Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My God, I am.

We have seen this week the pantomime show of others running to the plinth to try to get as many television cameras as possible to look at them. There is no worry about housing when they are merely worried about their 30 seconds on the news tonight. In that respect the core component of home ownership needs to be addressed because we have multiple aspects to the debate on the housing crisis.

While the homelessness figures are increasing, there is a failure to provide an adequate supply of social housing through our local authorities and the HAP scheme has now become a scheme that has taken our housing policy in a completely different direction that is going to be very hard to undo, we rarely hear debates in this Chamber about the young people who actually have got the money together to purchase a home or an apartment but who, through a combination of lack of supply and not being able to compete in the marketplace with investment funds or ironically being up against local authorities which are buying up homes through their acquisition funds as their way of supplying houses, find that they cannot purchase a home as if there were not enough hurdles in their way to begin with. While the frustration experienced by these young couples rarely gets aired, I know their anger. Apart from them coming into my constituency office, I also meet them in my GAA club or out socialising at the weekend and they recount what is the main topic of debate for them.

Why do we find ourselves having this debate? It is because Government policy has feathered the nest of developers who favour these build-to-rent projects, resulting in a dearth of properties for first-time buyers to purchase. Developers who are now building again are trying to squeeze the last drop out of every square foot and the same old problems are coming up, only this time it is worse. The yield that developers are getting on these build-to-rent schemes are the highest in western Europe. As there is no requirement to provide for a mix of different unit sizes naturally developers put in many more smaller units. With developments being swallowed up by investment funds which seek only to maximise their return even further, the challenge that was already daunting for young couples becomes insurmountable.

The Bill seeks to address these challenges by earmarking up to 30% of zoned land for first-time buyers, a very welcome initiative. This is needed because, as Deputy Darragh O'Brien said, the rate of home ownership in Ireland has dropped like a stone over recent decades. I purchased my home 15 years ago in the mid-2000s. The Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, and I are from the same part of the world and are roughly the same age. We both bought our homes and started families at the same time in our mid to late 20s. Just over a decade later home ownership has slipped to that low of 67% - the lowest since 1971. Instead of people buying in their mid-20s as we were able to do back then, the average age for a first-time buyer has now risen to 35.

Aside from the fact that the act of purchasing is now so difficult, what is depressing is that even the hope or the dream of owning a home or apartment is evaporating and people are resigned to renting, with the cost of rent now 26% in excess of the peak in 2008. Last year we heard in this Chamber that this was being tackled and there was no need for towns to come in under the rent-pressure zones and yet we have seen a huge swathe of new towns added this year, including my town.

In analysing this crisis, the Irish Independentyesterday described the Minister as an earnest Minister but stated that a laissez-faireattitude was still at work just like the attitude of W.T. Cosgrave back in 1924. At that time, in the throes of an even worse housing crisis, the Irish Independentreported the grumbling of the said Mr Cosgrave when he said it was up to private enterprise alone to build homes. As we all know, things did not happen until the 1930s, when as the Irish Independentreported, it was Éamon de Valera who had the sense and decency to clear the slums and build thousands of homes. We might not have the slums now. Instead we have people who do not even have a roof over their heads but what does remain constant some 90 years later is the need for a Fianna Fáil Government and Minister to come in and sort out the housing crisis. The people of Ireland know that, that day is coming and I look forward to seeing our housing sector put back on the right track. This Bill will form one part of that process as we deliver the homes for first-time buyers and give them a fair shot in the market place.

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