Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is the sixth or seventh opportunity I have had to speak on housing related matters in as many months. I welcome the Labour Party Private Members’ Bill, and Sinn Féin’s Bill from last night. We will do all we can to try to progress them.

I agree very much with my colleague, Deputy Curran, that when it comes to the crisis we are all tinkering around the edges. There is a major supply problem that could help address many of the issues yet we still uphold a process that is duplicative, cumbersome and too lengthy. We have a lead-in time for local authority housing of between three and six years, and 18 months to three years in the private sector. We need both if we are to deal with the crisis.

Given that we have architects, engineers, planners and experts in sanitary services in each of the 31 local authorities, the local authorities own the land and the Department says it has the money, why does it not give the money to the local authorities to design and build houses? Deputy Darragh O'Brien has alluded to the amount of land in State and local authority control throughout the country. Why does the process have to go to Dublin, back to Sligo, back to Dublin, down to the building unit in Ballina, back to Dublin and back down for more planners, architects and engineers to all do the same job? It is unnecessary. We have the expertise in local authorities in terms of planners, engineers and architects and if we need more then let us get them. Let them do the job. The building regulations are in place and the standards are set out. If there is need for further oversight in terms of enforcement then that should be put in place, but let us get on with making less complicated what is a very simple process. That is what needs to be done. Otherwise, we are fighting fire with a bucket instead of a hose and it will keep getting bigger. I do not understand why the Minister does not do that.

In a previous debate I brought in what is ironically described as the Department's "streamlined" process for building local authority houses. It is a significant volume, which is unnecessary. Either people can do the job in local authorities or they cannot. If they cannot, then we must examine the reason for that. The local authorities own the land so let them build houses and get on with it. We could have a national oversight or enforcement section that could travel around and check that standards are being upheld.

On the private sector side, one of the fall-outs of the crash is that an awful lot of builders with expertise are now subservient, initially to NAMA and banks, and now to vulture funds. They cannot get money for development finance. While the banks will not say it on the record, they say off the record that they do not want to lend any money in tertiary areas. Tertiary areas are effectively the entire country outside Dublin, Galway and a couple of other cities. The banks will not lend and developers cannot get money. Developers must have a minimum of 50% of the overall requirement. Most parties, certainly Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, had references in manifestos to setting up a development finance bank. It was done well in the past in terms of agricultural credit from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, ACC, and the Industrial Credit Corporation, ICC, which supported industry and commercial activity. That needs to be done again. We need 30 good underwriters, X amount of money and to start getting money out there to people who have the expertise and want to build because they can do it quicker than we can do it ourselves. In local authorities it takes between three and six years to build houses. We must get on with the job.

Boarded-up units around the country are an important issue. In Dublin alone there are 900 properties that have been boarded up for more than ten years, and one can add however many more to that number. The situation is replicated in every town and village in the country. We must do up those properties and get people living in them.

I read somewhere that from a retail perspective we have enough retail space in Ireland for 15 million people. Obviously, we do not have that number of people. We were possibly able to support that under a false pretence during the boom based on credit. We have a significant amount of retail space. In the north west, for example, the high streets in towns in the areas I represent are full of empty units. Let us incentivise the owners of such properties to provide for people to live over those units or even to live in some of the units which could be converted from shops to dwellings.

That would support existing retailers and would bring life back into towns and villages throughout the country. The Department should consider incentives to make it attractive to people to live in an urban setting. It could consider measures like providing free broadband or reducing refuse and other service charges. In terms of the elderly, the Government should consider incentivising the building of units which have 24 hour concierge services attached, for example. These are just some suggestions but if the Minister was only going to make one change, I ask him to tear up the streamlined process for local authority house building and do simply what ultimately is simple to do.

See this speech in context