Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank my constituency colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, for all his hard work in bringing this Bill to the House tonight. The former Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, used his power in 2018 to impose mandatory planning guidelines on local authorities regarding apartment sizes and standards. This opened up space for co-living developments.

I use the word "space" lightly. Why should a developer be allowed to build substandard accommodation and why are renters expected to accept a lower standard of accommodation? Renters deserve the same standard of living as those who are purchasing properties. As well as reducing apartments to the same size as disabled car parking spaces, co-living developments also limit the amount of sunlight one gets in one's home. They are literally daylight robbery.

Build-to-rent developments also allow for a lower ratio of car park spaces. That would be fine in an ideal world where we have first-class transport systems but years of underinvestment and bad planning has left us with a transport deficit. In my area of Dublin Mid-West there are several proposed build-to-rent developments, for example, in Lucan and Palmerstown. These developments are about cramming as many apartments as possible into the space available with the minimum amount of car parking space. BusConnects is a minimum of three years away and there is no guarantee that the existing public transport will get people to where they need to go. How exactly are these tenants meant to get to work, to college or the shops? I live in the real world and I can tell the Minister of State that lower car parking ratios are not in line with current local public transport.

It is also time to ban co-living. These are dressed-up 21st century bedsits. They are a throwback to tenement style housing that rams people into 12 sq. m closets. Co-living is bad policy. Its aim is to make developers rich on the back of the desperation of tenants. It is not a solution to the State's housing crisis. If the Minister of State really wants solutions to the housing crisis they are right in front of him. He needs to start listening to my colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, who has been giving this House a masterclass on how to solve the housing crisis for several years. The next thing he should do is support this Bill, ban co-living and build-to-rent developments, and put foundations in place to allow us build affordable homes to rent and buy.

For the record, I want it to be known that there is not a Fine Gael or a Fianna Fáil Deputy present in the Chamber for this debate. That shows their indifference to people's standard of living. I am also not surprised that they have left the Green Party to carry the can tonight. I believe that is the way it will be going forward.

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