Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will share my time as agreed with my colleagues, Deputy MacSharry and Deputy Curran. I will do my best not to eat into their time. I welcome the Bill that Deputy Jan O'Sullivan has brought forward, the Bill we debated yesterday on student rents, and the Bill that Fianna Fáil published a couple of weeks ago in this regard. I know the Minister has to leave for the April report on homeless figures, which is important. There is one thing which we will discuss. Larger, institutional landlords do not necessarily mean longer leases. I agree that we need another mix within the market. That can happen. I have seen it work in other countries because pension funds are investing and want longer-term steady yields. Some of the investors coming into this market are not necessarily offering longer-term leases. I would agree wholeheartedly with incentivisation of longer-term leases. That can be done by way of certain tax measures if needs be. That will provide security of tenure. I know the Minister has to go. This will be on the record of the House.

To deal with the Labour Bill itself, the extension of rent pressure zones, RPZs, is required now. The review that the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, alluded to, which came to the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government on 17 May 2018, just earlier this month, was in with a pile of other documents when we were trying to review Rebuilding Ireland. As part of the review of Rebuilding Ireland, which in itself is a monster of a document to get through, was a discussion document of the options for RPZs. I would fully support a review of RPZs. That was refused when the original legislation came in. We requested it and we need to look at it. Deputy O'Sullivan specifically mentioned the issue of Limerick. There are other cities and larger towns which have suffered.

We know that the market is broken. I looked at the quarter 4 report from the Residential Tenancies Board. The average rent in Dublin is €1,511 per month. The average rent outside Dublin is €1,103 per month. The vast majority of people becoming homeless are those coming out of the private rental sector. It is not working and Government measures are not working. Tenants' rights need to be strengthened and there needs to be better security of tenure.

The Minister, Deputy Murphy, said it was academic as to who produced houses and whether it was a turnkey or a local authority. I will put some figures on record. There is nothing academic about these. If I look through local authority figures from last year, Rebuilding Ireland's own figures say 780 social houses were built. There were not. Some 394 were built by local authorities and 386 were purchased which were turnkey. Turnkey is not just, as the Minister said, a little misleadingly, effectively council projects that they had initiated. That is not true. I know of turnkey properties in Fingal that have been purchased that were going out on the private market. The State is competing in a shrunken market. The couple or individual who is also working or trying to buy a house is competing with the State and the local authority because we are not building houses. The Minister, Deputy Murphy, may answer this when he looks at the transcripts.

There are 3,385 people on the housing list in Clare with no local authority builds or turnkeys in 2017. In Leitrim, there are 420 people on the housing list and zero builds. In Laois, there are 1,336 people on the list and zero builds. There are zero in Monaghan, Offaly and South Dublin, where there are 7,552 people, and not one house has been built or bought. Someone needs to talk to the chief executive there. Someone in the Custom House needs to pick up the phone. There are zero in Wicklow, with 2,749 people on the housing list. Fingal, my own local authority area, tops the charts for builds, with 83. That is the height of our ambition. There were 16 purchased turnkeys. That is 99 units. Cork has the best output but there are nearly 7,500 people on the list. I would nearly dispute that figure because it is higher than that. There is overdependence on housing assistance payment, HAP, as a measure to say that people are housed. HAP is not secure. The transfer from the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to HAP has been problematic. We need to get our act together with the rental market and delivery of social and affordable homes.

I want to talk about the use of State lands. We have all heard about the Glass Bottle site, Oscar Traynor, all the famous sites, and O'Devaney Gardens where the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, went and announced that this would happen and nothing is happening. The State controls 3,008 ha of land. Some 1,317 of those hectares are controlled by the local authorities and nothing is happening on them.

We have the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, which has accessed some land in Donabate where we want a housing mix. There is a mix. I heard Deputy Brendan Ryan referring to a change in Government policy in 2014 and 2015. Looking at the delivery of social houses in 2014 and 2015, I would not be championing those as delivery of social houses either. We have failed in that regard too. Without an affordable housing scheme, we will not be able to move on.

The Minister said at committee that he would sign the commencement of the affordable housing scheme, which was the old scheme that the previous Labour Party-Fine Gael Government stopped in 2012. He was going to sign that back in and bring in regulations behind it. That would be a start. He said that two weeks ago, on 17 May. When will that happen? Across the House, in government, in opposition and in all parties, we want to work in a constructive way to see real improvements locally. The Labour Bill is helpful. The Sinn Féin Bill last night was helpful. Our own Fianna Fáil Bill was helpful. Instead of Government just saying it will accept this on Second Stage, we need to produce the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill and bring in amendments to put effect to certain aspects of these Bills. As I said last night, if that is not done, we will table amendments to the Bill ourselves and, as an Opposition, I believe we can work in a unified way to make sure that those amendments come into law.

See this speech in context