Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Instead, what we are hearing from the Government is that it wants to build social housing and carry out some pilot cost-rental projects at a small scale before doing what we require. Nobody is saying cost-rental housing is not a good idea. Everyone I have heard in this debate has said it is. Therefore, the difference of opinion concerns the sense of scale and urgency.

In response to Deputies Barry, Boyd Barrett and others, I agree we need social housing. It will help in lowering rents if we build it at scale, change the terms of entry and do as suggested but it is not enough on its own. We need to complement social housing with cost-rental housing because, rather than undermining the public housing approach, about which Deputy Barry is concerned, it actually makes the case for public housing. It makes the case for more mixed development and a different way of doing things.

We need to proceed quickly, for a number of reasons. The first is the scale of the crisis. Second, there will be no access to cheap money relatively soon. Therefore, we need to get in there, think big and be quick. If we proceed by testing pilot projects, it will take us five, six or seven years because the State works slowly. Lord knows what the interest rates will be. Now is the time to obtain long-term cheap money. Now is the time to proceed quickly and at scale.

I listened very much with respect to Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. She is absolutely correct that the Guinness site is a perfect location. There are other locations also. The Guinness site is not as big as the two we picked. I very much appreciate Sinn Féin's recognition that this is now the time to be talking about specific sites. If we are to proceed quickly and at scale, we should not avoid the debate and we should address the hard issues. There are hard issues associated with moving around State agencies. If we do not proceed now and if we just carry out a small pilot project and talk to the EIB for another few months before thinking about what we might do, we will not be addressing the crisis with the urgency required.

There are other sites. Deputy Catherine Martin mentioned the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, which is a perfect location. I would also cite Dublin port. Perhaps I am thinking of it because it is the area I am particularly knowledgeable about. The docks area in Cork also jumps out to me as an area where there could be development at scale. We need to go to the centre, however. If the national planning framework is to be real, we must then pick central sites in our cities. The Limerick one had the benefit of being central. We pushed very much for the use of the RTÉ site. I am glad it is being developed. I wish it had been developed as a cost-rental site rather than a very expensive private development. I am very glad that the Irish Glass Bottle site is to be used. Before the last election, one of our main campaign planks was based on the use of the site. I regret that the level of social and affordable housing is far too low at the site but I am glad it is being developed.

I would examine whether the entire Dublin Industrial Estate, which is beside the new Luas line, could be used for housing. It is complicated because of various ownership issues. We need to be debating here and now where specifically we are going to build. Thus, when talking to the EIB we will not be talking about just one project but about five, six or seven, with 5,000 to 10,000 units, thereby bringing the price down substantially and changing radically the sense of housing in the country and the market. The houses would be in the market and bring down the market price. This would be in addition to what we do through social housing.

This is, however, a targeted intervention to what is now the worst part of the market for those in the private rented sector. It is not good enough for the Government to say it is doing pilot projects or is talking to the European Investment Bank. We should be talking about sites here and now. It is difficult but it needs to be done.

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