Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:“notes that:

— the State has built fewer than 3,500 social homes since 2011, less than the number constructed every year on average from 1994–2010;

— fewer than 600 new social homes will be constructed in 2017 when the Rebuilding Ireland target is 5,000;

— only 24 per cent of 10,000 units in the ‘construction pipeline’ are on site, so it will be 2021 before most are built compared to the already unambitious target of 26,000 units;

— the overall housing budget is too low and skewed toward current housing programmes, such as Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) Scheme;

— the capital house building budget (€730 million in 2017) is still 51 per cent below 2008 levels;

— as a result, no new housing stock is being added as social housing provision coming from the private rental and owner occupier market;

— due to years of undersupply and pent-up demand Ireland needs 40,000–50,000 new homes per year to make a dent on demand and a noticeable impact on affordability;

— the Government target is 25,000 by 2021 and 15,000–18,000 new units expected in 2017;

— clearly there is a market failure in housing and new interventions are required to stimulate supply;

— the Government’s reluctance to accept the actual challenges and their refusal to make any interventions in the housing market is making a crisis situation worse;

— there has been no commitment by this Government to making housing more affordable, with the confirmation that there is no intention to re-introduce affordable housing initiatives for low- and middle-income households;

— it is in the area of homelessness that the Government’s inept housing policy really comes into plain view, and the abandonment of targets on hotel accommodation and continuing failure to make a dent in rising homeless figures cannot continuously be ignored;

calls on the Government to:

— commit to meeting Rebuilding Ireland’s targets on moving homeless families out of hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation by the end of 2017;

— revise the emergency homeless strategy, in particular redesigning Homeless HAP and the HAP Scheme so households are not discouraged from taking up a tenancy and are not removed from main social housing waiting lists;

— increase and re-balance the housing budget toward capital expenditure;

— put in place new vehicles to enable off-balance sheet funding for social housing projects from private sources and credit unions;

— devise a strategy to enable and encourage far greater scale and size in social house building projects;

— recognise the significant market failures in housing, including in planning, finance, infrastructure and costs of construction, which the market requires State intervention to overcome;

— acknowledge that the Government’s target of 25,000 new house completions by 2021 is not adequate, given years of pent-up demand and under-supply, and that at a minimum we need 45,000–50,000 units output annually over the next few years;

— commit to reintroducing affordable housing schemes including affordable owner occupier and rental housing schemes for middle income households and explore possible financial incentives aimed at encouraging development of housing at more affordable price points;

— introduce financial incentives to build high-density developments where they are currently not commercially viable to build in Dublin City and other local authorities;

— commit to greater enforcement and implementation of Rent Pressure Zones and other rent regulations including more staffing and resources for the Residential Tenancies Board;

— tackle land hoarding by large investors, which is clearly holding back supply including by making changes to Capital Gains Tax and introducing a New Site Tax to encourage the use of empty sites; and

— devise new strategies to manage vacant properties including an active occupancy register.”

It should be uncontroversial by now that the situation in housing and homeless constitutes an emergency, which unfortunately continues to get worse by the day. Fianna Fáil has submitted its own amendment to the motion, which we welcome. It provides a list of practical and workable solutions that would have a real effect on alleviating the crisis.

It is over one year since the Rebuilding Ireland report was launched but there has been little, if any, progress. Despite the huge demand and the unprecedented levels of unmet housing needs the State is still building and providing historically low levels of affordable and social housing. All the while the number of homeless families continues to rise dramatically, jumping fivefold in just two years. Homelessness is a great national shame. It is the greatest problem facing the State, and one of the largest problems our State has ever faced. We cannot give in to cynicism and despair. There are solutions. We have housed large numbers of our citizens in previous decades when we had much fewer resources. There is no reason why the State cannot do so again. We need to come together and make a concerted effort to fix this issue. No measures should be considered too big or too small in getting on top of the housing calamity.

While the rise in homelessness continued unabated over the past year, which is a consequence of the failure of Government policies to get to grips with the affordability problem in the housing sector more generally, the plight of families living in emergency accommodation has also worsened significantly. It is a shocking indictment of the Government that is does not consider re-housing these families, even in more suitable temporary accommodation, to be enough of a priority.

It is well known that living in hotels is having an impact on these families. Meeting these targets should not be considered a budgetary issue. I want to put on record that these targets have to be met and should be met. Whatever funding is required to meet these targets should be automatically made available. Hotels are not a place to raise a child for any length of time but many families have been living in these for a year and more in many cases.

The strategy of using HAP as the primary means of moving families out of emergency homelessness cannot be considered a success and absolutely must be revised. Homeless HAP, the Government’s flagship housing scheme to move homeless households in to privately provided rental properties, is failing drastically to provide secure accommodation for homeless households and move them out of emergency accommodation.

With regard to social homes being built, less than 800 new social homes will be constructed in 2017 when the action plan in Rebuilding Ireland targets 5,000. Only 24% of the 10,000 units that we are led to believe are in the construction pipeline are on site. It will be 2021 before many of these units come on stream compared to the already too low target of 26,000 that we are told will come to fruition.

The Government’s core social housing strategy has been to rely almost entirely on the private rented market for social housing provision, through the HAP scheme.

Last year, more than 75% of new social housing tenancies were placed in the private rental market. This strategy is reflected in the overall housing budget. While the total housing budget is just 24% below the 2008 level to which the Minister has just referred, the capital housing budget is a full 51% below the 2008 level. Nevertheless, we are told, as Deputy Ó Broin has already stated, that money is not the problem and that local authorities and approved housing bodies are adequately resourced should projects be available. That is not the case. This misguided strategy is exacerbating the housing supply problem with local authority tenants competing against households at the low end of the market. No new social housing supply is being added. While the greatest impact is on families who are eligible for social housing, housing supply across the board is affected.

Traditionally, the State and local authorities have acted as the largest single house builder in the country, adding significant levels of new supply annually. I am afraid that under Fine Gael Governments, this situation has been completely reversed. The absence of new supply from the State affects all in the search for affordable housing. This is due to the strategy of relying solely, or at least to the extent of 75%, on social renting through HAP rather than on building new social schemes. That has to change. The social housing budget must be increased to the 2008 levels, which it is currently 50% below.

While the Rebuilding Ireland report contains many positive proposals on housing supply more generally, many are not being implemented. This must change to a significant extent and a difference must be made in tackling the crisis. Recent trends, including continued rent inflation, reduced rental supply and an acceleration of house price inflation in 2017 are evidence that the plan is failing the key litmus test of expanding new housing supply and improving affordability. It is not acceptable that the Government has ignored the targets for housing delivery and output and continues to miss them while problems grow deeper and more entrenched every week. We reject absolutely the view that no intervention is required to stimulate the supply of residential construction. Given the level of pent-up demand, the targeted output of 25,000 new units by 2021 is wholly inadequate. The State can only build approximately 18,000 new units this year whereas we need in the region of 50,000 to make a dent in affordability. Just 4,000 of these units will be apartments notwithstanding the fact that there is huge demand for such accommodation in high-pressure areas such as Dublin and other cities.

There are significant market failures in housing including in respect of planning, the distribution and cost of finance, infrastructure deficits and, of course, the cost of construction. The market requires State intervention in order that these failures can be overcome. To ensure that supply translates into more affordable rents and house prices, we must incentivise directly the building of affordable owner-occupier housing and affordable rental housing. New financial incentives to build high-density developments must also be considered. Dublin City Council and others argue there is a need to consider urgently incentives to get builders to begin an intensive house building programme on lands that are already zoned residential. While hotel, office and student accommodation is being built, very little ordinary residential construction is taking place because it is not commercially viable due to the costs associated with construction. While a reduction in the rate of VAT for houses built and sold at affordable price points is roundly condemned by many, it is just one proposal to help stimulate the greater supply of more affordable housing. To ensure that new supply translates to affordable rent and house price levels, we must incentivise the building of affordable owner-occupier and affordable rental housing. This is the only way to make housing more affordable for lower and middle-income households, in particular in the high pressure zones in Dublin, Cork and, indeed, beyond.

One of the first actions Fine Gael and the Labour Party took on coming to power was to abolish in 2012 affordable housing for low and middle-income workers under Part V. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Affordable housing has always been a key pillar of any housing programme put forward by Government. I implore the Government to bring forward a new affordable housing scheme to meet the demand out there, to provide the necessary supply and create a market which provides more affordability. This would reduce competition between those who do not need to be in competing positions. The State must take responsibility and increase expenditure on social housing to the levels mentioned earlier. If it does, we might see some results and success. I would hope, thereafter, to be in a position to commend the House on playing its part to ensure that progress was made.

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