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

The motion contains some correct points about the scale of the housing crisis, the plight of renters and the under-utilisation of publicly-owned land. However, it also contains a glaring untruth and, in the final analysis, it is a retrograde policy. I will not be supporting the motion although I am not sure which way I will vote. The fifth point of the motion states: "the provision of new social housing, using differential rents, will not on its own address the housing crisis, as it will not affect rent and property price rises in the private sector." This is simply wrong. The fact of the matter is that if we now had a multiple of our current housing stock and the promise of significant public house building to come, demand for private rental would clearly decrease and be catered for publicly. This would not just directly benefit those on the housing allocations list but would also indirectly benefit those not entitled to apply for public housing, who would not find themselves competing with prospective tenants availing of the HAP.

The motion makes the case for a cost-rental model. However, it fails to venture an estimate of what people availing of this option might end up paying in rent. The Government's land initiative, which was announced in 2015, provided for pilot public private partnership, PPP, type development on local authority-owned land. On one of those sites, the Lawrence lands on Oscar Traynor Road, 20% of the privately owned units - if they are ever built - are to be rented on a cost recovery model. To date, no ballpark cost has been put in writing although figures like 80% of market rates have been bandied about at Dublin City Council meetings. This is clearly unacceptable. The motion makes cost the driver of rent. Cost is in turn a function of interest rates on the borrowings required to build homes. In this regard, the motion refers to low interest rates. However, global interest rates have been increasing steadily in recent months and look likely to continue to increase.

There is also an underlying assumption in the motion that the current eligibility limits for public housing remain in place. Why? It may seem counter-intuitive, given the size of the list and the long waiting times, but I put it to the Green Party Deputies that a better course of action couples a massive stepping up of public housing delivery with the raising of the eligibility criteria. With such a measure, we would achieve a number of things. Besides the obvious housing solutions, we would also help build communities with all strata of the working and middle class living together. If we maintained the differential rents, there would be a greater revenue stream for local authorities from the middle income earners eligible to avail of it. My colleague, Deputy Ruth Coppinger, in her minority report after her participation in the Committee on Housing and Homelessness, made the case for a progressive differential rent whereby the typical 10% to 15% of income level that existing tenants would apply, while a higher rate of around 20% could be levelled for those with higher incomes.

These measures, coupled with a real affordable housing policy, a ban on economic evictions and strict rent controls, are what is needed, not a policy that is really a Trojan horse for the undermining of public housing.

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