Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a few points about the Home Building Finance Ireland Bill. This is a market-based policy aimed at fixing a housing crisis which was caused by the market in the first place. It aims to route more public resources to private developers who have failed to invest during the greatest housing crisis the State has ever seen. The Bill aims to finance developers to whom, in many cases, banks will not lend at the moment. The Bill provides for a better deal for developers than that currently offered to them by the banks. Why else would they use the proposed new lending system? In this sense the Bill aims to nationalise risk. It would be far better to use the €750 million which the Bill provides for loans to developers for direct State-led investment on public lands. In this way, social and genuinely affordable housing can be delivered.

Just a few days ago, property developer Cairn reported its 2018 half-year results. The report showed that Cairn owns zoned landbanks suitable for more than 14,000 homes. Some 95% of these are in or close to Dublin. It completed just 399 homes up to September 2018, which represents less than 3% of its zoned home capacity. In its report it stated "housing market conditions remain very positive". What better illustrates the fact that the housing crisis benefits the wealthy few at the expense of the many than that particular quote? Cairn also tells shareholders that the shortfall in new homes required during the past five years was more than 100,000 homes and that a large shortfall is expected to remain for many years. This is good news for Cairn, which says that it expects to achieve average new home sale prices of €428,000 in 2018-2019, far above what is affordable for most people. It is no surprise, therefore, that Cairn reported a sevenfold increase in profits to €18.1 million in the first half of 2018. The total assets it owns are now worth €1 billion.

Developers like this are brimming with confidence. They are allowed to continue hoarding land and drip-feeding the supply of new homes to make sure that prices and profits keep rising and that the crisis keeps going. The Home Building Finance Ireland Bill will achieve nothing other than making more public funding available to increase developers' profits. Developers are part of the problem, not the solution. The Government needs to stop throwing public funds at them. We oppose this Bill and demand that developer-owned zoned landbanks be brought into public ownership and developed rapidly with genuinely affordable housing. A manufactured housing crisis will not end until we have new public house building on a large scale. The Government needs to stop greasing the palms of its developer friends and start building public homes.

See this speech in context