Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. I welcome the Bill and congratulate Deputy Pringle on putting it before the House. The Government amendment is disgraceful. There is no need for an 18-month delay in examining the issues. It could start immediately if it were serious about enshrining this covenant and the rights of people in this country in the Constitution but it is not serious about it and hence the opposition from the Government. It is the same foot-dragging it engaged in when it came to the issue of rights for people with disabilities. Terrified that people might be able to vindicate their rights in courts or ensuring that those rights would be enshrined in the Constitution might mean that people would no longer accept the failure of the State to deliver on the rights in the areas that are mentioned in the covenant such as trade union rights, migrant rights, the rights of asylum seekers or the one aspect I want to focus on, which is housing.

Article 11 of the covenant states: "The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family [I have problems with that gender description] including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions." It hardly needs to be said, however, that this State has failed to allow its people to access adequate housing. Various Ministers in the past three Governments, from Deputies Kelly, Coveney and Eoghan Murphy to the present incumbent, failed the people of this country. When the history books are written, the current housing crisis will be the single biggest stain on our recent history. The craven facilitation of developers, building interests and financial speculators has resulted in an ongoing nightmare for many thousands of our citizens.

We have the obscenity of people sleeping rough, a scene that has become accepted by us, and the obscenity of rents that are impossible for the average earner to cover. We have the obscenity of the absence of affordable housing or apartments that are semi-permanent features. Minister after Minister comes into this House and waffles about the market, the supply and how their plan will tweak the market and solve the complex problem. The only real housing policy we have had is to bend over backwards for real estate investment trusts, vulture funds, investment firms, developers and speculators and ensure that their profits and wish lists become whatever passes for a housing policy. The results are to be seen everywhere in this State.

I refer to one of the latest obscenities, which is the rash of applications for co-living that were put in before the Minister banned them. He flagged it in October and banned them in December.

In my constituency, the old Player Wills and Bailey Gibson site is one of the biggest such obscenities. That application was lodged well before the issue was flagged up. There is the area of a parking space in a bedroom for co-living. More importantly, we have to look at what being called a strategic development site entails. The definition of strategic housing in the context of a housing crisis should be that it is strategic to build housing that is accessible, affordable and sustainable but this is not. It boosts the profits and returns for developers in order that they have to build high and rent out at very dear costs indeed. It is not strategic or sustainable and it is not right for landlords to build to rent in areas that are not appropriate. This is what the people in the area of Dublin 8 are furious about with regard to co-living. The Player Wills and Bailey Gibson site will rise to a height of 19 storeys and the scale and size of this development is tantamount to a small town. The build to rent model is a business plan, not a plan to deal with the housing crisis.

We will be dealing more with this issue in this House. I thank Deputy Pringle for tabling this Bill. It gives us a chance to show what is wrong with not just the policies on housing but also in respect of workers' rights, migrants' rights and the plethora of areas in which the Government has failed.

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