Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to squeeze as much into eight minutes as I possibly can. I am pleased that Deputy Ó Broin is present today because we did not get a chance to finish our discussion during the Private Members' debate last week.

Based on the discussion I believe we are all on the same page. We want solutions and we want to increase the supply of housing. There is no logic in us opposing the motion, although we might not agree with all the wording and some parts of it are slightly wrong, but we also want to achieve the general gist of what Sinn Féin wants to achieve. Most of the debate has been saying much the same thing.

It is important that we deal with some of the contributions we have had here tonight. I do not want to row with anybody but we need to deal with facts. I do not do spin. This Government does not do spin. Others might do that. I will tease out the facts. I am not necessarily referring to Sinn Féin; I refer to Deputy Catherine Murphy who stood there and talked about spin although it was purely facts she was talking about.

It is factual to say there are 80 people finding housing solutions every working day. That is a fact. We did not say there were new houses so it is a fact, it is not spin. Could Members please stop referring to spin? If it is spin, then I will put my hands up. I have no problem when it comes to election time if Members want to engage in a bit of spin. That is fair enough, but they should not try to mix facts when they are facts. Deputy Catherine Murphy has left the Chamber before we even get to respond. She did not refer to any other spin after making a big speech at the start. There is a lot of showboating going on here, which is a pity because we want to get solutions. It is true that a number of people are finding housing solutions but it is not enough. As I said last week, we are not asking for a pat on the back. Nobody is doing so. The process will not end until everybody has a home. We will have to keep doing what we are doing and keep making all the changes we can as well.

The contributions to this debate were wide-ranging in nature and all referred to the need to increase the supply of housing. It is wrong to say nothing is happening. Again, that is not true and it is not a fact. The Rebuilding Ireland strategy - the Action Plan for Housing - is a four to five-year plan building on action after action to correct all the elements of the problem. A key to it is the supply of housing. I refer Members to the trends which show the increase in the supply of housing is positive. They do not give us houses today or tomorrow but housing are coming on stream in the months ahead, next year and the year after. That is part of the solution. I do not say it solves today's emergency but the strategy is also to generate increased supply for the years ahead.

Let us consider from where we have come. Based on ESRI figures, we were in a situation two years ago where approximately 12,000 houses were built in this country. More than half of them are one-off developments. That scale of building was not going to contribute to a housing solution. Last year, a little over 15,000 houses were built. I do not say they were all built from scratch. They were not. Some of them were housing completions and others had been vacant houses but they were back in use. That is the truth. That is the figure. This year, the figure is approximately 18,500 and might rise as high as 19,000 before the end of the year. Again, that is another positive fact in the right direction. Next year - in respect of which we had a target of approximately 20,000 - there will be in the region of 24,000 in the system. That is based on ESRI figures. It is a positive development, it shows we are moving in the right direction and people should see that for what it is. I accept that we all want more houses to be built, and we will do that as well, but that is the current and projected level.

Likewise, if one looks at social housing delivery, one could not defend what was happening a couple of years ago. I do not blame local authorities. One of the Deputy Healy-Raes - the twins - talked about the councils having lost their way. It was not that they lost their way, they lost the capacity. The people were not there and the money was not there. No one is denying that. This Government does not try to hide behind that. We put the figures out there every month. They may, perhaps, be a bit late the odd month, but they are out there and they will be debated if we do not hide them. We are not hiding them. The capacity was not in the system but the capacity is back in the system now. We are putting the people back in or putting the money back in.

One of the Deputy Healy-Raes raised the issue of rural cottages. I am not aware of any housing project that has been refused funding. If he wants to bring a case to our attention we will look at it but I have not come across that happening.

There are other delays. I agree with what has been said about timelines. They are too long for the delivery through all the various stages. There is the option of one stage but most do not want to use that. They go by choice to take the four-stage approach. We have condensed that a lot and we will condense it even further. I am now working with the delivery team and we will increase the staff on that and on local authorities as well to try to get the timelines down even more. We will produce a chart to show Members the timelines and see how they compare to the private sector as well. We will push that agenda and drive the urgency to get the delivery of social housing up to speed.

I agree with Deputy Ó Broin. He said last week he wants to 10,000 houses to be built. So do we. That is what our plan amounts to. He wants to get there in one day but we are saying it will take a couple of years. I am not sure who is being honest here but one cannot do it in a day, a week or a year. Step by step, we are bringing social housing back up to where it should be. I agree with Deputy Ó Broin. Our ideology is the same. The State should be producing 10,000 social houses a year. That is what we will get to. We were at 75, which I said one could not defend, a couple of years ago. Approximately 700 new builds for social housing were completed last year. There will be will be just under 2,400 new builds next year. There will be approximately 3,800 next year and there will be up to 6,000 the year after. I hope we will get to the 10,000 per year through pursing this plan because that is the target we must reach, and even beyond it. If future Governments want to add to the target, then good luck to them. Well done if that is what they want to do.

Those figures only relate to social housing. They do not include affordable housing, which we also want to construct on the 2,000 ha the State owns. There is potential there for up to 50,000 houses divided into affordable, social and even private. It is fine if someone wants to build all affordable houses. There is nothing stopping anyone doing that. We will bring forward the plans. There is a commitment to 10,000 social houses. A number of Deputies keep saying there is an ideological problem but there is not. The reality is that it takes a bit of time to put the capacity back into the system. I want to be clear about that as well.

In terms of the number of houses we intend to build, out of the 47,000 units to which we are committed, as a minimum - it should rise to 50,000 and beyond during that timeframe - more than 30,500 will be direct builds. In other words, they will be new build social housing units. Approximately 6,530 houses will be achieved through acquisition, perhaps a few more or a few less depending on the value in the market. That goes back to the vacant properties in various parts of the country where there is good value in purchasing them. Nobody else is competing for them so it makes sense. In some cases they are dilapidated or in need of repair. That is where we will step in. We will buy them where it makes sense to do so. There are also approximately 10,000 houses that are on long-term leases. Sometimes long-term leasing gives good value to the State but I do not say it is always the case. We are committed to lease approximately 10,000 houses in our plan but we will do more new builds and turnkey houses if we can as well. We recognise that we just cannot get the supply we need straight away in year one. I wish we could because it would save us having these debates week in and week out as well as the suffering homeless people are experiencing. We will build on that as well.

I welcome the mortgage-to-rent scheme announced by David Hall and his team at iCare. He was one of the first people I met when I came into this job and we worked on the plan. It makes total sense. We revamped the mortgage-to-rent scheme under Rebuilding Ireland. It was one of the first actions that we implemented. We made those changes in February and March and we will announce increased funding for the sector through various mechanisms in the months ahead as well. Today's announcement is a positive because it keeps people in their homes. It is not a solution for everybody but it is another option. There is a range of solutions in the toolbox.

I wish to correct what another Deputy said a few minutes ago. It is wrong to say one cannot engage and look for help until the day one is homeless. That is absolutely wrong. We repeatedly ask people to come forward at a much earlier stage to engage with the system so that we can try and keep them in their home. Thousands of people have been kept in their homes that did engage. I have no problem saying that was not the case two or three years ago but for the past year we have been saying very clearly that people should come forward if they are about to become homeless and we will try to keep them in their homes. I do not promise that we will keep all people in their homes but thousands have been kept in their homes. Likewise, 3,000 came out of emergency housing last year into sustainable homes. The difficulty is that just as many became homeless so I do not say the situation is great. This year, the number finding housing solutions has reached approximately 1,800, of which 900 were assisted in the first quarter. While I accept it is not enough there is progress. I urge Members to please not come in here week after week telling me we are doing nothing.

The final point I will make is to Deputy Harty.

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