Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this Private Members' Bill. Like other speakers, I would not block a Bill that is trying to deal with this specific area but I am concerned that it does not address the fundamental issues facing first-time buyers and it will not make a difference to them.

I will follow on from what Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan said about the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing. She sent a group of guidelines to all countries on housing and the right to housing. She made the point that the new set of actors, namely, the vulture funds and equity funds, entered the market in 2008 and made a quick killing. They were effective in not alone getting houses but in extracting the profit out of them. She mentioned a figure I consider to be of the utmost importance and which I wish to put on the record of the House. She said the global value of residential real estate is $163 trillion. She said that is three times the value of the combined GDP of every country in the world. That is how much wealth those funds are making, yet the previous Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, said he welcomed the vulture funds because they pick the carcase and that helps the situation.

The fact of the matter is that the average three-bedroom semi-detached house in Dublin is priced at around €430,000. The average salary in Dublin is about €36,600. The mortgage on the average house is more than ten times the average salary in Dublin. That is where the issue of affordability arises, not just in Dublin but all over the country.

The problems in the housing crisis, whether it is affordable mortgages for first-time buyers or unaffordable rents in the private sector, will not be solved by tinkering with the issue rather than by dealing with the fundamental problem. We have had a number of initiatives of this character from the Government. I refer to the help-to-buy scheme, the local infrastructure housing activation fund, fast-track strategic housing development legislation, changes to the planning laws and reductions in the building standards of apartments but none of them has made the fundamental difference that is needed to address the housing crisis we face as a country.

The Government strategy outlined in Rebuilding Ireland simply repeats the mistakes from the 1980s on the withdrawal of the State from building public housing and policies of subsidising private landlords with the housing assistance payment, HAP, pursued for 14 years by Fianna Fáil in government and for the past eight years by Fine Gael in government. The Labour Party was involved in the Government for five years and a Labour Party Minister introduced HAP, which is abominable.

The key is public housing. We know that we already have enough State-owned zoned land to build 100,000 units. That should be based on 30% traditional council houses and 70% European cost-rental model housing to achieve mixed tenure and to accommodate those on council waiting lists and those whose income makes them ineligible for council housing but who cannot afford to buy their own homes or rent in the private sector.

This is a key question. If such a policy had been adopted at the start of this current crisis we would be a lot further down the line now where people could be in homes and have security of tenure.

See this speech in context