Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is disappointing to see another housing measure that is based on the very conservative ideology of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Unfortunately, it will fail to deliver social housing. In reality, this legislation will increase house prices and push affordable homes further out of the reach of ordinary workers and families. It is a Bill for developers. There are serious problems in housing provision for workers and families whose income is just above the threshold for social housing but not high enough to enable them ever to get a mortgage from a bank or other lending institution. Those people are trapped in private rental accommodation, without rent controls or security of tenure. The Government's LDA will do little to resolve that issue and will, most likely, make it even worse.

I want to highlight the land aggregation scheme, which currently manages five State-owned sites in County Laois alone. There is a total of 40 acres suitable for housing under that scheme but the State has no plans in place to develop housing on those sites. I note that the Government's Bill will only assist in the development of sites in areas with a population of more than 30,000. That will exclude all of counties Laois and Offaly. There has been much said about local authorities' ability to deliver. Laois County Council, a small local authority, will house 150 families in new housing in the space of six or seven weeks. This shows that even small local authorities have the ability to deliver new social housing. As I have said, a total of 150 families will be housed in Laois in a six-week period.

I want to highlight a number of provisions in the Bill. It defines affordable housing as housing that is offered at the median price for a particular geographical area. The issue is that the median price is calculated on the basis of the price of all homes, both modest and mansion. The Minister knows that this pulls the price up artificially and makes it too high for the people looking to buy. It is an inflated price that the average worker and family cannot afford. Second, the legislation compels the LDA to pay the full market price for land from public agencies even if the land has a low existing-use value on that agency's balancing sheet. This will drive up inflation and, therefore, the cost of homes on LDA land. Third, the Government is establishing yet another layer of quangos, to be called "designated activity companies". Some of them will be joint ventures, which strips away powers from local democratically elected councils. The Minister indicated that applications under section 183 of the Local Government Act 2001 are slowing things down. If he was ever a member of a local authority, as I was, he will know that section 183 applications move very quickly through councils, usually in a matter of weeks. What he said is a load of rubbish and it should be put to one side. I thought the Minister had more sense than to come out with something like that.

Sinn Féin has published its alternative to the Government legislation. We have detailed proposals for a new agency with strong CPO powers to deliver an average of 20,000 local authority and affordable homes for workers and families over five years. Our proposals would see a mix of affordable, social and cost-rental housing. We are talking about truly affordable homes for low-income and middle-income workers. These are the people who are stuck in the middle, trapped in private rental accommodation and locked out of owning their own homes forever.

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