Dáil debates

Wednesday, 11 November 2020

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The language used by the Deputy is quite propagandistic. To describe a €3.3 billion budget allocation as "massively disappointing" is extraordinary by any yardstick. Fianna Fáil has not been in power for ten years. That is just the reality and the facts, but Sinn Féin never allows facts get in the way of anything.

The bottom line is that we want to build social housing and we want to build it at scale. That is what this budget allocation does. We also want to build affordable houses. Supply is the key to the housing crisis. We know that over the past number of years there has been a crisis in housing supply and an issue in terms of affordability and the provision of social homes. That is why more than €3 billion was secured in the budget to provide the resources to get started on what will be the biggest social housing building programme in the history of the State. Next year, we will build 9,500 social homes as part of an overall delivery of 12,750 social homes. That is a 22% increase on the 2020 target of 7,736. Obviously, Covid-19 has impacted on housebuilding in 2020.

The budget also provides for a suite of affordability measures totalling €468 million. That will be spread out across the serviced sites fund, the local infrastructure housing activation fund, the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme and the Land Development Agency. Some €110 million has been provided for the affordable housing and cost-rental schemes and €435 million will go towards a new programme for funding the delivery of cost-rental homes. That will see funding made available to approved housing bodies in 2021. The new cost-rental equity loan will allow approved housing bodies to borrow up to 30% of the cost of cost-rental homes from the State and is modelled on, but completely separate from, the successful capital advance leasing facility model for funding social housing. In addition, the Land Development Agency has indicated its intention to include a significant proportion of cost-rental homes on its portfolio of sites over the coming years. This will further increase the scale of this new sector.

As the Deputy will be aware, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has approved the next phase of the Shanganagh site which is Ireland's largest proposed social and affordable scheme to receive planning permission. That is important and is illustrative of the type of progress that is being and will be made. The Government has identified housing as its number one priority in the programme for Government. Over the next number of years, it is determined to deal with it and ensure, through a combination of measures on social housing, affordable homes and rental, that we allocate the necessary resources on a multi-annual basis so that certainty will be given to local authorities and approved housing bodies and that they can proceed with their plans.

We are also keen to accelerate and encourage new housing supply for rent and purchase in order to keep existing rental units in the market and to bring vacant homes back into use, including those vacated by fair deal participants. Significant changes to the criteria for rent pressure zones, RPZs, which were introduced in the Act to considerably strengthen those zones, remove a number of opt-outs and give new substantial legal powers and resources to the Residential Tenancies Board to enforce rent controls affectively. A key element of existing policy centres on the designation of RPZs in areas where rents are highest and increasing most, the effect of which is to limit the increase in rents to 4% per annum. At this stage, more than 73% of the 364,099 tenancies in the private rental sector are covered by RPZ designations. That type of approach on the part of the Government will continue. Those restrictions have had a moderating effect on rent increases and have given certainty to landlords and tenants alike. Essentially, however, the essence of our programme is not developer-related at all. It is designed to give the resources to local authorities and approved housing bodies to build more social homes than we have ever built before.

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