Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this matter. We can have all the statements, post mortems and debates in the world but the reality is that there is a serious problem with homelessness and a lack of housing. Unless we change once and for all, we are sort of tinkering at the edges. Unless we change certain things, we will be here next year and the year after talking about this. We need to work in a co-ordinated way. If any of us was a Minister today, we could not wave a magic wand and solve this overnight. We must be honest about that.

There are a few matters to be addressed. Builders currently get a good kicking in this house but they are paying up to 15% interest on building loans. They will pay a part of the profits and they will be screwed for bonds. The reality is that money is not attainable on that side of things. Whether people wan to believe that or not is up to themselves. It is what people on the ground know is happening. Deputy Boyd Barrett is correct that there are many sites throughout the country that are increasing artificially in value. They cannot be built upon. If we look at Sky News, Fox News or Euronews, we can see that Germans and people of every other nationality are looking at the shortage of houses in this country. They believe this is the investment they need. Deputy Boyd Barrett correctly stated that there are investment companies and vulture funds getting these people to invest money here. The bubble has not burst and will not burst because the investors do not know the facts. These sites have been bought at a price at which it is impossible to build houses because the builders would not get the price to cover construction. That fact must be faced up to. The investors will get a ferocious shock down the road.

We must be honest about this. If I was a Minister this minute, there is no magic wand I could use. We can kick a Minister and give out to him or her but we must change the system of delivery. We have all the planning in the world and we have introduced policies for the past ten years. I see policy document after policy document but ultimately it is about the blocks and mortar that build houses. It is not about talking. We have been here before debating provisions allowing people to live over shops, as that might free up accommodation for some people. We spoke about it and another Deputy educated me about it. There are certain provisions for disabled access, which I agree with, but not every place in an old building will be suitable in that way. Although we spoke about this in the Dáil a long time ago, not one council can sort this out without planning, which goes against the intention. Unless we start working on this, we will not solve the problem.

The Project Ireland 2040 plan indicates that we will have between 225,000 and 290,000 more people in Dublin. However, we cannot house the numbers that are there at the moment. Are we going to think outside the box and get a bit of regional development? Will we see incentives for tax-free areas or something like that to entice people to other parts of the country, including rural areas? They may want to go. Will we give them facilities, including transport, that might bring about a workable solution? It might not be for everyone but it will be for some.

There is another big problem coming down the line. I have spoke with members of the Construction Industry Federation and I have seen this day in and day out. I come from a construction background. I have driven diggers but one cannot get a digger driver in Ireland currently. I have spoken with Senator Ian Marshall and he tells me a machine driver will now go to England the minute he or she has a ticket for a job paying £27 per hour. We are in trouble. If we cannot dig out a site and prepare foundations, we cannot build a house. It is the same with the roads. We are living in a little fantasy world thinking that houses will appear from somewhere but we do not have the foundations we require in place.

We need to look at different ideas to entice people. Some people will criticise me for saying the following straight out. Now and again I see on the television people complaining about a house not being big enough. I grew up in a two-bedroom house from the day I was born and it did us for a while until I could build my own house. We had to do with it because we did not have the money to do any better. That must be said. We did not have all the luxuries. I slept in a room where my mother and father, God rest them, were for a certain length. It was the reality in parts of rural Ireland, where ten and 12 people lived in a house. We were all right as there were four of us. The girls were in one room but I was the lad so I had to go somewhere else. It must be said that it will not be all lovely for a while when people are in a position where they cannot provide for themselves.

We must start addressing the lack of house building. The State owns much land, including in the big cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick where there are major housing problems. We need a system where the land can be brought on board and there must be a delivery system. We can have all the plans and ideas but if there is no delivery system, we are stuck. We should face the fact that councils are not fit to deliver because the volume we need will not come from just tipping along and building a few units every year. We need a ferocious effort to be put in. When this is done, we must put in a certain amount for the gardaí, nurses and people on average wages and cannot afford homes. Unless we decide to help them as well as providing social housing, we will have a major problem.

It is grand to talk in here. Six months ago we discussed living over the shop, an idea I raised during talks to form the Government a long time ago. We are proceeding at a snail's pace, however, and somebody must wake and say this should be done in a week or two weeks. It should not be about passing it here or there and waiting a while for reams of paper with no delivery. Until we start doing things like that, we are going nowhere. We need to look at the broader picture and include transport as well. Driving from A to B, infrastructure is the problem. It is fine that every youngster wants to go to college but even if we have the most highly-educated people, if we want an office for Google, Facebook or anybody else in any city, we will need somebody to dig the road and put in the stone. We have a problem with quarries and the environmentalists do not want us to take out stone, although they want houses.

One plus one is amounting to four in that case and what they are talking about does not add up. The Department has gone down the road of making it hard for quarries to survive. They cannot survive. The small quarries are gone because of the way legislation is being designed. That means everything is dearer. It means that the likes of CRH can rule the world and that the prices of all the products are going up. The small operation is kicked around the place and is no longer feasible. There is no point in saying that the opposite is the case.

We need to go back to the basics. We need to ensure that we have the skills. Regardless of whether we like builders, the reality is that we need them. If we do not have people who are skilled in building, then we may end up solving one problem, that is, the money, but saddled with another, namely, that relating to sites and getting State land. The third problem is ensuring that we have people to build. At present, we have a major problem throughout the country. There are many investment funds. As Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out, the vultures are sitting on land. The land is at a price such that no one could afford to build a house on it. A person would need €500,000 for some of the houses once we include all that is needed. Who can afford that? Until these matters are addressed, the Department is in trouble.

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