Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I too commend Solidarity-People Before Profit on bringing forward this motion, which is well drafted and contains a lot of interesting detail. The Labour Party supports the motion. Almost every week when debating Private Members' motions, I and others have mentioned the land in State ownership on which social and affordable houses could be built immediately . I have often mentioned that there are over 700 sites in public ownership. The motion states that there are 1,317 hectares of zoned residential land with a capacity for 48,724 dwellings. As we speak, Government policy is to use most of that land for private development for private profit. Only a fraction of these sites are to be used for social and affordable housing. There is a fundamental difference between the policy of Government in regard to this valuable land in State ownership and the views of members on this side of the House. As we speak, these sites are being parcelled out for profit.

We have heard previously from the Minister that this is about mixed tenure. Social and affordable housing is mixed tenure. People who are buying or renting affordable homes are people who have jobs but earning low to middle incomes, which is valuable mixed tenure. We need to provide homes for those people who are being priced out of the purchase market, because they cannot afford deposits or obtain mortgages, and rental market, as a result of rent hikes. It is urgent that the Minister listens to what people have to say and also that this particular part of the motion becomes public policy.

Many of us were at the meeting earlier with the representatives of St. Michael's Estate who are arguing for a piece of land in their area to be utilised in this way. What is happening is a shame. The owners of the private sites are sitting on them waiting for them to rise in value so they can make more profit at a later stage and at the same time jumping into the publicly owned sites to make profit right now. This is unacceptable. The Government needs to address land hoarding via the types of measures many of us have put forward. The Labour Party has specifically argued for implementation of the Kenny report, which would deter land hoarding, and for the vacant sites levy to be brought forward and increased. It is wrong that public land is being used for private profit while at the time those who own private land are sitting on it. In my opinion, this is the most important issue.

Others have spoken about the need for measures in regard to vacant homes, of which there are approximately 183,000. I recently tabled some parliamentary questions on the number of vacant home officers that are in place in local authorities. As I understand it, the staff engaged in this work also perform other duties within the council. In other words, vacant home officers are staff already working in the housing section of the council who are assigned this work on top of other duties. What is proposed in the motion, which I support, is the appointment of staff whose specific job it would be to identify vacant homes in their electoral areas, to find out the reason they are vacant and to go after them by applying, if necessary, a vacant homes tax or utilising compulsory purchase orders. This has been working well in Britain. There are models that are effective. It is a sop to the idea of vacant homes officers that we are giving this duty to staff in local authorities who are already overburdened with work. There are many vacant homes. The voids scheme, which I commenced during my time as Minister, is delivering local authority vacant homes. Given the scale of the current housing problem, we now need to take ownership of privately-owned vacant homes so that people can live in them.

Others mentioned rent increases. As I have mentioned previously, Limerick is outside the rent pressure zone, as, I think, is the area represented by the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, yet there was a 10% increase in rents in Limerick last year, which is much higher than the average increase nationally. Earlier this week, the issue of amending the Residential Tenancies Board legislation with a view to broadening out rent pressure zones to areas smaller than local electoral areas was discussed by the relevant committee. The current provision is unfair in a situation whereby a local electoral area includes rural as well as suburban areas. In this situation, the suburban area where people are paying above the national average is deemed a rent pressure zone but the entire area is not. I plead with the Minister examine this when reviewing the rent pressure zones.

The Labour Party has advocated for a change to NAMA's mandate, which I am sure will require legislative change. I was in the House when the NAMA legislation was brought forward by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government. I remember a former Minister of State, Ciarán Cuffe, speaking on it and saying that NAMA also had a social mandate. NAMA's economic mandate has superseded its social mandate and the only way to change this is to change the legislation and give it a stronger social mandate. The economic problem it was designed to solve is pretty much, in economic terms, solved but the social problem is not and this needs to be addressed.

Local authorities in Dublin cannot afford to buy Part V homes because, at the market rate less a set percentage, the cost is too high. The proposal that the transfer of land would be preferable to the transfer of homes is an interesting one. In that situation, the council presumably could build cheaper on the land. It is worth looking at. Currently, when developers transfer houses they tend to transfer a small corner of a development such that it is easy to distinguish between social and private houses. I would not like to worsen that situation because it would be even more obvious which are the social houses and which are the private houses. Ideally, under Part V the social houses should be spread throughout developments but the reality is that they are not. There is a real problem with the cost of Part V housing. I recently met some Labour Party councillors from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown who gave me costings for social housing in the area, which was more than what it would have cost the council to build on its own land. This problem is well identified in the motion.

I again commend Solidarity-People Before Profit on bringing forward the motion. I hope the response will be positive. We have all been critical of the Minister, and rightly so. What we want is a positive response to what we are proposing in good faith. I hope our comments will be listened to in a genuine manner and taken on board by Government.

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