Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. I suppose we have accepted this evening that we have a full-blown crisis, which needs an emergency response. I can see the extent of the crisis in the constituency where I live. In County Laois, the number of households on the housing waiting list has increased by 200 in recent months alone - a 15% increase. The response is that the first new council estate to be built in Portlaoise for 13 years is under construction. Those 33 houses are welcome. A further eight in Mountmellick, eight in Mountrath and five in Rathdowney have not started construction yet. That is not nearly enough and does not measure up to the scale of the crisis. The delay between approval by the Department and construction is far too long. A 22-house estate in Ballymorris in Portarlington will take four years from approval to construction, which is far too long and that time needs to be shortened.

We also need large-scale development of social housing. I am not saying this to have a go at the Minister of State. Given the size of the problem, it needs a huge response. This is like the 1930s and 1950s again. To address the scale of the problem under both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, they built 10,000 and 12,000 per year at that time. There is no reason we cannot do this again.

Only 206 private and council houses were built in County Laois last year. Rents are skyrocketing; the average rent in County Laois rose by 13.7% in the past year, which is the third highest in the country. In some cases more than half of people's wages is going on rent. It needs to be linked to inflation. People are paying top-ups on top of housing assistance payment, HAP, and rent supplement. A Simon Community report showed that no housing unit under the limits set for HAP and rent supplement was available to rent in County Laois over a particular three-day period. The Government's failure is making people homeless. I meet them; they walk in my door every day. People become homeless because they cannot afford the top-ups. Three to four people are presenting to the council every week.

We need to stop land hoarding once and for all. In 2012, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, introduced capital gains tax exemption for investors who bought property by the end of 2014 and held on to it for seven years. People are sitting on building land because of that and the Minister must stop that. We need to build more social housing, stop land hoarding and restart the affordable housing scheme. The time for action is now and it needs to be big action.

See this speech in context