Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This year it will be more than €100 million and next year it will be more than that. It is important that we commit our resources in this way. It should not be forgotten that every working day of the week, 80 new households will be supported in tenancies through social housing supports. This means 21,000 new households this year will be supported by taxpayers' money. It is right that we do this. Next year, we will support more households. We know that there are a great many more people who cannot afford to buy or rent a home. Many people are paying too much in rent and, as such, they cannot afford to save a deposit to buy a home. Some cannot afford their rent but still they make do by moving back in with their parents or by sleeping on a couch in a friend's home. These people have nowhere else to go. As well as those on the social housing lists, these people need houses built. Our focus must be on building supply and that is where it is constantly. Increasing supply will relieve each of the different pressures that we face in the housing system. We face these problems as a society because they reach into every aspect of Irish society today.

Availability is on the way. It is happening. We know that building is happening. Planning permissions are up 42% on last year. Construction commencement notices are up a similar percentage. Connections to the ESB grid are up by one third in Dublin alone. Fast-track planning measures have been introduced to enable houses to be built more quickly. Government money has also been made available to quickly open up sites that can be developed. There is more that we can do and we know that. We are constantly looking at new measures to bring on-stream to help build more houses. As I said, availability is on the way. We have to continue to focus our resources on emergencies, on co-ordinating resources more efficiently so that they are in place to help people, on affordability, on ensuring builders build houses and apartments in the parts of the country where they are needed and on ensuring individuals are able to buy or rent their homes. There is not an ideological road block to any of this. There is no lack of will or public money. Some €5.3 billion has been ring-fenced out to 2021. No other Government expenditure is committed in this way or has ever been committed in this way. There is more coming in budget 2018. In regard to prioritising housing, as provided for in the programme for Government, we are prioritising it. This commitment is evident not only in terms of money but in the amount of time and effort we are putting into this area.

The Taoiseach tasked me with reviewing Rebuilding Ireland, not because it is not working but because there are areas on which we can improve, one year further from the recession, a year into a new plan, with a new Government and renewed ambition. Rebuilding Ireland is working. By taking a rolling analysis we can drill down deeper into those actions that we can take to see what can be improved. For example, Rebuilding Ireland did not provide for a national roll-out of the place-finder service but we can provide for that now. Rebuilding Ireland initially focused on local authorities buying homes, competing in the market with young couples and families but now local authorities are focused on building. As a result, the number of new homes built next year by local authorities and housing bodies will be 30% higher than anticipated. Rent pressure zones under Rebuilding Ireland did not give a definition of "substantive refurbishment".

Rebuilding Ireland does not provide a definition of substantive refurbishment. We know from anecdotal evidence that landlords are using this to get around the rent caps we have put in place but we now have a definition for that, which we did not have a year ago. The rent pressure zones are working. They have capped rent increases in Dublin and that means people are paying less rent as a result. These are all small changes in their own way but they all very important. None of them is a solution in and off itself but this is a complex area and they all add to the totality of measures this Government is devoting time and money to in terms of resources to try to solve this problem and ease this crisis for the people who are experiencing it.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Constitution by inserting "the right to secure, affordable, dignified housing, appropriate to need, for all residents of Ireland". We all want this for our friends and our neighbours but the question is around whether the Constitution is the most sensible place to enshrine this detailed right. I am not saying it is not. All I am saying is that I believe it needs further consideration. The Rebuilding Ireland programme of work will continue to be rolled out without such a provision in the Constitution.

We will continue to bring every resource necessary to bear to meet the housing needs of our people. We will continue to spend the money on homeless services because that is right. We will continue to invest in family hubs to support families as a first response because that is right. We will continue to invest in the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, in void conversions and in leasing to support 20,000 new tenancies this year because that is the right thing to do. We will continue to focus our resources on building new social housing homes through local authorities and housing bodies because that is the right thing to do.

We will have 3,800 new homes next year. In 2015, the number of new homes built was between 500 and 600. The figure for new builds for next year represents a substantial increase on the number we have seen previously. We will continue to focus on building new homes that are affordable for people throughout the country, whether they are seeking to start a new home, move to a new home or rent for the first time having started a new job. These are the needs our people face and the Government is prioritising the supporting of those needs.

In not supporting this Bill and in saying it should be considered by the committee that deals with finance, reform and the Department of the Taoiseach, we are saying that, as we consider the Eight Report of the Convention on the Constitution and all the different rights it wants us to consider, we believe they should be considered in totality and they should have a considered view in that committee, and after that considered view we would then see where we would go from there.

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