Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

They could provide great homes for people in County Westmeath and I am sure they could do so in other counties throughout the country as well. I would venture to say that Westmeath is not unique in having a large number of unoccupied houses. A small grant from the State would help to put them into a habitable condition. Owners must commit to renting out the properties for social housing for a period of years. We could get better value this way than leasing properties under the HAP scheme, and we would be stopping houses going into dereliction in cases where their owners cannot afford to do much with them. A lot of those people are left a house by an uncle which is not in the best condition. If it is still in the condition in which the uncle left it to the person, this grant could help those people.

Another policy that would permit the State to deliver more public housing, which I know the Minister will not implement but I would have had a shot at, is implementation the 1973 Kenny report. I read this as a student when I was doing law and I believe in everything that the former Judge Kenny said. He was an exceptional judge. It is not the first time I have made this suggestion. I have been advocating this point for many years and when Labour's social and affordable housing Bill 2016 made this recommendation, I was the cause of that being at the centre of it in case Members are looking to find out. We should legislate for the compulsory purchase of lands at existing use value, building on the Kenny report proposals. By the way, my brother is a farmer so I know all about this too. Judge Kenny made it clear that there is no constitutional impediment to doing this. He proposed paying a premium of up to 25% on lands compulsorily purchased, but that was at 1973 prices. A smaller compensation would be fair today, but this Government has gone in the opposite direction and is selling off public lands to private developers as their great idea to solve the housing crisis.

Private developers are only interested in profit and they will only build so many houses when there is profit. Public housing has a different ethos and a different philosophy to build houses to provide for people. Public ownership of public housing built on public land is how we will solve this crisis. Labour understands that, housing organisations outside the House recognise that and public housing experts are calling for that. We are all just waiting for Fine Gael to admit that its policies are not working, and to be honest cannot work with the best will in the world. There is only one way: to go back to the old trusted and tried way of local authorities being development vehicles for the provision of local authority housing.

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