Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling its motion on the critical issue of affordable housing. We support the overall direction and thrust of its motion, but we have some additional points to make on what needs to be done with public land in terms of affordable housing. We also have what I would say are slightly more ambitious proposals about what needs to be done with regard to private development to increase the proportions of both social and affordable housing. I will expand on that. Our amendment takes on board most of the Sinn Féin motion but adds a number of points.

To the Government I would say that the broad thrust of our argument is that we must start off by recognising that the private sector is not in the business of producing not-for-profit housing. This is such a blindingly obvious point, but it is not taken on board in the policies of the two main parties. Let me repeat the point. Profit-based businesses do not do not-for-profit. That is not what they are designed for and plans to ramp up residential construction which overwhelmingly depend on the private sector will not deliver affordable and social housing in the quantities we need in order to deal with the crisis.

To cite an example, one of the biggest developments which will be built in the State is Cherrywood. It will be virtually a new town. I am going to keep talking about it because it is important. NAMA sold the lands to Hines for a song, which was disgraceful in and of itself. Now Hines is offering social housing built on land sold to it by the State back to the council. Does the Minister of State know what price Hines offered for the first tranche of 1,200 of what will be 8,000 units? This offer included a discount in light of social housing obligations under Part V. One-bedroom units were offered for €243,000, two-bedroom units for €358,000 and three-bedroom units for €442,000. That is at a discount on the market price. That offer comes to a total of €41 million.

Does the Minister of State see the point? The affordable mortgage scheme is useless to people who are trying to purchase houses that will be sold at that level. The local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, was initially proposed to deliver affordable housing. The original Government proposal - its promise - was that 40% of any LIHAF supported development would be affordable and that affordability in Dublin would mean less than €300,000. Within one month, because of lobbying from the likes of Hines, this proposal was abandoned. It is now gone. We do not know whether we will get any percentage of affordable housing in Cherrywood if affordable is to mean something that is actually affordable for people on average incomes. There is talk of as little as 2%. If one looks at the prices Hines is proposing for the Part V 10%, however, none of it will be affordable. We are giving these guys LIHAF funding and getting nothing back. This is ridiculous.

Our motion proposes that any LIHAF funding must at least guarantee that the Government's own original proposal of 40% of units being genuinely affordable to people on average incomes will be met. We are saying that the 10% given over in such developments under Part V is not enough. We need at least 20% social housing and at least 20% affordable housing on any private development of any description, because there is no point in building houses at those prices. It is worse than useless. Even if people can take out mortgages to pay those prices, they will be in debt for the rest of their lives and we will be facing into the madness that produced the last crash. We need genuinely affordable housing, not prices that are off the Richter scale in order to profit these guys.

Similarly, all NAMA sites should be used to build social and affordable housing. Let me underline that I said both social and affordable. Nothing on a NAMA site should be sold at those kinds of market prices. It would be madness for the State to do that. No Home Building Finance Ireland supported development should be sold at those prices. All of it should be linked to affordability. Any Ireland Strategic Investment Fund supported housing development should be linked to affordability. If it is not, what is the point in doing it? There is no point. If those caveats are not put in, the only beneficiaries will be the private developers. It will be useless in dealing with our problem.

We need a mix of social and affordable housing on public sites, but affordable housing cannot be a Trojan Horse for the privatisation of public sites. Therefore, there must be an absolute condition that mixed tenure should first of all mean that the thresholds for eligibility for council housing are raised so that anybody who cannot qualify under the current thresholds up to low and middle incomes should be allowed to go onto social housing lists. That is how we get real social mix. We have to remove the stigma from social housing so that not only those on the lowest incomes are allowed to apply. Social housing should be an option for everybody. That is how to get social mix.

For those who do want to purchase, however, if the house is developed on public land, there must be a council first buy-back provision. In other words, if the house is being sold at any time in the future, it must be sold back to the council and there should be no capital gain above and beyond normal inflation. If it was bought at a discount on public land, it should be sold back to the council at the same level. It should remain affordable forever or revert to being council housing. Otherwise, it becomes a Trojan Horse for the privatisation of public land and public housing and actually depletes the stock of public housing, which led us to the mess we are in now. That must not be allowed to happen again.

Will the Government please define affordability? What is affordable? If one is on €35,000 a year, what can one afford to borrow? One cannot afford to borrow the cost of anything available on the market in most of the major cities. Affordability must be linked to the real incomes of average earners who are not eligible for social housing. If those things are not done, this is all just waffle which will go nowhere and which will not deal with the crisis of affordability and the provision of social housing. Those are our proposals. I hope the Government will take them seriously.

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