Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Over several previous contributions on homelessness in our Republic, I have pleaded with this Fine Gael Government to declare homelessness to be a national emergency and I have asked that it do this now. Our homelessness national emergency needs a whole-of-Government response, with monthly targets and delivery reports. We must declare today that the common good of the people dictates that the Government must ensure a minimum standard of housing for all of our people.

That common good is the primary responsibility of Government. If policies are not working, then they need to be changed or dumped immediately. There are almost 10,000 homeless human beings in Ireland today who need to see delivery on homes. There are also the uncounted thousands known as Ireland's hidden homeless, those who are still living with parents or in overcrowded accommodation because the Government in 2019 cannot ensure an adequate supply of homes. Just as frightening is the fact that hard-working people, including public servants such as nurses and gardaí, and young men and women working in industry - will never afford to own their own home in Fine Gael's so-called republic of opportunity.

The fact remains that our Republic and our political system of government, from Cabinet to Department to Parliament to local authority, is failing to ensure there are enough homes for our citizens. We have been elected to represent the common good and to ensure it is vindicated, and we should not be afraid to call out the truth. We in Fianna Fáil have not played, and will not play, politics with homelessness and housing. Looking for ministerial heads, looking for an irresponsible and premature general election, will not take a single family out of homelessness. Outrage politics will not build a single home. The politics of continuous protest will not generate the practical solutions that can be put in place to radically increase the availability of affordable homes for all Irish people.

We need to be honest when it comes to our homelessness crisis. There are almost 10,000 homeless people in Ireland today, not including the hidden homeless, because there are not enough homes for our people. We need to build, purchase and acquire sufficient housing units to radically increase the supply of homes. Homes can only be built on appropriately zoned lands. Builders in the construction industry build these homes and have a duty of quality of provision. Planners ensure that homes are appropriate to the area in which they are being built and they have a duty to gear up to this crisis. An Bord Pleanála decides appeals and must do so quickly and with a view to the scale of Ireland's homelessness crisis. Politicians who come into the House to complain about homelessness but then object to the building of homes need to reflect on the hypocrisy shown. Irish Water needs to ensure that it is not a block to the development of housing.

Too many delays are beginning to appear in the system. The Government must ensure there are policies to direct financial supports, end bureaucratic delays and drive the sense of urgent action that the crisis requires. Throughout our recent negotiations with the Government on the latest budget and on the renewal of the confidence and supply agreement, we in Fianna Fáil ensured delivery on housing is the priority to be tackled this year. Fianna Fáil has secured ambitious but achievable targets in the provision of homes, which previous Fianna Fáil-led Governments have delivered, often in far tougher economic times.

The question must now be asked of all parties and none: what do they propose to do? On this, Fianna Fáil has brought forward many solutions. Through the confidence and supply agreement we increased social housing funding. The overall capital budget for housing has increased from €1.065 billion in 2018 to €1.34 billion in 2019, a 25% increase, and this includes social housing and homeless capital funding. Since Fianna Fáil entered into the confidence and supply arrangement, we have forced the housing capital budget to increase from €430 million in budget 2016 to €1.34 billion today, a €900 million or more than 300% increase. We have proposed a new affordable housing scheme. Only €20 million was allocated to an affordable housing scheme in 2018, with no units delivered or regulations even signed off. Fianna Fáil has established a revamped scheme worth more than €100 million per annum over the next three years, which will deliver some 7,500 units at an average price of €200,000 for ordinary income workers.

Our policies will keep landlords in the vital rental market with tax incentives to stabilise rents. Landlords that sell up are removing units from the market and driving up rents, with 4,000 landlords leaving over the past 12 months. We established a 100% mortgage interest relief measure to help keep landlords in the market and maintain supply in the short term while more homes are built. Further measures to incentivise long-term leases are in development. Delays in procurement and the four-step approval process for social housing are crippling delivery. We tripled the discretion of local authorities to build homes without going through administrative hoops. Local authorities can now build up to €6 million or 30 homes through a fast-track process.

Affordability of homes is key to addressing homelessness in Ireland. Affordable housing was a key aim of Fianna Fáil in budget 2019. We actively support home ownership and aim to launch an ambitious new scheme that will provide subsidised homes on State-owned lands across the country. There is a new €100 million per annum affordable housing fund, an investment that will construct at least 6,000 homes by 2021 and it quadruples the original allocated money per year from €25 million.

Local authorities must work with other agencies to identify where affordable homes should be built. They will take out loans from Housing Finance Agency to build the units, with a further subsidy of between €40,000 and €50,000 per home directly from the Exchequer. Homes are sold for approximately €200,000 to households on incomes of €50,000 annually for a single earner and €75,000 for those with joint incomes who cannot afford to buy a home in their own local area.

The proceeds of the sales are used to build new homes and the process starts again. Some 6,000 to 7,500 units could be built under the scheme by 2021. Social housing funding has been ramped up by €270 million. Year on year, there is a €270 million or 25% increase.

Budget 2019 was not a landlord's budget. A rental market needs landlords if it is to work. The budget does, however, incentivise landlords to stay in the system. Some 40,000 landlords left the system between 2012 and 2018, including 4,000 in the past 12 months. We need to keep landlords in the system or else there will be fewer units available to rent and rents will rise as a result. Mortgage interest relief is targeted at small landlords with two units or less to keep them in the system. My personal view has always been that if it takes constitutional change for the Government to ensure that there are enough homes for people then that must not be avoided because of powerful vested interests.

The common good has been a core founding principle of all republics since the idea of people-based government was invented by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The State we celebrate this year, with 100 years since the First Dáil, has been guided by the aspiration of being a republic for all our people. The common good for Irish people in 2019 should be results and achievements in the context of ending homelessness and ensuring homes for all. The people will eventually decide whether we, the elected Parliament, have been up to the work that is needed to end chronic homelessness.

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