Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The housing capital budget under Rebuilding Ireland for 2017 was last week increased by the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, by €100 million to €1.4 billion. However, an answer to a recent parliamentary question confirmed that the total spend on additional social homes from all sources since 1 July 2016, in the form of acquisitions, Part V, local authority builds and approved housing body builds, was €583 million. This would indicate that only approximately €500 million has been spent out of €1.4 billion for building and acquiring new units in 2017. Can the Tánaiste tell the House where the remaining almost €1 billion is going? In June this year, in a reply to a parliamentary question the Minister, Deputy Murphy, pledged that 2,284 units would be delivered in 2017. I have gone through the quarterly report for Rebuilding Ireland, which was published last week, to identify every single unit which was completed or site-finished in the first three quarters of 2017 and it is clear that only 809 units of the 2,284 have been completed.

In the UK the quantity spent on rental assistance is about five times that of the housing capital budget. As the Government here is clearly not building enough houses, is it the Government's intention to move further towards the UK model? If it is, there are serious health warnings. There is no point drifting towards an entirely rental-oriented approach to housing when, at present, fixity of tenure is completely inadequate and when a lack of inspection or an enforceable standards regime results in the horrific living conditions we saw on "Prime Time" last month. The fact that one in three tenancies in the State is financially rent assisted is just adding pressure to further rent increases for all, making Dublin simply an unattainable place to buy or rent.

I am concerned about the inept governmental policy response to date. The incoherence of all this policy implies that what may have happened is that Rebuilding Ireland, launched last year, was rapidly abandoned as a plan by departmental officials without them telling the Tánaiste or the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. The Tánaiste is now defending a plan which is not there or, if it is, is certainly not working. Where is the €1 billion going? Given the new numbers, why can the Tánaiste not accept that Rebuilding Ireland is not succeeding and will not succeed in effectively tackling the housing crisis?

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