Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The issues of housing, rent and rents supports have dominated the Dáil since the election and since before this Government was formed. This is evident by the creation of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness, chaired by my colleague, Deputy Curran.

The seriousness of the issue is something we are all united in acknowledging. I have commented on this on numerous occasions in the Chamber. I note Deputy Ó Broin also raised this matter previously. We need to try to address this in a unified manner rather than score points off each other. We need to tackle the issues at hand. Meath, where I live, is a commuter county. I can see the impact of the housing crisis there and how it affects people in key developing centres such as Navan, Trim, Enfield, Ratoath and Ashbourne. The lack of availability of rental property and property for sale has created a major problem for those trying to get on the property ladder or those simply seeking to rent apartments or houses.

Like Deputy Ó Snodaigh, I talk to the people who come to my constituency office every week. I imagine Deputies from all parties have experienced this; it is not a scenario unique to one party. People facing these issues come to all our constituency offices. Why is that? It is because of key issues, such as supply. The latter is one of the major issues and it is something up to which we must face in this debate. Unfortunately, those in Sinn Féin have shied away from that fact. Like those in AAA-PBP and everyone else in the alphabet parties, they have no concept of the issues involved in the provision of homes, nor do they want to know about it.

I have listened to Deputy Boyd Barrett on numerous occasions. He comes to the Chamber and repeats the mantra that the State, and no one else, should supply housing. There is no mention of the provision of homes by anyone else in the marketplace. I fully believe that the State should build homes. As someone who was a local councillor for 17 years, I am of the view that the way in which local councils were removed from this process was reprehensible. In any event, there is now a major challenge for the State in the context of re-engaging. However, the State alone will not solve the crisis and we need to work on the issues facing builders that can provide homes for the people who have money and who wish to purchase them. Indeed, we must address the realities facing landlords. We must work to keep people in the rental market rather than driving them out of it and having them selling their properties and making the rental situation all the worse. We have concrete proposals relating to local property tax as an expense, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and empty property grants. We all need to be involved in the scrutiny of these proposals. Our party will play a key role in this regard.

Linking everything to the consumer price index is perhaps not the wisest methodology in view of what happened during the period from 2002 to 2014 and what resulted from that. I hope that, as a result of this discussion, we can work these issues out and come forward with solid proposals.

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