Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The housing crisis exposes the reality of capitalism today. There is an urgent need to build thousands of new homes. The Government has presided over a 25% rise in homelessness from August 2016 to August 2017 according to Focus Ireland. There were 1,442 homeless families in August, and 3,048 homeless people are children. These are shameful facts and are an indictment of capitalism, but also of the Government that happily implements policies that deliver this homelessness. The cause of the housing crisis is running the economy on the basis of profit. We have an economy based on capitalist greed and not human need. It is not totally accurate to call the housing crisis a crisis. It is a crisis for the majority of the population, those who struggle with rent and mortgages, those in overcrowding and those still living with parents, but it is not a crisis for property developers, banks and landlords. It is actually a very profitable time for them.

While we have 130,000 families on the council waiting lists we also have vacant homes. We have an irrational unplanned capitalist economy that is not able to match resources with the needs of society. According to the 2016 census, there are more than 180,000 vacant homes. Approximately 16.5% of them were vacant on census night for reasons such as renovation, being for sale, a death or the usual resident being in hospital or a nursing home. This still leaves us with 153,000 vacant units.

It is worth looking at where these vacant units are. Another aspect of capitalism is the inability to make balanced regional economic development. This results in housing been vacant in some parts of the State while there is an acute crisis in Cork, Dublin and surrounding areas. Fingal, South Dublin and Kildare local authority areas have lower vacancy rates than areas in the west. For instance, Leitrim has the highest level of vacancy. Many regions are neglected when it comes to economic development. We see the areas with the highest level of vacancy being long-neglected towns and villages. Blacklion in Cavan has 46% vacancy as does Keshcarrigan in Leitrim. Towns with the highest vacancy are Ballaghaderreen with 33%, Castlerea with 28% and Bundoran in Donegal with 30%. Of larger towns, Letterkenny, Longford and Ballina have the highest vacancy levels.

Between 2011 and 2016, in Dublin county and city and Cork city we saw more than 60% of vacant houses become occupied. Action needs to be taken to open up vacant housing in all parts of the country. Solidarity believes this can be done through economic development in all regions and the proactive role of local authorities. An audit needs to be done of vacant housing and real action taken to make these units available. Tackling the issue of vacancy could bring as many as 50,000 units into the local authority housing stock. This does not take away from the need for local authorities to build thousands of new homes.

Solidarity supports potential residential units above shops or other such locations being opened up for residential use. Many of these units may be vacant and require refurbishment to be made available, and many units may have another purpose and need refurbishment to make them fit for residential use. A benefit to such refurbishment is not only more units being available sooner but it can also be very good for our towns and cities to have people living in them and not have a situation where after working hours areas of our towns and cities are without people and without a community. In saying this, we do have a number of concerns about the Bill. We are concerned that the fast-track process outlined in the Bill would end up with lower standards. If the Bill progresses, the housing committee should examine these issues in detail. Building regulations are important. We only have to look at the recent scandals of apartments in Sandyford and Priory Hall having serious problems with non-compliance with fire safety regulations. All new units should be of high quality and fit to live in, and not low quality units that were fast-tracked through the usual planning process resulting in benefit only to landlords. The Bill should also not allow a Trojan horse, whereby bedsits or unsuitably small accommodation can be brought in by landlords.

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