as well. I refer to the newly vacant ones rather the long-term voids that need €30,000 to €50,000 spent on them. I accept the need for the latter and that is why the limit has been raised to €50,000, as was called for.

It is easy to say that we need to deliver, but there is a major challenge for the entire system to be able to respond quickly by accelerating delivery of housing for the three key sectors. At the end of the day, our focus has to be on ensuring a sufficient, stable and sustained provision of housing that is affordable, is in the right locations, meets people's different needs and is of lasting quality.

On getting the correct percentages, I note the issues Deputy Boyd Barrett raised as well and I will come back to him formally through the Department. I am aware the Deputy is conscious of having the correct percentages of social housing and private housing. I note some members of the committee argued that we should not have Part V and the percentages. I disagree with that. It is important we get a mix. It should be a minimum of 10%. I note some members were unhappy that the 20% changed, but it was not delivering. The idea of reducing it to 10% is to make it practical and workable. It is also now houses rather than cash payments or land to get that mix of housing correct. I have no problem with agreeing that, ideally, it would be higher than 10%. The 10% is a minimum and that is what we have to achieve.

At the end of the day, it has to be also about delivering houses across the sectors but also that we get the quality of houses. All of us have seen from experience the poor quality of house that was built in the boom years in some areas. People were let down by a system that allowed that to happen. I believe that the regulations have been put in place that will prevent that. That is part of my area of the Department. It is certainly something we monitor quite well because we cannot have people buying houses that are below regulation level or below quality standard. We have achieved a lot in that area as well. I am conscious that also adds to the cost of building a house, but that cost will be recouped over a couple of years through other savings people will have as well.

With preliminary Census 2016 data being released today, it is clear that we continue to have one of the highest population growth rates across Europe and can expect to see further immigration as the economy recovers. This will further increase demand for housing above current levels and also shift the market requirements from the traditional family-size home to a wider range of types and sizes of homes, particularly in the city centres.

The Government’s action plan will set out a practical and readily implementable set of actions to increase housing supply to create a functioning and sustainable housing system, with a particular focus on providing homes for families in emergency accommodation, tackling the underlying causes of people living on our streets as well as providing options and supports to find them appropriate housing, and delivering more social housing much faster and putting in place financially sustainable mechanisms to meet current and future requirements for social housing supports.

At the end of the day, it is about providing enough houses to meet the spectrum of needs. Most analysts agree that we need to be delivering at least 25,000 houses a year, almost twice our current rate. Last year, there were over 12,000 delivered but half of them were one-off houses outside of housing developments. Currently, in Dublin, there are only 4,500 houses being developed. We are way off where we need to be. The idea of the action plan for housing is to focus on homelessness and social housing, but also on how we get the market delivering more houses so we can avail of them in different ways. We also must get the supply of housing back up. Some 25,000 is probably what we want to get as a sustainable construction sector but we probably need even to be ahead of that if we are to catch up on the under supply over the past couple of years.

At the end of the day, the housing action plan will be to deliver actions to fast-track the supply of housing, now and in the year or two years ahead, but also to bring us to a stop where we have a sustainable construction sector that people can have confidence in. The construction sector that became as much as 28% of GDP a number of years ago was not sustainable but one below 6%, 7% or 8% is not sustainable either. It needs to be in between, at 13% or 14%, which is approximately 25,000 houses. That is what we want to reach in a sustainable way, that we could all believe in and buy in to. It would give us the proportion of houses across the system, such as social, private, affordable and rental. We must keep that in mind as well.

This increased and accelerated supply should help to restore some balance to the market in terms of moderating the rental and purchase price inflation, particularly in urban areas, and addressing the growing affordability gap for many households wishing to purchase their own homes. We know that, to deliver housing more quickly across all tenures, we need to look at the State's procedures and processes - be they planning, approval of social housing or otherwise - and we are doing that in the action plan. In terms of improving the viability of construction, it is important to recognise the reforms already in place are beginning to have a positive impact.

I am getting a look from the Acting Chairman. Does that mean I am running out of time or do I keep going?

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