Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I must tell the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, that the contribution of the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, was one of the more disappointing ones I have heard in this House since February. We live in an age where one would hope that the ordinary to and fro and over and back of party-political jibing would perhaps be put to one side when there are greater issues at stake. There have been moments of great clarity from Government over a number of issues and in its ability to reach across the aisle and work with the Opposition. Even with the Dying with Dignity Bill, there was a suggestion from Government that it was possible to take the politics out of this and work on a committee-based structure for 12 months or so to try to advance the aims. It was not a perfect suggestion but at least it was an acknowledgement that there was some validity in what the Opposition was putting forward. Indeed, even with Labour's proposal on sick pay, the Government's response was that it would look into the idea for six months. That is certainly not ideal but it is not a rejection.

What we did not get from the Government contributions in those debates was what we got this evening from the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, which was so lacking in empathy and did not speak to any human experience whatever. It started off with a couple of political jibes. It rattled off a load of constitutional this and that and ended with a political jibe. Nowhere in it was there any mention of what type of person or living conditions does the Government feel are appropriate. If the Minister of State or the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government's position want to say: "Yes, we understand your concerns about co-living because we share them and because previous to the election we said some things which you have quoted to us this evening and you are right, we did describe them as bonkers, we did describe them as tenements. We are going to work with Opposition to ensure we can, at the very least, put a halt to any new co-living applications", that is fine.

We did not get that, however. We got a presentation from the Government that was, I feel, lacking in any real sense of dealing in a fair manner with what has been proposed in Sinn Féin's Bill.

Of course Opposition Bills are not perfect and of course they need to be amended. Fundamentally, what we are speaking about is a housing standard. Even before the pandemic, this type of living did not make much sense as a proposal to deal with the housing crisis. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, knows that poverty and disease are often, if not always, exacerbated by housing conditions. TB in the 1940s has been mentioned when 4,000 people died a year. It affected every family in Dublin. The word "tenement" still resonates in a very negative way and sends a shiver down the spine of many Dubliners because of the muscle memory evoked by that word and where our families came from and how we lived. We improved on it. We built public housing on public land and we moved away from this type of accommodation. Now, in my constituency and in the area from where our housing spokesperson, Senator Rebecca Moynihan, comes, co-living proposals are coming to the fore. There is one in Clare Hall for 122 co-living units. It has gone straight to An Bord Pleanála because the previous Government's strategic housing development legislation totally overrides the local authority. Applications go straight to An Bord Pleanála and that is where the decisions are made. It totally overrides the democratically constituted development plan of the city.

Any number of housing solutions have been put forward by the Opposition in the previous Oireachtas and in this Oireachtas. The Green Party has a very strong record on sustainable housing and sustainable planning. Green Party councillors have a strong record of overseeing decency in public life when it comes to constructing these development plans. My party is the same. When it comes to a proposal for co-living housing, being so defensive and having such a defensive presentation from the Government as we did really belittles what we are trying to discuss. We are trying to discuss how people can live in a sustainable way. Many things that were untouchable in the past are being mentioned, such as the nationalisation of private hospitals, a sustainable basic universal income and a ban on evictions. We were told all of these were constitutionally questionable but they were all able to happen overnight because the pandemic demanded it. The pandemic demands that we have a higher standard of housing and it demands that a proposal such as co-living, which was always a bad idea anyway, should be absolutely ruled out in the current situation. If the Government felt strongly enough about it what we would have had this evening was a strong and robust speech from the Minister of State that told us the Government would meet us half way. The Minister of State would have said that he knew and had heard that the legislation was imperfect but that he understood from the history of the city that this type of proposal is not one the Government could stand over and that it would make sure in whatever way it possibly could that it would not proceed. He would have said that the Government regretted the applications being made but would try to do its best to go beyond a situation where co-living is deemed to be acceptable. We did not get this.

When it comes to the vote on this, Government Deputies will vote the way they do, and I was once that soldier. When we walk away from the debate we will be in no way clearer as to where the compassion is in terms of the Government's housing policy. This is the real disappointment about this evening. Anybody can rattle off a speech that is spiteful and full of political point-scoring rhetoric. The people who might potentially live in this type of accommodation, and who may be forced to live in this type of accommodation, demand better from the Parliament and this political discourse.

Can we all accept across the House that co-living is not a solution? Can we accept we have a problem right here and right now whereby co-living planning applications are being submitted to An Bord Pleanála? Can we accept this is a difficulty? Can we accept we should have higher housing standards for our people? Can we say we have learned the lessons of history in terms of tenement life, TB and typhoid? I am not trying to be overly emotive. I am not trying to be unfair. These are the lessons of history. Housing policy is dictated by the mistakes that were made and that we promised would not happen again. Tenement living, which many families know about, came from a situation where the property and landlord classes ran the show. We cannot return to that situation.

I and the Labour Party appeal to the Minister of State and his Government colleagues. The Government could easily dismiss the type of legislation proposed by Deputy Ó Broin as playing politics, and it did, or it could find the good, the decency and the ethic behind what is being proposed as something worthy of support. Perhaps the Government will not support the Bill in the vote when it takes place but it could contextualise it by giving some hope to the Opposition and others in our society that this type of housing standard is not something it really wants to stand over and that will take steps to ensure it will curtail it, regulate it or ensure it does not spread any more than it already has. This is the message we want to hear from the Government. The type of speech that was given by the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, really was quite depressing and ill-befitting a debate on a type of housing model that is not worthy of our citizens. The Government should do better.

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