Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Housing and homelessness, as the Members and officials present know, is the most critical domestic problem facing people at this time. Children are spending years of their childhood in hotel rooms as a result of the lack of social and affordable housing. This is a terrible indictment of Government policy, particularly when there are more than 2,000 voids, the term used for empty and locked up local authority homes which are waiting to be refurbished.

The housing crisis is the most serious issue facing the country and a sea change in attitude is required to enable it to be addressed. It is no longer acceptable for the Government to make announcement after announcement when the change delivered is minuscule and the number of homeless families continues to rise. The housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme is allowing the problem to appear less dire than it is. Rents are soaring and the introduction of the help-to-buy scheme has resulted in rising house prices, making it more difficult for hard pressed families to afford even a modest home. The lack of supply has also caused a substantial increase in rents, yet the Government has refused to state it will change the VAT rate for construction. It is hard to understand this logic when the previous Fine Gael-led Government reduced the VAT rate to stimulate activity in the tourism sector when it was needed.

Housing policy failure as a political issue was a significant contributory factor to the devastating recession we have come through. The housing sector was left abandoned by the previous Government in a dereliction of duty. While the housing crisis has been recognised by this Dáil as the number one issue facing the country, the problem has continued to spiral out of control. The housing issue was first described as a humanitarian crisis by Peter McVerry in 2014 and the new Dáil started well by prioritising housing. A cross-party committee on housing chaired my party colleague, Deputy John Curran, produced an excellent report while the Government formation process was under way. This was a clear indication of the seriousness of the homelessness and housing crisis by a new Parliament. At the time, the incoming Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, and his Government colleagues pledged their total commitment to work to solve this problem in an inclusive and open-minded way. We took the then Minister at his word. However, when the Rebuilding Ireland report was launched with much public relations spin and fancy websites, we found that it was already a watered down version of the committee's report. However, Fianna Fáil decided to give the Minister the benefit of doubt because we were convinced that the magnitude of the crisis would dictate a radical Government response.

I repeat a point I made one year ago because it strikes at the heart of the current housing difficulties. According to the opening statement in Rebuilding Ireland, "Housing is a basic human and social requirement". The House should note the deliberate use of the word "requirement" to give the impression of a strong commitment. However, the use of this word falls short. The use of the word "right" instead would have given the State direct responsibility for delivering housing. If Rebuilding Ireland had opened with the line that housing was a basic human and social right, the role of the State would have been clearly and correctly defined. The use of a rights based view can be open to being manipulated by ideologies on both the extreme left and right.

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