Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann notes that:— since taking office in 2011, Fine Gael have not delivered a single affordable rental or purchase home through any Government scheme;

— the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness contains no targets and no clear funding stream for the delivery of affordable housing;

— the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Confidence and Supply Arrangement for a Fine Gael-led Minority Government has no targets or proposals for the delivery of affordable housing;

— Fianna Fáil have facilitated two Fine Gael budgets despite neither containing any credible proposals for delivering affordable housing;

— Fianna Fáil's Budget 2018 proposals contain no targets or proposals for the delivery of affordable housing;

— the €90 million Help to Buy Scheme is driving up house prices;

— the €200 million Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund is unlikely to deliver a significant number of genuinely affordable housing and may deliver no affordable homes in Dublin;

— the €25 million affordable housing fund announced in Budget 2018 will only deliver 650 affordable homes;

— the revised local authority first time buyers mortgage will be of limited value if genuinely affordable homes are not available to purchase;

— the introduction of Rent Pressure Zones has not constrained rents by 4 per cent, particularly with respect to new tenancies;

— no progress has been made by Government in developing an affordable rental (cost rental) model of housing despite commitments dating back to 2014; and

— no affordable rental or purchase homes will be delivered by any Government scheme in 2018; andcalls on the Government to:— immediately introduce ambitious affordable rental and purchase housing schemes led by local authorities, and where appropriate, approved housing bodies and housing cooperatives with clear annual targets for all local authorities;

— deliver 4,500 affordable homes in year one and 9,000 affordable homes in year two with an appropriate mixture of rental and purchase homes determined by local housing needs;

— deliver the affordable homes as part of mixed tenure and mixed income estates on public land;

— fund the delivery of the affordable housing schemes through a combination of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund/Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI), Housing Finance Agency and exchequer funding as appropriate, and provide local authorities with multi annual funding commitments to facilitate forward planning;

— design the HBFI fund to prioritise loan finance to small and medium sized builders participating in council led affordable housing schemes;

— commit appropriate public funding to all council led mixed tenure and mixed income developments for projects currently underway in O'Devaney Gardens, Oscar Traynor Park and St Michael's Estate in Dublin City, The Grange/Kilcarberry in South Dublin and Shangannagh Park in Dún Laoghaire;

— identify public sites in Cork, Waterford and Galway cities for similar large scale council led mixed income and mixed tenure developments;

— commit appropriate public funding to deliver 550 affordable homes in the Poolbeg Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) and 2,109 affordable homes in the Clonburris

— amend Part V of the Planning and Development Act, 2000, to provide for 10 per cent affordable housing in addition to the existing 10 per cent social housing requirement;

and

— introduce real rent certainty by amending the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, to link rent reviews to an index such as the Consumer Price Index.

Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people are caught in an affordability trap. Their income is above the thresholds under which it must be to obtain social housing or social housing support, yet they are struggling to rent or buy. They are living in overpriced rental accommodation. In many instances, they are living with parents while saving for a deposit or struggling to raise the finance.

This is not just affecting first-time buyers although, rightly, much of the public debate has been focusing on those trying to get on the property ladder or renting for the first time. It also affects people in their 30s and 40s who are trapped in a property in negative equity that is too small for their expanding family. They are unable to trade up to a home appropriate to meet the needs of the families they now have. It is also affecting many older couples, particularly those coming to the end of their working lives or, perhaps, people in new relationship formations, who are just about able to manage rent but who are looking nervously to pension age. Even with a modest occupational pension, they are unable to ensure they will have secure and affordable accommodation after they retire.

One of the points that is not made often in this debate is that we face a potential pensions time bomb. The affordability of rental or purchased accommodation, either for people who have rented for their entire lives or people facing the difficulties I have outlined, is a very serious issue. We see dramatic increases in the cost of property, particularly in Dublin, where, increasingly, first-time buyers' homes can be in the region of €350,000 to €400,000, or even €450,000. Rents right across the country, in rent pressure zones or outside them, continue to rise. This does not just have an enormous impact on families and those struggling with the rising cost of rent or of home purchasing; there is also a real cost to the economy. Money is being taken out of the pockets of working people. It is money that cannot be spent in local shops and businesses. It is increasing the pressure of wage demands as families struggle with the increasing cost of living.

Fine Gael has been in government for over six years. During that entire time, not a single affordable property, to rent or to buy, has been delivered directly as a result of any central government scheme. We are now into the second year of the period covered by Rebuilding Ireland but, again, not a single affordable rental or purchasable property has been delivered as a result of any measure included in that programme. In fact, Rebuilding Ireland does not contain a single dedicated funding stream or target specifically to ensure affordable rental accommodation or affordable purchasable accommodation.

Last week I questioned the Minister on this and asked him whether he could confirm whether any affordable units would be delivered this year through Government schemes. He was not able to answer with the information he had in front of him at the time. I speculate that there will not be any units delivered through cost rental or affordable purchase initiatives by the end of this year.

I note with interest the increasing demands from Fianna Fáil since Christmas for the Government to deliver more on housing. I welcome this. Fianna Fáil's record in recent years on this issue has not given much hope to struggling families, however. The confidence and supply agreement, while having a very vague reference to housing, does not propose any scheme or include any actual targets or funding commitments to deliver affordable rental or purchasable housing. In fact, Fianna Fáil has facilitated, through abstention, two Government budgets that have failed to put anything significant into this area. The last pre-budget submission by Fianna Fáil in the run-up to budget 2018 had no specific proposals on affordable housing, no commitments on funding, and no demands regarding targets. Therefore, while I welcome the increase in demand from Fianna Fáil for the Government to do more, it seems "hares and hounds" is probably a more appropriate description of the current state of play in this matter.

With regard to what the Government itself is doing, let us look at the record. I have no doubt the Minister will talk about the help-to-buy scheme introduced by his predecessors in the Departments responsible for finance and housing. There is growing evidence, however, that the scheme is actually contributing to rising house price inflation for first-time buyers. It is certainly not making homes more affordable for modest-income families. The local infrastructure housing activation fund is worth over €200 million and there is to be another round but, despite repeated requests from me and other Deputies for clear indications as to the levels of affordability this public investment will deliver, no evidence has been forthcoming. I know from a number of projects whose contractual details I have seen that there will be nothing within an affordable range for a family earning between €45,000 and €75,000 in Dublin. If the Minister would like to answer some of these questions, which he has evaded so far in responses to parliamentary questions, I would be more than happy to hear him.

I welcomed the €25 million affordability fund announced in the budget. It is far too small, however. According to the Minister here in December, it will deliver, at best, 650 units over two years. I doubt that any of these will be delivered this year. We need thousands of such units, not hundreds.

We have witnessed the continued failure of the Government to act on a commitment first made in 2014 in the plan of former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, and then in the plan of the current Minister's predecessor, Deputy Simon Coveney, and in Rebuilding Ireland for a genuinely affordable rental or cost rental model. Last week, the current Minister announced what we have already known for many months, namely, that there is to be a pilot scheme in this regard. So far, however, there has been no progress.

The problem is that the Government's focus is all wrong. Driving private supply does not, in and of itself, automatically guarantee affordability. I am not opposed to supply. It is good but unless there are specific measures designed to ensure real affordability, one does not automatically follow the other. Helping people to buy overpriced homes — through increased access to credit, for example — is not helping people in the long run, certainly not those unable to obtain affordable homes. The Government's focus has to be on reducing the cost of the units at the purchase point through a range of measures. While some actions can be taken, the best way to achieve this is for the State to invest directly in the building and sale of homes on public land at affordable prices. This means that, for the family earning between €45,000 and €75,000 per year, houses must be available for sale between €170,000 and, at the very top end in Dublin, €260,000. If that can be achieved at the low interest rate provided by the Minister in his revised local authority mortgage scheme, all the better. This means local authorities need to have sites, targets and funding, not through the cumbersome land initiative scheme that is currently operating and over which there are many question marks.

Sinn Féin proposed in its alternative budget last year a number of funding mechanisms for affordable rental, building and sale that would, if implemented, deliver 4,500 units in the first year and potentially 9,000 in the second. Funding could come through from the Housing Finance Agency and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. I urge the Minister to consider targeting the Home Building Finance Ireland fund and the funds that will come through it specifically for small and medium-sized builders working with local authorities on council land to create affordable housing within the price range I have mentioned.

I also urge the Minister to stop insisting that the private sector can do this better and to empower local authorities to develop good quality, mixed-income, mixed-tenure estates on local authority land. I know the Minister is currently looking at that with respect to St. Michael's Estate and the Shanganagh project in Dún Laoghaire. I would welcome more progress in that regard, but many of us have increasing concerns about the projects in O'Devaney Gardens, Oscar Traynor Road and the Grange in my constituency in Clondalkin due to the way the models are structured, and that because of the involvement of the private sector there will be a low number or no genuinely affordable homes to rent or purchase. If that is the case, then the very guarded willingness Sinn Féin has had up to this point while waiting to see where the process goes will very quickly evaporate and we will not be able to support those plans.

The strategic development zones hold significant opportunities. I acknowledge the work the Minister and his Department did on the Poolbeg SDZ to ensure there was a higher level of affordable units involved in it. This week South Dublin County Council is finalising the Clonburris SDZ involving more than 8,000 homes with proper infrastructure and amenities if the plan is right but, crucially, we could have 2,000 social homes and 2,000 genuinely affordable homes within that SDZ if the Minister were to make the right kind of commitments.

With respect to rent, not only do we need to see the affordable rent model, which could equally be done through the local authorities and approved housing bodies on the scale that I have outlined, but we need real rent certainty. The rent pressure zones have not worked. They will not work in the future and we need to return to a real debate about linking rent reviews to an index such as the CPI.

I welcome the Labour Party amendment which is friendly and in the spirit of our motion and we will support it. However, I am not willing to accept what are essentially alternative motions from others, although I must say there is a huge degree of consistency between the Sinn Féin motion and the Solidarity-People Before Profit amendment. Taking aside a few targets there is not really much difference between them.

Unless the Minister starts to set real targets, invest real funds and have local authorities lead the delivery of a significant stream of social and affordable housing, the housing crisis will continue to get worse and those struggling, working families that desperately need affordable rental or purchase accommodation will once again be left out in the cold.

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