Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not hold the Taoiseach personally responsible for the fact that the Government has failed to deal with the housing crisis for six years, but he is the boss now and it is on his plate. If the Taoiseach is interested in doing this country a massive favour by deciding to tackle something that no one before him has tackled, he should start by no longer listening to those who have a vested financial interest, including the likes of the Construction Industry Federation, the people who control the real estate investment trusts and the developers. Many developers do not even build any more; they are just working the money. The development land market is controlled by investors rather than builders. Combined Government measures have encouraged investors to purchase and hold large tracts of serviced residential land. In 2012, the Government introduced incentives to get private investors to buy assets at firesale prices and hold them for seven years. It was an incentive not to build. In last year's Finance Act, the period in question was reduced to five years in the case of certain funds. The vacant site levy is a joke. There are more holes in it than in a sieve.

There is a multitude of problems with how we supply housing. The failure to deal with those problems means the next bust is never far away. Will the Taoiseach consider tackling landbanking, which is at the heart of many of our housing supply problems, in a real and meaningful way in next month's budget? The private sector does what it does. It maximises its earning potential in any way possible. The private sector builds when it likes and where it likes, as is its right. The State should not depend on the private sector to provide social and affordable housing. We have tried that approach and it has not worked.

The Taoiseach has spoken about repurposing NAMA to solve our housing problems. NAMA is under investigation in Britain, the US and Ireland. Just 6% of the land NAMA has sold has been built on. Just 3,000 out of a potential 50,000 homes have been built on that land. Why did NAMA sell land to people who had a vested interest in sitting on it? Why did it sell it at fire-sale prices? Approximately 8,000 units are being developed in Cherrywood. NAMA sold the sites for some 3,800 of them to Hines for approximately €27,000 apiece. Each of those sites is now worth over €100,000. How clever was that? In March 2016, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund invested €30 million in Ardstone Homes. One month later, NAMA sold 120 acres to this developer for €50 million. In addition to selling large bundles of land on the cheap, the State is putting up the money for private developers. Although NAMA has neither the expertise nor the personnel with a background in housing to solve this housing crisis, which it helped to create, it still has close to 5,000 acres of land. None of the NAMA board has any experience in property, not to mention residential property. I put it to the Taoiseach that it is time to give this land to the local authorities to provide social and affordable housing at a reasonable price.

See this speech in context