Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Healy for providing the House with the opportunity to engage in this debate. The issue at the centre of his motion is very important in addressing the complex issue of housing. It is, at its heart, about balancing property rights and the common good under the Constitution and that is something we need to address carefully. I have tabled an amendment because the Labour Party does not believe it is necessary to declare an emergency in the way FEMPI legislation was introduced in order to address this issue. This time last year, we published a Bill seeking to implement the Kenny report as recommended by the all-party committee on the Constitution in its ninth progress report on private property. The report concluded that the Oireachtas has the power to restrict property rights in the public interest. A number of court decisions since then have established this in constitutional law. As such, there is no need for any kind of emergency legislation.

We refer in our amendment to the decision in the matter of the Planning and Development Bill 1999, in which the Supreme Court held that the Oireachtas is entitled to conclude that the provision of affordable housing and housing for persons in special categories, and of integrated housing, is rationally connected "to an objective of sufficient importance to warrant interference with a constitutionally protected right and, given the serious social problems which they are designed to meet, they undoubtedly relate to concerns which, in a free and democratic society, should be regarded as pressing and substantial". Certainly, the homelessness crisis makes it clear that the common good trumps property rights in the current situation. There is no reason the Kenny report recommendation on the purchase of land at its current value plus 25% cannot be implemented. This is important because the hoarding of land is one of the factors which is curtailing supply. There is a great deal of property owned by developers which could be developed. They make the argument that it is not affordable to build, but I am sure they are already rushing to get involved in the 700 publicly owned sites on which public money is being spent to create infrastructure. They will rush to have their piece of the action on those sites.

An example was made public in my constituency last week. In one way, it is very good news. A sizeable piece of land in Mungret is subject to a plan to build approximately 850 homes. Almost all of the land is owned by the local authority and a great deal of the infrastructure fund has been spent on it. Money from the Department of Education and Skills has also been spent there because there are three schools on the site also. My concern is that we have no guarantee that the homes which will be built on that site will be affordable. I have expressed that concern publicly. There is no affordable housing scheme to date. The local authority must now grapple with the development of this site in the absence of a national programme to ensure the homes are affordable. If one looks at any of the statistics around the cost of housing, which is not as expensive in Limerick as it is in Dublin, we are in danger with these sites, which Members will also have in their own constituencies, of ending up in that same situation. At the end of all of this, publicly owned sites will be built on while the privately owned sites are sat on until more profit can be made. We have to intervene in that situation or we will fail to get the necessary level of public housing we need.

I support those who have said we need to see public housing happen quickly. I am interested in the various figures on house completions in different years. Deputy MacSharry made the point that the length of time it takes to get from the beginning to the end of a public housing programme is a real problem. There are many sites which are now ready but we need to see public and affordable housing predominate on them. My fear is that this will not happen. Either they will sit and wait for another couple of years, or the housing will be predominantly private housing for profit at prices above what ordinary families can afford. That is a crucial issue. We will end up in the same situation with everyone competing for the small number of social houses that become available and the small number of houses which are affordable to the average family. There are then the people who are squeezed into the private rental market who are on social housing lists but cannot get a house or who cannot afford to buy a house because they cannot get a mortgage or save the amount for the deposit. Those people are stuck in the same rental process with a limited amount of supply. As such, we need to get moving on both ends.

We need to get the private market building without hoarding land and we need to get public and affordable housing and mixed tenure situations on publicly owned land. All of these things are interconnected and important. That is why I welcome Deputy Healy's motion. I do not have any huge problem with it albeit we felt it should be amended on the basis that we can actually act now. We have added some other matters such as linking rental increases to the consumer price index which many of us have already proposed in legislation in the House. We must deal with the issue of rent pressure zones.

I do not know if the Minister of State will have an opportunity to reply but we were told there would be a review of the issue relating to rent pressure zones because they are not working. Areas are excluded, as Deputy Moynihan indicated. Excluding a city such as Limerick does not work and that puts people in extraordinarily difficult situations.

The Ó Cualann voluntary housing co-operative in Ballymun is an example where, if public land and a not-for-profit system is used, affordable homes can be provided even in Dublin, which is the most expensive part of the country. This model is an indication of what can be done with publicly owned land by people who do not make a profit from building homes. Homes are for people. They are a social necessity and they should not be for private profit.

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