Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The thousands of concerned citizens who protested outside the gates of Leinster House today are reflective of the nation's view that the Government is still not getting the message on its failures in housing. The message on housing is simple but it also involves radical and realistic action. I stated just last week, and it needs to be stated again, that the Irish housing crisis can be solved. It is resolvable if the resources of our Republic are put fully behind a simple premise, that the Irish State must ensure we have an adequate supply of affordable housing units for both long-term rental by local authorities and for sale to citizens who have the legitimate ambition to own a home. The State must ensure that the right to housing is not just an aspiration that was inserted into our Constitution to make us feel good. The right of Irish citizens to a home is the responsibility of the State to manage. This Government still believes that this is a market anomaly that will fix itself with short-fix improvements to funding. The housing market that operates in Ireland is designed to be boom and then bust. We should have learned the lessons of the disastrous consequences of this model.

The basic commodity needed for any housing is land. That land's value is maximised and hoarded during high-demand periods such as now and bought at rock-bottom prices during low periods. This market cannot be allowed uncontrolled power over the lives of our citizens. The State's responsibility, which will help the stability of the private market, is to build and maintain a large stock of affordable housing units for long-term rental and for sale to families. This simple two-line target will then free up all the other broken parts of the Irish housing system, from homeless families to land hoarding, to finance for builders and prospective homeowners, to the shortage of rental units with rents and sale prices that are out of control.

We all agree that we need to be building at least 10,000 publicly owned units a year, but the Government could only manage 2,000 in all of last year and only 800 in the first six months of this year. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Coveney, said we would be taken by surprise at how quickly the Government would build houses. We are surprised all right. Those homes are still not built and will not be built for a number of years to come.

This Government's housing policy is not working and needs a sea change in attitude and focus. My colleague, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has put it in plain language with no spin nor focus groups nor websites needed to make our views in Fianna Fáil understood. My party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, also did not need to spend public money on expensive public relations consultants when he spoke last night in Trinity College about a concrete policy proposal whereby we believe that the State should provide a subsidy of €50,000 per unit where it is estimated that it costs €210,000 to build a home on State-owned land. This will bring the average cost down to €160,000. This will then be an affordable unit to a household on €45,000 a year.

We could also stop the blame game whereby local authorities are blamed for failures. Our local authorities must be allowed and empowered to build again. Alongside this, the approved housing bodies and co-operatives are well positioned to deliver homes, but all the red tape needs to be reduced.

Next week's budget needs to be a housing budget. It needs to prove that this Government is listening to the citizens outside and to the elected Members in this Chamber. Next week's budget cannot and will not resolve the housing crisis but it can make the dramatic gear shift that is needed from the Government. If the budget starts that process, we in Fianna Fáil will be responsible in ensuring that housing delivery is increased rapidly. We will not exploit this crisis for political power. The empty promises of others in this House are the shallow and cynical politics of yesterday. We in Fianna Fáil will support every sensible, realistic and affordable proposal that will provide homes for all our citizens.

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