Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This debate was called to discuss affordable housing. The crisis is all-encompassing and involves all strands of housing, including social housing, affordable housing to rent or purchase, the private construction sector and the rental sector. In the five minutes allocated to me I will not solve the crisis considering that Fine Gael, which has been in office for many years, including the past five years, has struggled, grappled and failed to address this issue in the way in which one would have hoped. This week's homeless figures are very disappointing, frustrating and disastrous. Record numbers of families and children are in emergency accommodation and no amount of spin will deviate from those stark problems and damning statistics.

When facilitating the formation of the Government we did not specifically state exactly what had to be done. However, after three years in office, having facilitated three budgets and allowed for the sort of pro rataspending on taxation and expenditure which was required we expected that the Government would have been able to, as the agreement stated, substantially increase the provision of social housing in the State. I am afraid that to date the Government has not done that.

The Government stated it would introduce a State affordable housing scheme to counteract the one which was done away with in 2012. We have yet to see that. The Minister mentioned some ongoing schemes, but there is no State-led template - which could be used across the country - which one could buy into or for which specific funding has been allocated. As great as the problem is in Dublin and other cities, this problem is every bit as problematic in rural constituencies throughout the country.

A commitment was given to take away the barriers to construction. The main barrier is cost. There has been some tinkering around the edges there, but unfortunately nothing like what was needed to address the issue.

If I were asked to summarise how Fine Gael, in terms of being in government and leading the Government, has dealt with the issue I would acknowledge that a wide process of consultation took place on the formation of the Government. All stakeholders and representatives of all parties and none, through the all-party committee which was set up when the Dáil was initially convened, fed into the process. At the time we said there were many credible pronouncements within that, but it was always going to be about implementation.

Fine Gael's approach has lacked urgency. It has been painstakingly slow and cumbersome in the way in which it goes about making changes. As I said, it has tinkered rather than grappled with the issue in the manner in which it should. It has been protracted and nervous. There has been a fear of interference in the marketplace. The marketplace in respect of housing is totally distorted and needs extraordinary interference. It could still respond to such interference.

At different times in its history the Dáil has met with huge crises and deliberated overnight on occasion to deal with issues such as the banking crisis, the crash and the introduction of extra budgets to bring about the sorts of expenditure savings which were needed to stabilise the economy before building upon it.

People looking in have not seen that same level of urgency on the part of Government, nor have they seen it seek the commitment of Opposition parties to address this matter in such a way that this could be done across the board rather than in the slow, painstaking manner in which it has been done.

Regarding affordability, I met Technology Ireland recently, an association within IBEC, and one company said - this was one of many examples - that its Irish workforce has grown by 30% in recent years but that its workforce in Poland has increased by 50%. It could have grown to a far greater extent here had we been in a position to make available residences at affordable prices, but we do not have any. I heard the Minister of State, Deputy English, say that we could do damage to our potential by talking up the housing crisis. Hearing these figures repeated regularly, we are doing damage to our society. Funding levels are 25% below what they were in 2008, despite the protestations of the Minister and others when they say funding is not issue. If funding levels are 25% below pre-crash levels, where should they be? No agency has been put in place to drive development of State lands. The Government moved a little towards this in its 2040 document, in which it refers to a regeneration agency. That should be in place and should have a much broader spectrum than that. I talked about a repurposed NAMA that could have at its disposal State funds and private funds that could drive that delivery.

Regarding affordable units, there should be reduced charges in respect of costs, more RPZs and increased housing assistance payments in the short term. Landlords should be rewarded for quality of tenure improvements in order to improve the assurances given to tenants about length of tenure and so forth. There should be a one-stop shop for the certification process for local authorities in respect of the renovation of existing buildings. There should be NCT-style systems for local authorities-----

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