Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The sooner we get the Dáil back to working as it should be, the better, because this process does not really work for anyone. That is no reflection on the Minister of State or on any colleagues. It is approximately six months since we previously had statements on transition and the climate action plan. It is fair to say that there has not been much progress in that time. Since then, with the Covid-19 emergency, the acute nature of our housing crisis has been further emphasised. How can we address the fundamentals of that crisis, which are that people do not have homes, be they public or private homes? How can we expedite the building and provision of homes while at the same time ensuring that we reduce the impact it has on our environment, that we do things better and that we use new practices? That is crucially important.

When engaging with stakeholders, we see that there will probably be less than 14,000 housing completions this year, which is well below the target set by the previous Government and what we actually need. We probably need to build between 35,000 and 40,000 private and public homes a year, and we will be more than 25,000 behind that target this year, mainly due to the Covid-19 emergency. We have to ensure that when we ramp up supply, we do it in a way that it is effective and sustainable, and delivers high quality, sustainable homes, both public and private. I believe that we can do that and that the new Government will have to do that. Housing design, modular construction and off-site construction can reduce the impact that the sector has and help us to meet our targets and the international commitments that we have given.

The Minister of State mentioned a couple of issues. We need to make sure that villages and regional towns in rural Ireland are properly serviced with wastewater treatment, schools and public transport, so that we can look at rejuvenating and regenerating them, and reducing the number of one-off houses across the country. Our villages and towns should become places where people want to live and we can bring life back into them. A significant part of that will be social housing provision on the land that the State, local authorities and State agencies own to deliver homes for people in those areas.

We also have to look at our current stock of approximately 130,000 social homes. The Minister of State mentioned the light retrofitting that has been happening, which is important in itself. Approximately 130,000 homes across the country require serious attention to improve their energy efficiency. Those savings and funds will come back to the State. We also have to look at our private housing stock. There are probably 500,000 homes across the country that need to be retrofitted over ten years. That is not an insignificant target and we have to have the resources available to do that. That also means looking at just transition, retraining people, new apprenticeships in this area and being bold about that. When we look at building 40,000 to 50,000 homes a year, and retrofitting 40,000 to 50,000 homes in a year, both public and private, we have to know where the workforce is to do that. That has to be a priority for the next Government if we are to achieve our climate action plan targets. The public is well ahead of the Oireachtas on that and wants to see these changes.

We need to be serious about community energy schemes. We are looking at renewable energy and the state of that has improved over the decade. We need to look at getting community buy-in and best practice across Europe and the world. We need to look at community energy schemes that generate energy within communities, creating lower costs for them, and at biomass, wind energy, solar energy and so on.

There is a lot of work to be done in this area and I hope and am certain that if a new programme for Government is agreed, this would be central to housing policy in that new Government to deliver sustainable homes in sustainable communities that help to meet our climate action targets.

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