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

Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis an Teachta McAuliffe. Bogfaidh mé an leasú ar son an Rialtais.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following: “notes that significant progress has been made on an extensive range of measures included in the Programme for Government - Our Shared Future, building on the initiatives already undertaken and in progress, which are now being brought forward by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to support individuals and families to access affordable housing, in particular:

— this Government is delivering on its commitment to ensure that everybody has access to good-quality housing, to purchase or rent at an affordable price;

— Budget 2021 included €3.3 billion for housing, a 24 per cent increase on 2020, and the highest investment in housing by any Government in a single year;

— the Minister, working across Government and with all housing delivery partners, is delivering on the Government’s Programme for Government objectives to:

— put affordability at the heart of the housing system;

— bring forward proposals for State-backed affordable home purchase schemes to promote home ownership; and

— deliver the State’s first ever cost rental homes;

— to this end, since taking Office, the Minister has already published the Affordable Housing Bill 2020 and introduced the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 to the Oireachtas;

— both of these significant pieces of legislation will facilitate immediate direct delivery of affordable housing, targeting middle income earners facing high rents and often out of reach purchase prices for new high-quality homes, while supporting the expansion of the affordable housing sector in Ireland over the short to medium-term;

— to provide financial support for affordable housing, €620 million was provided in Budget 2021 for new and existing affordable housing measures, with a focus on immediately stimulating supply;

— Budget 2021, together with focusing on delivering over 6,200 directly supplied homes by local authorities under the €310 million Serviced Sites Fund, introduced a new Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme to target first-time buyers with a help to buy scheme;

— Budget 2021 also introduced a new Cost Rental Equity Loan, to deliver the first ever cost rental properties by Approved Housing Bodies in areas of high demand and high housing costs, with the Exchequer funding supplemented by Housing Finance Agency low cost, long-term finance, making €135 million available in total; and

— the Minister has already announced the first 390 new cost rental homes targeted to be delivered this year under the new scheme, with the additional 50 cost rental homes at Enniskerry Road, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown which are also due to be completed this year and supported by the Department’s Serviced Sites Fund;

in terms of new measures, further notes that:

— the Irish housing system needs to provide additional new homes to meet current and future demand while new homes cost more than second-hand homes due to the enhanced quality and energy efficiency making viability an issue and meaning that home ownership is pushed further away from individuals and families starting out in life;

— in recent years, first-time buyers have increasingly shifted to buying second-hand homes and the stock of such homes for sale is diminishing;

— planning permissions for new homes have maintained strong growth but commencements have decreased recently;

— it is critical that new supply of affordable starter homes is encouraged and that overall supply increases by circa 40 per cent over the immediate period ahead, to meet the demand as Ireland’s economy recovers from Covid-19; and

— relying on any one measure or one channel of supply would be very high risk and would be limited by each sector’s capacity to deliver, instead all channels, State and non-State, are being mobilised to support affordable housing delivery;

in terms of the new Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme, also notes that:

— the scheme is one short-term, targeted measure in a multi-faceted approach to increasing housing affordability;

— the scheme was devised in consultation with other Government Departments and housing delivery partners, in order to provide an immediate boost to first-time buyers for new homes;

— the proposal has gone through the rigorous cross-Government policy development processes with a mandate given to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to design the scheme for Government consideration;

— the scheme continues to be developed in close consultation with relevant Government Departments, housing delivery partners, international comparator bodies and other key stakeholders;

— with final parameters of the shared equity scheme close to finalisation, but not yet announced, the stance taken by the opposition is premature and based on incomplete information;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has examined and assessed the impact of similar schemes in other jurisdictions, including England, learning from experience in developing the Irish scheme;

— the United Kingdom (UK) scheme, for example, has supported some 250,000 home purchases, and is considered to have met its objectives with a 2019 report from the UK National Audit Office finding that the English ‘Help to Buy: Equity Loan’ scheme increased overall supply by 14.5 per cent, while increasing purchase prices for buyers in the scheme by less than 1 per cent on a like-for-like basis;

— the Irish shared equity scheme will be more targeted than other international schemes to ensure it delivers on its objectives of helping first-time buyers, who need it, into new homes sooner, while at the same time encouraging and increasing new build supply to meet that realisable demand;

— the State’s financial exposure in the shared equity scheme is €75 million, just over 2 per cent of the State’s housing budget in 2021, and this can support an estimated 2,000 first-time buyers to realise their aspiration of buying a new home, representing 10 per cent of new homes built last year, and overall a targeted and time bound scheme could support 8,000 new home purchases over a three year period;

— taking on board legitimate concerns that any new market-based scheme could have unintended consequences, the Government are ensuring safeguards are being built in to tailor eligibility to meet individual affordability needs only, and to manage prices through area-based price caps; and

— the scheme will be reviewed after one year to ensure it remains on track to meet objectives; and

furthermore, notes the Government’s intention to:

— accelerate and expand affordable housing delivery in the context of the ongoing review of the National Development Plan and the new housing strategy being prepared by the Minister;

— fully utilise the provisions of the Affordable Housing Bill 2020 and the Land Development Agency Bill 2021, to support affordable housing delivery by local authorities, approved housing bodies, the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through all other channels;

— accelerate delivery of affordable homes by local authorities under the €310 million Serviced Sites Fund, to deliver 6,200 new affordable homes and bring forward proposals to expand the scope and potential of the fund;

— maximise the existing Help to Buy Scheme, which has already seen approvals of more than 22,000 applications, and the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan, which has lending of €354 million since 2018;

— expand Part V of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, to encompass affordable as well as social housing;

— mobilise the LDA to work with local authorities, State agencies and other stakeholders to deliver affordable housing by leveraging its expertise and the €1.25 billion in Ireland Strategic Investment Fund funding and land bank available to it; and

— build sustainable mixed communities, avoiding over-concentration of any particular housing types in areas, by requiring local authorities to complete Housing Need and Demand Assessments to inform the delivery of an appropriate mix of housing typologies to cater for the needs of disparate household types and sizes, and thereafter by delivering affordable housing to complement the planned increase in the social housing stock of more than 50,000 homes, to help meet those needs.”

We are in the middle of a housing crisis, as most Deputies will actually recognise. Faced with such an emergency, we need to use all tools at our disposal to address the challenge across both the private and public sector. I am committed to delivery over dogmatism to boost housing supply and open up homeownership to a new generation of people. We need to stop letting one party’s perfect be the enemy of everyone else’s good when facing this crisis. Silver bullet fantasies and cynical hysteria politics do a generation locked in a rent trap a great disservice. I am committed to using every single weapon in our arsenal to fight this battle and turn the tide in our housing crisis. I am committed to this because I want to help people to own their own homes at an affordable rate. To refuse to use the private sector would be fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Instead we need to show energy, innovation, flexibility and commitment to get bricks and mortar into the ground.

However, this morning’s Private Members' business is, unsurprisingly, deeply cynical. It is a manoeuvre and nothing else, and has nothing to do with constructive proposals for the housing sector. It dedicates nearly 600 words to scrapping a scheme that has not even been finalised yet and the details of which are yet to be published.

It is the approach of a party interested in manufacturing problems but not in providing solutions. The Dáil will debate the affordable housing Bill in the coming weeks, including the shared equity scheme element of the Bill, and Sinn Féin and others will have a chance to put forward amendments on Committee Stage. If that party was interested in solutions, it would use that opportunity. Instead of allocating its Private Members' time to putting forward practical legislation, it is using it for the hysterical politics that is its defining characteristic.

That type of politics is particularly depressing in the face of the sheer scale of this housing crisis. I remind Deputies that home ownership levels in Ireland have fallen from highs of 82% in 1991 to below the EU average today. We need to address that and give a whole generation of people an opportunity to buy their own home at an affordable rate. We need new approaches. That is why our affordable housing Bill and the Land Development Agency Bill are so important. Only time will tell whether Sinn Féin will actually support those tangible measures to help us get through this crisis or just oppose the Bills, as it usually does.

We need to use short-term measures to boost supply while other supports such as direct State build of affordable homes come on stream. The equity scheme has three main aims: to boost supply, bridge the affordability gap and support jobs and economic recovery. The scheme involves the State taking approximately 20% on average in any new build, subject to regional price caps, while a deposit and mortgage is taken out on the rest. The equity stake itself is free for the first five years, with modest fees applying thereafter. Some €75 million has been put aside, with potential additional funding, to reach the aim of supporting approximately 2,000 homes and 2,000 individuals this year. These are people who are caught in the rent trap. They are people who I will not abandon and who I and this Government want to help.

Let us put the idea into perspective. It forms one part of the four-pronged approach in the affordable housing Bill which, working in tandem with the Land Development Agency Bill, is a fundamental shift in housing policy. It covers our first national cost rental scheme, to be implemented this year, and our first direct local authority-led affordable building in more than a decade, also to be implemented this year, with prices ranging from €165,000 to €265,000. It also comprises a shared equity scheme that will give individuals and first-time buyers a choice of where they can buy this year. Subject to Cabinet approval, the Bill will provide a newly expanded Part V to encompass affordable housing in new developments.

In financial terms, let us look at the €75 million. It is absolute nonsense to say that this €75 million will ratchet up house price inflation. It comprises 2.3% of the €3.3 billion housing programme and less than 0.7% of the €11 billion mortgage market but it is 100% of Sinn Féin's interest in Government housing policy. The details of the proposal are being finalised but the equity scheme is living rent-free in Deputy Ó Broin's head. It says everything about Sinn Féin's obsession with Trump-style hysteria that Deputy Ó Broin compared an equity scheme that will help first-time buyers with crack cocaine and kept a straight face while so doing.

I accept legitimate constructive criticism. Indeed, I actually welcome it. Any scheme worth its salt has to stand up to scrutiny and be willing to take improvements on board. The ESRI committee contribution rightly stated that the targeting of any credit market intervention is critical. To address those concerns directly, the scheme is targeted, time and finance limited, and subject to regional price caps to activate supply immediately, stop inflation and ensure realisable supply. Last September, the Central Bank noted the proposal as an abstract concept of the idea, but this scheme is based on equity, not debt, with no obligation to buy out. It is not a second mortgage and the macroprudential rules are fully protected. We are continuing to engage with the Central Bank and the Directorate General for Competition on the scheme. That work is ongoing and progressing well.

Ultimately, the reason behind the motion lies in Sinn Féin's consistent opposition to home ownership. It voted against affordable ownership motions and it has opposed the help-to-buy scheme, the first-time buyer's scheme that has supported 22,709 individuals and families to get their own home. It is now looking to scrap a scheme that has not even been published yet. Its Deputies can continue to vote against such initiatives and deprive workers of the secure homes they want, but I am not going to allow that to happen. I am going to work on behalf of those people, as is the Government. Sinn Féin is criticising a short-term measure but it has put forward no viable solutions for swift delivery.

The Sinn Féin housing plan, a phrase I use advisedly, involves building 20,000 homes without any idea where they will be built or by whom. Sinn Féin representatives never say how long it is going to take. The shutdown of the construction sector does not matter when one is building houses in the sky. The ownership scheme published by Sinn Féin excludes couples earning the average industrial wage and at the end of it, anyone availing of the scheme does not own his or her home. We have an issue that needs to be sorted now. Action is being taken but all that some of my Opposition colleagues do is continue to oppose without bringing forward any viable solutions.

The core foundation of my and the Government's policy is that owning one's own home is good for individuals, families, communities and our State. A person earning a decent wage should be able to buy a home and the State should play a central role in supporting that aspiration. It is all too clear from the opposition of other parties that they do not share those core beliefs and will continue to oppose measures to support home ownership. The hopes of generation rent are dependent on Government action and that is what I, as Minister with responsibility for housing, am doing. I will leave no stone unturned in working to put forward real solutions to help those people to realise their dreams. I hope some in the Opposition will get on board.

See this speech in context