Malcolm Byrne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As this is my maiden speech, I first thank the people of Wexford for the opportunity to represent them in this House. I got involved in politics for three core reasons. Those reasons, which relate to the State's obligations, continue to be important to me. The State must ensure people have access to education and training in order that they can realise their full potential; provide sustainable employment; and, most important, provide a roof over all our citizens' heads. The issue of housing and homelessness featured prominently in the Wexford by-election campaign, as it did in the other by-election campaigns. Along with health, it was the most prominent issue on the doorsteps.

Politics has to be about solutions, not just slogans, and I will briefly set out three solutions to this problem. The first relates to generation rent, as it is known. Deputy Healy is correct about the amount of money individuals and couples have to pay in rent. Nationally, the average rent for a three-bedroom house is €1,403 a month. In my constituency of Wexford, it is €863 a month, rising to between €1,200 and €1,250 a month in north Wexford. If individuals or couples can show they have been able to make such rent payments consistently over a three-year period, that should count when they apply for a mortgage. While we support the independence of the Central Bank, if it is necessary to change the rules to ensure regard is had to rent payments in mortgage applications, that must be done. We cannot continue with circumstances in which those who belong to generation rent are locked out of owning their own homes. The State should not accept that.

Deputy Harty raised the matter of rural resettlement. It is important to get people to live in our small towns, villages and rural communities. However, the lack of water and sewerage infrastructure is a challenge in that regard. Irish Water has no interest in supporting small towns and villages, and it is debatable how interested the Government is in encouraging rural Ireland to grow again. In County Wexford, towns such as Camolin, Ferns, Campile and Ramsgrange cannot grow and develop as they do not have the water and sewerage capacity to do so. The lack of houses for young families has a knock-on effect on schools and services in those communities. It is essential, therefore, that funding is set aside to provide water and sewerage infrastructure for small towns and villages, not just in Wexford but around the country, in order that homes can be built to revitalise those rural communities.

The Government's policy on social housing is to blame the local authorities when things go wrong. Local government in Ireland has a very strong and proud record of homebuilding, going back to the foundation of the State. Between 1922 and 1924, when this country had nothing, 2,000 houses were built by local authorities under the Cumann na nGaedheal homebuilding plan, known as the £2 million plan. To put that in context, the same number of houses was built by local authorities under this Government last year, and we are a much wealthier country now, almost a century later. We have to give local councils the power to build housing. I have raised this matter with the Minister of State previously. If a council wants to build social housing within its own area, it has to go through the Department. It then takes four stages and an average of two years - longer in many cases - before we see shovels in the ground. We have to give responsibility back to local councils.

It is very easy to throw around slogans when debating housing. I hope that by listening to our concerns about generation rent, giving local authorities the opportunity to respond to their own communities and putting water and sewerage infrastructure in place in rural areas, we will be in a position to address some of the housing challenges we face.

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