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

There is a commitment in the programme for Government, as the Deputy rightly stated, to a referendum on the right to housing. I see the commission on housing, which we ourselves negotiated during talks on the programme for Government, playing a central role in that. I spoke at a virtual conference just last week about outlining our plans to establish the commission that would look at certain issues, including a legislative right to housing. Mercy Law Resource Centre and others have done incredible work on this but looking at other jurisdictions. I expect that work is under way - we have some work on it - to establish the commission. I would like it established this year. There will be certain segments within the commission to deal with legislation, homelessness, housing delivery, costs and other elements. The Department is working on that. I did a lot of work on it over the summer. I do not expect a referendum this year, to be frank. We have to work on a proposal that would be put to the people. We have to look at how that would be framed. We will seek submissions from all groups, such as those the Deputy has mentioned, that have been heavily involved in this, many of which I have met, at the correct and appropriate time to feed into that. It would be important for this country and it is an important commitment in the programme for Government.

Housing delivery was affected last year. We are concluding the figures for housing completions last year. Deputy Duffy has a figure of 18,800. It might be slightly more. This year's target for public housing is 12,750. That will be impacted by the nine-week shutdown so far as a result of Covid. I earnestly hope we will get the sector back up and running fully on 5 March. It is my desire to do so. We have to see what the effects will be this year to be able to project into next year. As for affordable homes, there were 400 cost-rental this year, which is not insignificant. Others may dismiss that. Cost-rental is a new tenure of housing that is incredibly important and we will start it off and build on it incrementally. We will not make outlandish promises on housing delivery. We need to readjust on 5 March, when the sector gets back open, and look at our targets for this year for affordable homes. We will have a fund of €110 million to deliver affordable homes for this year and over the next 12 months. It is too early to talk about 2022. We need to try to get 2021 dealt with. What we are targeting, though, and based on the research we have sought and that we will publish, including from the ESRI, is that the State needs 30,000 homes, both public and private, per year in the short to medium term. We are well off that at the moment, with the pandemic having an impact, obviously.

See this speech in context