Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am a little underwhelmed by Deputy Bailey's speech, but she is right: she has her opinion, and everyone else has theirs. It does feel like Groundhog Day: we come in here nearly every week to discuss the issue of housing. However, it is a very important day for us to be here because two reports have been published in the past 24 hours.

The first was compiled by ALONE and makes the point that there were 15,883 people over 60 renting in the private sector last year. The number of older people is going to increase in the coming years. ALONE estimates that there will be 1.42 million pensioners in Ireland by 2031. It also makes the point that the average rent in Dublin is €1,277 per month. The contributory State pension is €1,032.63 per month. That says it all. Many people who are in work at the moment and renting will, when they are at a pensionable age, find it impossible to maintain that level of rent. Seán Moynihan stated yesterday that the Government's housing strategy, Rebuilding Ireland, did not recognise this. He stated that there seems to be an assumption within this plan and within the pension system that older people do not rent and do not have accommodation costs. This is a huge factor. We have recently seen individual instances where people have found themselves homeless. Homes were found for them but this is not the way we should be planning our housing policy.

We have seen the report today on the increase in the number of families and children that are homeless. There are 500 extra children this month who are homeless. That is an absolute scandal. How the Government can fail to call this a national emergency is beyond my understanding. We have pushed the Government on this issue over the past three or four years. It was not just yesterday or today that we knew this was happening. Four years ago, Deputies Durkan, Boyd Barrett, Catherine Murphy and I were all in here nearly every week outlining that we were seeing the initial signs of it in our constituency offices. The reason we are in such a bad situation did not come to the fore today or yesterday, either. The failure to invest in public and local authority housing for decades and a reliance on the private sector to deliver what should be a human right.

I heard Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy on "Morning Ireland" earlier today. She said that she has lost all confidence in the Government solving this issue. She made a very poignant point to the effect that an amazing amount of student accommodation has been built so quickly in the past two years, yet we are still talking about affordable housing. In the Dublin 8 area of my constituency, 3,500 student accommodation units have been built adjacent to Thomas Street in the past year. Where developers can make money, they are building. The second biggest type of construction in the area is hotels and the third is offices. No homes are being built. That is what people are getting frustrated about.

The Minister had a report in respect of the European Investment Bank. The programme for Government, which was published in 2016, makes reference to a European cost-rental model. We had been raising the matter over the previous two years. We are still waiting for action. I think the Minister is to get a report back in two or three weeks. However, the Housing Finance Agency has loads of money to give out. It went to Dublin City Council a year and a half ago and said, "We have the money, do you want it?" The council would not take it and said it was not in the business of housing at the moment. This is where the interventions should be. The Housing Finance Agency has the money. The credit unions offered money four years ago and we are still waiting for that process to go through. There is no will there. That is what is comes down to. We have student accommodation being built and loads of money is being made. We have hotels being built for tourists and families are living in them. In the meantime, residential homes are being rented out to tourists through Airbnb. The whole housing system has just gone absolutely mad.

The Minister is right that we need more supply, but it will not be provided by private developers. In 2006, the private sector produced a staggering 87,000 homes but prices still rose by 12%. This is going to happen again. I agree with others Deputies that we need social housing building programme on a massive scale. This would be a game changer in terms of reversing the current situation. We also need a public construction company and to encourage the young construction workers who had to leave this country eight years ago to return on the basis that if they help to build these homes they will be given one of them. Public housing should be available not only to those earning €33,000 per annum or less but to those earning €55,000 or €60,000 per annum. It should be available to workers in offices, the construction industry and the transport sector and so on because these people will never have an opportunity to buy a home owing to market conditions.

A couple of weeks ago, the Minister announced an increase in the affordable mortgage to €320,000. He also mentioned affordable rents but we have yet to see them. I agree with Deputy Eamon Ryan that what we need is not 50, 60 or 200 houses here and there but a major public housing programme that will be a game changer. We need public housing on public lands. We should not allow lands which are build-ready, such as St. Michael's Estate and other big pieces of land, to be handed over to private developers. What is happening is an absolute shame. I take exception to Deputy Bailey's point about calling people out onto the streets. I withdrew from the steering committee of the homeless and housing campaign because the Labour Party joined it. I could not sit in the same room with anyone from that party which, while in government for five years, introduced cuts and the housing assistance payment. I note there is nobody here from the Labour Party or on the Fine Gael backbenches. I would not sit in the same room with them. People should protest on this issue, as they did on the water charges issue. As a result of the huge numbers of people who marched on the water issue, the Government was forced to back down on it. In regard to bin charges, bin services should never have been privatised. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are responsible for the privatisation of bin services.

I never allowed anybody from our campaign to go into a court alone. Moreover, Deputy Boyd Barrett also did not allow anybody to go into a court on his or her own. I ask the Minister to call a national housing crisis emergency. I received a text from a person today stating that the Minister had done so earlier. It would be really good to hear him do that, as well as coming into the House with a programme of public housing that will be a game changer for people in this country and not a sop to people.

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