Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am delighted to speak to this Bill. I have nothing personal against the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, but I would prefer to see a senior Minister in the Chamber, which would be the case if the Government was serious. I do not believe the Government is serious in any shape, make or form about dealing with the housing crisis. I raised on Leaders' Questions this morning the fact that there is an enormous number of vacant properties. If one had a car that was a bit shook and it was parked up and one had to invest hugely to buy a new one, one would get the mechanic to look at the car and get it into a fit state to pass the NCT and drive it away again. It should be simple to get vacant houses back onto the market given that they are built, the structure is there and the services are there. Many of them are on single sites but many others are not. In God's name I cannot understand why vacant houses have not been fixed. I must return to what my colleague, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, said. Will the Government come clean and stop the spin?

Does it have money or not? I am sick and tired of asking, cajoling and begging the Tipperary housing director and county manager to explain why houses are not being built. Eleven houses were built in Tipperary between 2012 and 2016. I earlier inadvertently stated that 11 had been built between 2011 and 2016. There are nearly 11,000 applicants in County Tipperary, more than 3,100 of whom have been approved. God knows how many homeless people there are in the county. Some people maintain there is no homeless problem in Tipperary but a homelessness clinic there each Wednesday is packed to the rafters. The Irish people are the victims of a major con job by the Departments, the Government, its friends in Europe and the whole cabal. I call it a cabal because there is no way the Government is serious about this problem when it is building nothing.

I am a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government. I compliment Deputy Ó Broin for his tireless work at the committee. I seldom attend its meetings because I am weary of reports, announcements, new schemes and new Ministers. There have been four housing Ministers since Fine Gael went into power seven years ago, three of whom were members of Fine Gael with the other being the brave and bold Tipperary man, AK47, Deputy Alan Kelly. All he built were castles in the sky. He did not build a henhouse or a dog shed.

What is wrong in the Department? I am vice chairperson of a voluntary organisation made up of ordinary people which was able to build a scheme of 14 houses over an 18-month period some years ago and more thereafter. Many voluntary groups across the country are building houses. The system became so bureaucratic and ruled by officialdom that one had to apply to seven sections of the Department which were located in seven different areas of the country. When we pleaded our case, the Fianna Fáil Minister at the time decided the system was ridiculous and could be streamlined such that only one application had to be made. That worked tremendously well but one now has to once more make multiple applications. Perhaps too many people in the Department had no work to do. It is once more again a cumbersome process involving three, four or five sections. A huge amount of paperwork to the Department by county councils. The council has to wait six months for a reply and the reply then requests X, Y and Z and takes another five or six months to go back up the line. It is time wasting, which is disgusting in the context of people having to sleep on streets or in cars or hotels.

Where is the moral compass of the Ministers and the officials? Sadly, they do not have one. The terror, trauma and illness experienced by people who are homeless or frightened of being made homeless is unbearable and causing havoc in society. It will wreak havoc for decades to come and have far-reaching consequences but the ineptitude of the Government in tackling the problem is obvious. If the Government told us it does not have the money to tackle it, I would not be saying this to the Minister of State.

Our masters are in Europe. One of them was here two weeks ago and told us he was on our side and in our corner. Where was he when we wanted him when the banking system collapsed? The Minister of State gave figures for the amount of money invested in building. Those were Ponzi schemes involving big developers. It was crazy. However, no heed was taken of it by anyone in the Department, Government or European Central Bank, ECB, and no one stopped it. What happened when our banks ran dry? Our so-called friends in Europe and their banks had bulldozed money into the country. However, the bondholders were all protected. What happened when the you know what hit the fan? The bonds were not even drawn down. They are laughing all the way to the bank. The Government was saddled with the debt. I was a Deputy at the time and I accept responsibility for that. The Irish people were placed in penury. Our friends in Europe charged us almost 6% interest rates on the so-called bailout, which I voted against. I voted for the bank guarantee and that is the biggest political mistake I have ever made but I did so on the basis of phony figures and threats to the Minister for Finance. However, there was no businessman in the Government to have the cop-on to tell the ECB to get lost and that we were in trouble. They bailed us out but they still screwed us. The IMF, which was not a close friend of ours, lent us money at 3% interest but our friends in Europe who caused the crash by overheating the economy and shovelling money into the country then left us high and dry. There is much soul searching to be done about the history of the housing crisis.

Hundreds of small builders and small developers are ready, willing and able to build houses. They may be a one, two, three or four person operation with a spouse doing the books and may be a family business. The Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy mentioned that the equity is too high. I agree with him in that regard. Those builders cannot afford to build and need support. I welcome this fund. I welcome the €750 million which the Minister of State indicated would be provided. I welcome that this initiative is being launched. However, if it is going to be like the countless other initiatives announced in the past seven years, it is a shame to have cut down trees to make the paper on which it is printed. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy, recently admitted that the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme and the other schemes have utterly failed. Nine of 780 applications have been granted. What is going on in this little State? I could say the state of Denmark.

The county councils deny that they have enough money to spend on building houses. I acknowledge that the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, is not responsible for housing. However, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy, should summon Mr. Joe McGrath, the chief executive of Tipperary County Council, and Ms Sinead Carr, its director of services, and representatives of every other local authority to discuss the matter with their local Deputies. We are told by the Government that bus loads of money are being sent to county councils but the councils tell us they do not even have enough to refurbish vacant homes. Who is codding who? There are three groups involved, namely, the council, the Government and those of us who are lucky enough to be elected representatives for the time being. We must be accountable to the people. It should not be rocket science. The council representatives should be brought into a room with the five Deputies who represent Tipperary and asked what is going on. It is not rocket science.

Houses were built in Tipperary and every other county between the 1940s and the 2000s. In the earlier years there were no cranes, big machines, computerised equipment, ready mix concrete or anything else. Concrete was mixed by shovel. The houses were built of blocks which, in some cases, the builders made themselves. The houses were built to house our people. It is the responsibility of a Government to fulfil the noble objective that every family should have a roof over its head. It is in our Constitution. The problem now is that we are unable, inept or do not care. Either the Government does not have the money or it does not care. That is a sad thing for me to say because most politicians I know go into politics to try to help people and their communities and better people's lives. However, there is something rotten and stinking at the root of this which is beyond my comprehension and that of many others.

We need the media to wake up. Elaine Loughlin and other journalists in the Irish Examiner have reported on the blunder and bluff of the Minister, Deputy Murphy, and his being found out and possibly putting his hands up. Such events must be exposed because the Government is getting away with murder. The Taoiseach flies around the world so much that one would be forgiven for thinking he is Lord Haw-Haw. He is a great man for meeting other leaders. Ireland is booming. The first thing one sees when one walks out the gate of Leinster House is cranes and building sites. However, the cranes are all building offices and the people who will work in those offices will not be able to get a place to stay. People are being asked to pay €300 a night for a hotel bed in Dublin. It is outrageous, as it was in the boom times. The cranes are up but they are not building houses. Do people and families matter? If they do not, it is a sad day for Ireland. That would have sad long-term consequences and is totally unacceptable.

As I said at the talks on the formation of a Government, which the Minister of State may have attended, and at other times, there are a few simple things which could be done without the need for a big Ponzi scheme involving €750 million, a fancy acronym, glossy documents and another big announcement to get the media writing about it. The VAT rate could be changed. I asked Deputy Michael Noonan, the former Minister for Finance, at those talks to drop the VAT rate in order to get small builders building. It should also be dropped for vacant shops. I have proposed that any shop closed for ten years or more should automatically be granted change of use permission in order to encourage investment in those areas.

I suggested that we house the people which would give the economy a boost, but we could not do that. The law provides that we can only have three rates of VAT and we cannot have another one. The Deputy mentioned the developers and the builders, that they are a dirty crowd and not to be trusted. There is a big different between a big developer and a small builder. The small builders are the backbone of our economy, but we could not do that. He said that would not work. I told him the answer was simple. Give the valued added tax, VAT, back to the person who is investing, the couple who want to be rehoused, the family who want to return to live in a town centre or the person who wants to develop a vacant shop and let it to families. It is a no-brainer, but that could not be done either. The Government does not want to do it. It can talk to the big boys in the construction industry and listen to them. It can talk to the Irish Hotels Federation and do it for its members in Dublin. I believe that should be changed, not in the country but in Dublin because of the prices hotels are charging. People cannot get a room because they are all full. If there is a will there is a way but I am worried the Government does not have the will.

Outstanding loans to land developments totalled €64 billion in 2008 across the mix of main retail banks. I am sure they did. That comprised 15% of their total funding. By the middle of last year, that figure had reduced to €2 billion or 1% of their total spending. How did that happen? It did not happen with support from our European Union friends. It happened with the blood, sweat and torture of ordinary families and business people who have been dragged before the courts without any support and evicted from their homes. We complained about Cromwell but what is happening here now is much worse. That is how it happened. It did not happen under serious management restructuring. The Government helped some people through the cutbacks but families are being terrorised. There is a lack of support for them in terms of free legal aid. If someone commits 102 criminal offences, he can get free legal aid on 102 occasions yet there is a woman in jail tonight because she will not purge her contempt. She has been evicted from her home and she cannot get free legal aid. There is something rotten in this sordid mess.

The terrorising of people is continuing. A very good personal friend of mine has been terrorised by AIB. He is a proud businessman from my area and he is very sick in hospital as we speak as a result of stress. Deputy John McGuinness is interceding with AIB to see if it can do something for him. The way the banks are treating people is disgusting. They will not engage with him and are treating him with contempt. Every time he tried to engage with AIB he spoke to a different manager, a duine eile, because they want to get these ready for vulture funds. The Government wants a vulture fund culture to nurture them. It will nurture them alright. There is a hosepipe ban in Dublin but if they needed watering to simulate them, it would allow them to be watered instead of flushing them out of this country back to where they belong. They are nothing short of marauding terrorists and scumbags. They have no business in this country. They are here to make a quick buck. As the former Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, stated at one time, they pick the skeletal remains.

If the Government wants to get building going it should support the small builders. Equity of up to 35% was needed. If it is taken out of this fund, it will bring it down to 20%. It should be brought down to less than that for small builders, not for big developers. It should be for small schemes of five, six, ten or 20 units.

The Minister of State talked about fast-track planning. As I understand it, under fast-track planning the applications would go straight to An Bord Pleanála for big developments. That is not the way to go. Little acorns grow into big trees. We should have small developments in small villages in rural areas and allow the small builders to get going. They will work. They will employ people locally. They will buy the materials they require locally and, above all, they will pay all their creditors and give students a chance to work during the summer to earn their way through college, which will take pressure off their families.

There are too many regulations. We hear that big is wonderful. We do not want anything small. No messing with daoine beaga. That is where we must start. Tús maith, leath na h-oibre. We will get going because they are ready and able, and they have the wherewithal. Many of them were beaten down because when the economic crash came, they were the only people who got nothing. Thankfully, most of the people working in a trade and PAYE workers got supports. The self-employed got nothing.

The Minister of State is failing to deal with the banks. He is talking about extra funding, some from our pillar banks and some borrowed from other funds. Our pillar banks are not functioning. They are not interested in Rebuilding Ireland. They are interested in getting their balance sheets down from 15% to 1%, and they have done that at enormous cost and trauma to families and individuals, who have been traumatised. I refer to the Minister of State's county also where I went to try to represent small farmers and business people. They are using a third force militia. We saw what happened in Balbriggan. Former British Army personnel arrived wearing balaclavas and knuckle dusters and beat the living daylights out of a family, and the gardaí stood and watched them do that. They parked their vehicles in Balbriggan Garda station. For what did the men of 1916 die? Where is our autonomy? These people are not wanted here. They are a third force. We have an excellent Garda Síochána and an excellent Army. We do not need a third force of these militia thugs. They wanted blood money and they charge an enormous amount.

I refer to the racket going on with the sheriffs and the county registrars, and the gravy train for barristers. It is disgusting and offensive to the Irish nation and our people, and the Minister of State's Government is presiding over that. It has been in power seven years and it will not change it. It now comes out with this Ponzi scheme and it knows the banks will not listen to anyone. They just want their pound of flesh and the pound behind that. If they go to the bone they will take the bone as well, like the many people who took their own lives because of the behaviour of the banks. Many families have been terrorised. I saw a picture on Facebook yesterday - I am sure everyone saw it - of a child sitting at the tombstone of his dad who had taken his own life because of pressure from the banks. Have we any moral compass? Do we not have any bit of decency left in us that we allow that to still go on seven years later? How can we talk about the economic boom, full employment and the great young country we have when we treat our citizens, our homeless and our children in that way? Where is the moral compass? It must be in the Minister of State's shoes. When he put them on it probably fell through them and down the drain because he does not have it.

I know of at least ten families who have the wherewithal to do this. They are farmers' sons and daughters who have jobs, a wife or husband or who are about to be married. They can get the loan from the bank and they have the site but they cannot get planning permission. Under the 2040 plan, building will be restricted to a certain number of houses in each county. The Government is saying that if they are not built in the towns, they cannot be built at all. That is nonsense. These people want to build. They will get the economy recovering in rural areas if they could do that because they would generate some growth, but the Government will not give them planning permission. They have to have a certain number of hectares now and be farming. It cannot be given to a nephew, a sister or some other relative. That is intruding on the freedom of our young people who are our future. We should be investing in them and supporting them. Students are being fleeced here in Dublin and in other cities when they look for college accommodation.

The Minister is talking about big developments. We should support the ordinary small business people who are the backbone of this country. I refer to small shopkeepers, small farmers and small self-employed people. They keep the economy going and always did, not the big schemes and all the figures the Minister of State quoted. It is also aspirational. There is not one concrete deadline to be met. I have no doubt that in a year or five years from now, if we are here, this will be seen as a failure because it is cloud cuckoo land. The Government believes it is wonderful and that it will raise all boats. It should start on the ground, deal with the simple issues and try to put the 4,500 vacant houses back into use. That would get activity going again. This is not rocket science. The houses are available, as are the services. The Minister of State should go back to basics and start where he should have started.

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