Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I understand that. Listening to this debate, all I can say is "wow". I do not know whether to laugh or cry when I hear what Government spokespeople are saying.

Of course, the Minister has left the building, like Elvis Presley, but the boys are back in town - that is all I can say. The boys are back in town, as Phil Lynott put it - Fianna Fáil and the developers.

I find it absolutely shocking beyond belief that we have Government people accusing the Opposition of ideology. It is utterly laughable, as is the reference to how we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. This legislation is a souped-up hyper-speed version of the mistakes of the past. It is a heist. It is the legal mechanism to pillage the entire public landbank. It is absolutely extraordinary. It applies to every public body, not only the local authorities, and every bit of their land. It is not only their housing land, but any relevant land - we need only look at the definition. Designated activity companies can take any parcel of land from any public body and they can do what they like with it, in effect. It is unbelievable.

This is worse than the National Asset Management Agency. At least we had the NAMA land briefly in our ownership before it was given back to the investors, vulture funds, real estate investment trusts and so on. They flipped the land, made a fortune and then leased it back to us at extortionate rents, but at least the land began in private ownership. In contrast, this is the actual public landbank of all public bodies and we are going to hand it over to designated activity companies. Every public site is to become a private company shielded from freedom of information and democratic oversight. They will be insulated by commercial sensitivity to enable them to do deals with investment vehicles and third parties - I wonder who they are. The boys are back in town and this is going to be the cash cow, the ultimate prize. They can now plunder the public landbank.

Of course, the Bill should have done something else but it does not. Among the institutions not mentioned are those which own church lands. Where are the compulsory purchase powers to take all the church lands and use them? No, the companies will be able to take land off the HSE. They will be handed over to private developers but land will not be taken from the Sisters of Charity and all the institutions that were responsible for the abuse of women and children. They can keep their land. They will not be touched by any of this, but the public landbank will be plundered and handed over to private developers.

At a minimum, 50% is to be privatised. That is the guideline. However, the Minister will have the power to vary this. He says he might vary the 50% figure downwards and that we might get more social and affordable housing. Equally, there could be no social and affordable housing at all because the Minister can vary it to whatever level he wants. The Minister can also give an opt-out, even on the one aspect of social housing that is possibly offered - the Part V 10% obligation. In any event, we get that obligation on any private development. Yet, the developers can even opt out of that. The Minister can give a waiver and cash is given instead to the local authority. The legislation does not even specify that such cash should be spent on public and social housing. This is exactly what happened before the crash when private developers were paying development levies in cash to pay off their 20% obligation. That money was never used for housing.

Of course, it was all about incentivising an absolute stampede or goldrush by the property developers who crashed the entire economy. Now, we are not going to do it on private land but we are going to do it on public land. No one could make this stuff up.

There is no obligation for social housing. Social housing is mentioned once at the beginning but is not included at all in the functions of the agency. It simply disappears.

Affordable housing is defined as below market price, but then it is strictly and explicitly linked to local market conditions. It is not even linked to average market conditions, which might at least average it out and bring down average prices and rents because it is done on a national level. Instead, it is based on local conditions. In south Dublin average house prices are between €500,000 and €600,000. Affordability as defined by this Bill could be €599,000, €550,000 or €500,000. It is totally useless. If a person lives in Dún Laoghaire and is a low or middle-income worker, the person does not get paid more because he or she lives in Dún Laoghaire. The person still has to pay the rent but rent is €2,200 or €2,400 - that is what is being charged.

The requirement of the legislation to benchmark affordability in terms of cost rental at local market conditions means de facto it will be unaffordable for the vast majority of people who desperately need it. Even cost rental is benchmarked against the market. It is absolutely shocking. In fact, cost rental will eclipse traditional social housing completely because the landbank that the council might have built public housing on will be taken by the land development agency in large part.

There is one thing that really sickens me. Much of this heist of public land is being justified on the basis that we must have social mix. Jesus, that is patronising. It is sickening patronising nonsense from the Government about people from different backgrounds. Of course, that snobbery is ultimately at the base of the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael establishment. They have been running councils for the past God-knows-how-long. The Government simply does not like council housing - that is the truth of it. Those in the Government do not like council housing. They want to do away with council housing and replace it with cost rental. Yet, insofar as any social housing will be delivered cost rental housing will be benchmarked against the market. This means it will be more expensive. Moreover, social housing, because the Government has not lifted the income thresholds, will now be only for the poorest of the poor. In fact, this will intensify social segregation. It will create a new category in the hierarchy of social segregation in respect of housing. That is what it will actually do. In fact, that is already happening. In the past, nurses, bank workers, teachers and other public servants would have got access to social housing because the thresholds were adequate. The vast majority of working people saw social housing as a legitimate thing to do. Yet, because the Government does not increase the thresholds, it is now stigmatised as only for people on the lowest level of income. Soon, only the people who are on base social welfare payments will actually be eligible to go for social housing, and that is exactly the agenda. For everyone else, we do not have rent linked to income, but we have cost rental linked to market finance and local market conditions.

I will outline another reason why the Government refused to define affordability as a specific proportion of people's income. It is because the agency is going to partner with investment vehicles. Those same investment vehicles will also be building on their own private land in nearby areas at full market price. If Hines or some other company in Dún Laoghaire want to flog apartments at €450,000 in Cherrywood, they will hardly build houses in Shanganagh, for arguments sake, for €250,000. That would not really work for the developers because it would undermine the market. That is why the Government will not define affordability in terms of a proportion of people's income or at a genuinely affordable level. It is because the investors the Government is hoping to drag in to develop public land would not put up with it. That is the truth of what is going on.

I am unsure whether there is much more to say about how horrible and absolutely appalling this legislation is. It is an absolute heist. There is nothing ideological about it. This is about greed, facilitating greed and a political establishment that is utterly captured. It has always been captured. The rich in this country have always made their money by property, by exploiting property and by speculation. This applies to property developers and Fianna Fáil in particular, but Fine Gael did the same with the international vulture funds that the party brought in to benefit from the crisis generated by the last speculative and developer-led frenzy.

Of course, we can add in the affordable housing legislation that has come out. That will strap people in so-called affordable housing with a double mortgage - not only one mortgage but two mortgages.

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