Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party Bill before the House sets out to address key problems in the housing market.

Everybody in this House understands that this is the social issue of our time and everybody is coming forward with solutions - sometimes thinking outside the box and grasping issues that we have been talking about for a very long time. I will make two brief points. In respect of the point the Minister of State made about infrastructure, during all the work we did during the past five years, we were always anxious to tee up in advance schools, health centres and so on so that when the planning came, and sometimes we were doing bundles of them, the groundwork was in place. That is what we are asking for here. The figure of €200 million allocated last year is not enough. We should allocate more money and let the roads be there before the planning for houses is granted. We should ensure the water and sewerage is there so that we can advance provision. There is no point in trying to build bridges, roads or roads after planning permission. That delays it for years.

In respect of a point made by Deputy Cowen, if he reads the Bill, he will see that it is not the Labour Party's position to bring forward the vacant sites levy by two years. The Bill would bring it forward by one year. This was our position in Government but we could not get agreement at that stage. Doing it as quickly as possible is a very important issue.

The history of this State has been marked by the insidious influence of private developers and property crashes. I believe there is a desire to change that. It is then that we need a strong role for the State in housing development and the rental sector. The changes proposed in the Bill will make a substantive change in tackling the housing crisis. Our Bill would tackle the unsustainable rise in the cost of living driven by escalating rents. That has been very clearly articulated by my colleagues on my left. Once again, the Government, along with its Fianna Fáil partners, proposes a delaying amendment, which is profoundly annoying. Everything that seeks to solve a major problem is now faced with an amendment. Is the Government expecting a general election next year because everything is pushed back into 2017, be it waste, water, housing or the Eighth Amendment? It is a case of put in an amendment and kick it further down the road. It is time we grappled with these issues.

There are two fundamental issues in the Bill. One is dealing with what will be an ongoing catastrophic situation caused by unaffordable rents. I spoke today to an individual who is earning €56,000, which is no mean income, who told me he cannot rent a house in Dublin. I spoke yesterday to an ambassador who was talking about companies moving to Ireland post Brexit. The number one question he has been asked is whether companies will be able to find housing for the people who move here. Housing is a critical issue and if we do not control rents, we will have soaring rents that will simply make it unaffordable for the majority of people. The suggestion to link rents to the consumer price index is a sensible way of dealing with that. They are already at an historically high level and already provide a very good return for landlords. I do not buy the line that landlords will not come in and that we will kill off the business. It is a very profitable business, thank you very much, and will remain so but there is a need for decent standards.

The other core issue in the Bill relates to finally tackling the cost of development land. I am as guilty as anybody else in this House. The Kenny report predates any of us coming into this House. It was a solution that was put forward then to ensure that someone would not make an unconscionable killing because they owned land that was simply zoned for development. We have seen people becoming multimillionaires on the basis of a decision by a council to zone land. We cannot go back to that. I do not for one moment buy the notion that this is unconstitutional. What we are proposing in the Bill are simply the proposals put forward by an all-party committee that reported in 2004. This all-party committee on the Constitution considered this in detail in 2004 and it is its recommendation across all views of opinion in the House that this can be done and is constitutional. It is worth noting that the legal adviser to that committee is a current leading member of the Court of Appeal and co-author of Ireland's leading textbook on constitutional law so he might know something about it. I believe these things can be done where there is a will to do them.

The simple reason the Government objects to the Bill is because it is bowing to powerful vested interests in this country who do not want either rents regulated or the price of land controlled in the way we are proposing. It is time for us to do these things. During Leaders' Questions, I listened to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government who was answering questions for the Government. He was passionate about thinking outside the box and doing these things now but when the opportunity arises to make a legislative difference, not a debate or statements, we have these kicking to touch amendments again. The reason put forward in the Government amendment for not accepting this Bill now is that there will be a report next week. Why will there be a report next week in the dying days of this Dáil session? If it is going to be published next Tuesday, it is probably ready now. The notion that we will have no alternative analysis put forward by anybody else this side of Christmas when this is, according to everyone, the critical issue of this Dáil is not embracing the spirit of new politics, which is that everybody's ideas are equally valid. So nobody's ideas are to be considered and certainly not accepted until such time as the Government sets out its stall and it cannot do that until two days before the Dáil adjourns. Will there be time next week for a debate on these matters? I do not know.

I am equally disappointed by the fact that Fianna Fáil wants to kick this to touch. Why is Fianna Fáil afraid to take on this issue? There are those who express concern and wonder why workers seek pay raises and why there is a clamour in the public and private sectors for some sort of pay recovery. It is because they cannot afford to pay the rents that are now being demanded. Certainly in Dublin or any place adjacent to - in fact, in any of our towns or cities - the pressure on the ordinary average income earner to pay his or her rent is becoming unsustainable. We must join up the dots and recognise that this issue must be cracked. We can work together. None of the parties that have put forward proposals on this issue claim to be the repository of all wisdom on it. There will be subsets of ideas taken by all. I can go through all the issues but Deputy Jan O'Sullivan has done that far more eloquently than I can. We can deal with the issue of controlling rent, which is the most oppressive weight on so many people thinking about how they are going to work and meet their rents into 2017. This would help to deal with the solution to the problem, which is dealing with the supply side without going back to the unconscionable profits accruing to individuals simply because their land is required for a public good, which is housing. They should be entitled to a modest increase on the nominal face value of it and in that respect a rate of 25% is what was suggested by the all-party committee. That is also what we are suggesting. These are practical real solutions to problems that exist today.

Even at this late hour I urge for the Bill to be supported by the Government side of the House and those who give it confidence and supply.

See this speech in context