Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It cannot be wished up overnight; we cannot all of a sudden add an extra 50,000 homes to the housing stock in a year. We have to be honest with the public about the time it takes to get shovels into the ground to get things built. Yes, we have cut the red tape where it has been safe to do so, making sure it will not result in a fall in standards. We have to be honest with the public about the challenges we face. The agency proposed in the motion would be a complete duplication of the Land Development Agency which is up and running. It has a pipeline of sites that it will take from other State bodies. It will lodge its first planning applications this year. There will be significant capital investment by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, when the legislation passes through the House. The agency is already funded from my Department with enough capital to begin its work. It has its interim board in place and is the State's developer. It will take public and private land and develop it in the public good and get an uplift from the increase in the value of that land because it will service sites, receive planning permission and have land zoned for housing. It will use the benefits to deliver more affordable housing. That is exactly what we want to do with a new agency similar to the one proposed in the motion. We have created it in the Land Development Agency.

The motion proposes that we stop allocating money into the rainy day fund. That is incredibly irresponsible because we know that there will be economic shocks in the future. There are the potential risks posed by Brexit, whether it is orderly or disorderly, right in front of us. We have to make sure the wider economy will have the buffers in place to protect not just the housing sector but also other sectors from future shocks. The motion proposes that we bring together the fund of €16 billion to tackle the housing challenges we face, but funding and finance are not issues. Under Rebuilding Ireland, more than €6 billion has been ring-fenced for the housing programme, with €2.4 billion to be spent this year. Home Building Finance Ireland, a new bank to help builders to build homes throughout the country, has €750 million available to it just as a start. The Housing Finance Agency has access to loan facilities of up to €5 billion. The urban regeneration and rural funds amount to €3 billion. The Land Development Agency will have capital of €1.25 billion. In all, being conservative, roughly €16 billion is being dedicated to the provision of housing. That is not counting the additional moneys that have been ring-fenced in the national development plan to 2027 - an additional €7 billion to €8 billion under Project Ireland 2040. That is the amount of money being invested by the Government in housing because we believe we have to provide housing for all citizens, including social, affordable and private housing. That is exactly what we are doing.

The motion refers to the credit unions. The Central Bank has given approval for credit unions to invest in house building but only in tier 3 bodies because that is what it thinks is prudent. It is not €14 billion we can just take from the credit unions and invest. It is incorrect to suggest we could just take the €14 billion, yet that is how the motion accounts for the money about which it talking. The figure might only be as much as €1 billion; yes, we should use it, but some housing bodies are reluctant to take credit union money because it may impact on their ability to use other sources of private finance to invest in housing. We have put funding in place to allow them to explore the possibility of using special purpose vehicles, but we cannot force a housing body and a credit union to come together to invest in housing. We have taken away whatever restrictions were in place to allow them to do so. The retrofitting programme will see 9,000 more homes being retrofitted this year to the new nearly zero energy building, NZEB, standard in the building regulations. The national development plan has a target of 45,000 deep retrofits of homes each year from 2021, while the climate plan on which the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is working will go even further in respect of what we want to do with building energy rating, BER, certificates and heating standards and in the replacement of heating equipment.

On tenancy protections, we are bringing very robust, reforming legislation through the House to strengthen rent pressure zones. The motion supports rent pressure zones in that it wants to see more areas included, extend the period to 2021, change the qualifying criteria, make sure areas outside them can only see a rent increase or rent review every two years and not more frequently. It also wants to make sure any perceived loophole is closed, whether in respect of substantial renovation or the second letting of a new property that has come online. We are robustly enforcing and reforming the rent pressure zones to make sure we can continue to give tenants some security on the affordability of rents and help to drive down further rent inflation. In respect of section 34, there will also be protections.

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