Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister denied that his ideological outlook on life or politics was a factor in his failure, and that of the Government, to address the housing crisis. I do not accept that. There are many solutions and they are, in many ways, self-evident. They have been proposed by all parties in the House, housing experts and non-governmental organisations. However, they have not been adopted by Government. The only conclusion that one can draw is that the Minister is ideologically opposed to tackling the housing problem in a sustainable and fair manner.

At the heart of this issue is an overdependence on the market. That was evident from the start of the previous Government when it proposed the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme and moved away from the principle of providing public housing to a dependence on the market. We are now in a position in which we have fuelled the demand for limited private housing to the point where rents are going through the roof and it is impossible for people to get their feet on the housing ladder. The State is not getting any value for money and there has been a complete failure to address unsustainable dependence on the market.

Many people have spoken about supply, which is important. The HAP did nothing to increase supply.

The other key issue is affordability. This has not been recognised by Government. At no point has this Government or its predecessor set out to make housing affordable and that means driving down the cost of housing. On the contrary, they did the reverse by fuelling the cost of housing. Introducing the help-to-buy scheme some years ago, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, referred in his budget speech to the need to increase the price of housing. Will the Minister clarify what is the objective of Government? Is it to increase the price of housing to help the banks' balance sheets? The Government seems more concerned about that than about helping families put a roof over their heads. This is at the heart of the problem before us. If the Minister were serious about ensuring affordability, he would tackle the problem of land hoarding because the normal rules of supply and demand do not apply to housing. The home building industry will not solve the problem. Government must do that by taking brave decisions to stamp out land hoarding and build on publicly owned land. The Minister seems to be doing nothing at the rate required.

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