Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is up to 75%, as well as money upfront for Part Vs and a range of other rewards. The Minister never listens to anything we have to say, but will he listen to the CEO of NAMA? He said it is not that housing is unprofitable for private developers, it is just not profitable enough. Apparently a profit of €20,000 is not enough for them, so the Minister is now proposing to reward them for hoarding and the strike of capital that they have been engaged in. This time the Minister will give over local authority land.

I will start with the poverty of ambition in this plan. We hear that this is the biggest investment in yonks. Deputy Alan Kelly used to tell us the same when he was the Minister.

This would not even bring us to the level of building that obtained in 2007 but, as we know, there is now a waiting list that is a multiple of that number. In 2007 and 2008 we were building approximately 5,000 local authority or housing association houses and acquisitions and houses provided under Part V stood at approximately 9,000. This information is available from the bar charts contained in the report, which the Minister can check if he so wishes. The plan now is to provide 9,000 social houses per annum, which is an incredible paucity of ambition at a time when leprechaun economics indicate we have massive growth rates in this country.

There is also a poverty of ambition in the context of the 200,000 vacant houses. From my reading of the plan, 1,600 such houses are to be acquired. Perhaps the Minister would clarify if that is the case? Local authorities are to be ordered by the Minister to hand over land to private developers for development, in respect of which trickle-down housing of the order of 25% to 30% is indicated. Why are we doing this? According to the Minister for Finance, there is no shortage of money. There is €5.4 billion available under the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, which could be used for the provision of public housing but we are barred under EU fiscal rules from doing so. Has the Minister asked the EU for a derogation because of our housing emergency? Has he had any communication with Brussels on this matter? According to the report, the Department has, while the housing crisis has been raging, spent two years trying to find a workable off-balance-sheet model to get around this quandary. We have the land and the labour in the form of our many unemployed construction workers and we also have the money but we are not allowed to provide housing on a public basis. The solution must involve the private sector and it must be self-financing. It is capitalism. It is the neoliberal impediment that is preventing us from resolving our housing crisis.

I would like now to speak about the ISIF, which has moneys to the tune of €5.4 billion, and NAMA's €2.4 billion in cash reserves. The total resources of €8 billion of these two entities could be spent on social and affordable housing provision but the State cannot use that money to build housing. That is the problem. Let us simplify matters. The Minister announced approximately ten different schemes today but our inability to use the funds to which I refer is the problem, which is outrageous. The Minister also announced a new type of housing estate today. The term "mixed tenure" has been used, which is something similar to motherhood and apple pie. Everyone is in favour of diversity.

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