Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill. It was announced in the budget last October and we are only on Second Stage now heading into the last week or so of this Dáil session. Even with everything going right it is unlikely it will have completed Committee Stage and Report and Final Stages in the Dáil by the time of the anniversary of the budget. That speaks volumes in that while we welcome the initiative to help address the current crisis, we need only reflect on the length of time it has taken to bring this Bill to the floor of the Dáil and the time it will take before it is passed. This Bill should be a priority. We have announcements made with great fanfare every week on how we will tackle the housing crisis. This was one of the announcements made to great fanfare and, nine months later, we are still looking at the Bill going through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The cynic in me would say there were three initiatives announced. An initiative was announced in the budget on the fair deal scheme for self-employed people. That has not seen the light of day. It was to come into effect in early January 2018. Changes were proposed on the consolidation of farmland. Deputy Michael McGrath sought changes to what was announced in the budget and that will now come into effect on 1 August. It has taken a long time for major decisions that have been made to be seen. This Bill is reflective of that.

I have read the various analyses of this Bill. A series of initiatives are needed to provide the amount of housing needed for our people in the next decade. We have to go back and examine the social housing aspect of it and the success of that, not only in providing housing units but the social integration of people also. There is reference to housing units in all the data produced but a holistic approach must be taken to that.

I have seen reports today that say housing stock or houses should not be sold off from the housing estates that were built in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. People brought ownership to those housing estates and they eventually aspired to buying the houses. Those people contributed enormously to that society and we cannot ghettoise people.

I am encouraged by one element of the Minster of State's speech, which is the unique feature to fund smaller developments outside of the main urban centres. This is fundamental to how we approach the housing crisis. My colleague, Deputy Michael McGrath, gave the current figures for building a three bedroom semi-detached house in Dublin. It is beyond the reach of even the higher than average earning families to buy and own a house at those prices and to tie themselves to 30, 35 or 40 years of commitment to that debt.

If the Minister of State's suggestion for small developments outside of major centres is a serious part of the legislation, if it is to be seen right through the legislation and encouraged after the legislation is enacted, and if the €750 million is put out there, we then have to ensure the development is right across the regions. For far too long we have seen the amount of people who are building on the east coast and in large urban centres. There are a whole series of initiatives and issues that need to be dealt with in this regard. All of the announcements and fanfare - I have looked at a fair few of them over the last 12 or 18 months - have been for huge urban centres. This piles more people and pressure onto urban Ireland and leaves the rural communities dying on their feet. It has to be accepted that this is happening. Fundamentally people are saying that this is not the case but the Opposition parties consistently raise the issues around rural communities and isolated communities in the context of Ireland powering ahead. Right across the regions small rural schools are struggling to maintain teachers and their communities. In the teeth of the housing crisis there has been the huge need for the various schemes and initiatives and I hope the other announcements that were made do not take so long to come to fruition.

Parts of Dublin and Limerick had huge housing crises in the 1950s and 1960s. Houses were built without any communities and without any integration. Society is continuing to pay an enormous price for that planning. We must make sure that whatever is done is sustainable, realistic and irreproachable.

The Bill states that the money cannot be used for land. This will constrain a lot of people from getting into the construction industry and in encouraging more people to access and use the fund. Although banks and others are putting money in, it is still not enough to tackle the crisis or the shortfall. Land cost, especially in urban centres and in Dublin and Cork, is a huge element in the cost of a unit. This must be looked at seriously if costs are to be tackled to ensure we have affordable houses.

The figure of €750 million is to be put out there. This Bill took nine months to get to Second Stage in the Dáil. There is a whole series of checks and balances as a Bill goes through the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is Committee Stage, Report and Final Stages, then back to the Seanad and perhaps back to this Chamber for further amendments. The Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, has said that money could be flowing through this initiative right through the latter part of this year. This is simply not practical. The initiative might be introduced but before people start to engage it needs to be properly set up and so on. I do not think it is realistic. If it was the case that the Bill had been brought in three or four weeks ago in June, and if there was an urgency about it to make sure it had gone through all the stages prior to the summer then the State may have been able to work through the initiative. I do not, however, believe that it is practical or possible to have any sense of using this to try to tackle the housing crisis before 2019, at the earliest.

The Bill provides for full accountability by the machinery of the Houses of the Oireachtas and the machinery of the State, and this is as it should be. It is vitally important, whatever legislation we pass, and especially in this regard. This generation of politicians will be judged on how we tackle the housing crisis and whether or not the response was properly planned and detailed to ensure a coherent solution for the housing units, for the people and families who will live in these units and for the setting up of a proper society. It is important that the machinery of the State is able to access it and that the citizen is assured the initiative and the money that will be put through it is put to good use to make sure every cent is properly used for affordable housing for the citizens of our State.

I thank the Minister of State for the opportunity, but a little urgency is needed on this and a whole raft of issues.

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