Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone who contributed to the debate here today: the many who agreed with us and those who were critical or in opposition to our motion. People are feeling a sense of total desperation and shame at present that almost 4,000 children are now homeless. As a society, we do not know what the long-term impact of that will be for those children.

What disappoints me most about the Government is the return of the mass speculation over which it has presided, which was a feature of the last boom. The then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, described the boom as having just got boomier. Can I advise members of Fine Gael to take a look on Thursday or Friday at the weekend or midweek supplements on commercial property in our national newspapers and consider the land prices that are been quoted. We have is a significant return, sanctioned by Fine Gael as a Government, of grotesque speculation in property for landowners, as opposed to the interests of people who desperately need a home.

A small site in Harold's Cross, comprising less than a hectare, has a suggested price of €3 million and my guess is it may well go higher. The old college of engineering in Kevin Street has been put up for sale in recent times and a deal has been reached for an astronomical value for a mixture of education and commercial uses, a small amount of housing and possibly some student apartments. All over Dublin, student apartments are being built at present but has the Minister of State seen the report, in part by Irish students, to the effect that these apartments, which are major commercial developments, are now almost impossible to rent for local Irish students, given the exorbitant rents?

The Government is driving a type of Gordon Gekko-style approach to land and land development, which is saying to landowners and speculators that greed is good. That was one of the key elements that brought about the last collapse. It shocks and pains me that Fine Gael do not remember this at all. It simply wants to replace Fianna Fáil in its role of encouraging, permitting and endorsing speculation in land. In my constituency and that of Deputy Brendan Ryan, modest, very nice A-rated, three and four-bedroom houses now have a land price incorporated in the houses of anywhere from €50,000 to over €100,000. Prices are going that way in Kildare, particularly in north Kildare.

The crux of our social dilemma is that for people who are working hard on moderate to middle incomes, owning a home under Fine Gael is becoming an impossible dream. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, confirmed to me on a recent radio programme that the Government has not been able to do anything to help people to buy an affordable home. A garda married to a teacher may both have to commute 30 km or 40 km into the Dublin region where their work is. One is talking about attracting and encouraging nurses to work in the city centre, when the children's hospital is finally built, €500 million over price. How in Heaven's name will they be able to afford to buy a home?

The senior Minister's local authority in south County Dublin, that is, in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, quoted an affordable cost rental of €1,200. What does a corporal in the Army earn? A comment by the Minister for Finance, when I asked about this recently, indicated a figure of approximately €27,000 per year. A person in our Defence Forces, putting his or her life on the line and serving his or her country with pride, earns between €27,000 and €30,000, if he or she receive extra allowances, and will be expected to pay a cost rental of €1,200 a month. What planet is the Minister living on?

We hear talk today of black holes being discovered. The black hole in Ireland is what is happening on housing. The situation is getting worse not better. This on the Government and Fine Gael's watch.

A report in The Irish Timesthe other day, which has not been contested by anyone in government, stated that 10% of families who are renting are now paying more than 60% of their income in rental cost. When I worked in social protection, the generally agreed and desirable level of contribution for rent was 15%. It was recognised that in certain circumstances that could perhaps go to 25% but that support would be needed for those in particular in a family situation in such instances. We have now a report in a reputable national newspaper saying that one in ten families are paying 60% of their income in rent. We, as a society, are poised to have some upsides to Brexit. There will not be any upsides for people coming from other countries to work here in financial services if they do not have affordable rentals and homes. What we are seeing now is a grotesque distortion of the market.

The Minister of State has reeled off there a list of things that, apparently, the Departments of Housing, Planning and Local Government and Communications, Climate Action and Environment are doing but being honest, we cannot see this on the ground. The test has to be a Government that will not acknowledge that its ordinary ranks in the Army cannot afford to buy, rent or get a social home. The Minister of State's response contained little or nothing of any substance on the building and development of social housing. The Labour Party has brought forward a motion which is feasible in policy terms, which can be produced and is affordable. We have set out a very clear mechanism as to how we will do this through the setting up of a housing fund.

Again, Fine Gael seems to be ideologically opposed to public ownership of social housing. That is unfortunate because approximately 30% of the people and families in this country are unable to buy their own homes. They will need something like public socially-owned developments to have security of tenure over their lifetimes.

I will say one thing to those in Fine Gael. They do not understand social housing because relatively few people in Fine Gael seem to have any experience of being social housing tenants. I was brought up in a rented house. My family could not have afforded to buy a house, like many of the families in the country at the time. There is nothing wrong with social housing.

We have heard great comments about the Vienna model. Two years ago I travelled around Vienna with some of the principal people in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to look at the model there. Like the Labour Party motion, it is based on an investment model that over a long period puts a significant amount of money into housing. That is what we did. Deputies should remember that we sorted out the ghost estates, which were the symbol of Ireland's crash, in 2011. We also reopened 6,000 boarded-up houses in the Dublin area. We know how to deliver. We created the €4 billion fund for housing, to which the current Government has added a relatively modest amount.

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