Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The solution to the housing crisis is to build houses. That might sound simplistic but it is the essence of what is required. The decisions of previous Fianna Fáil Governments to effectively stop building council houses is essentially the source of the situation that has resulted in the reality wherein most Irish people aged under 30 years watching this debate will probably never own their own home, provided Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael remain in power.

What Fianna Fáil has pursued is essentially an outsourcing of housing policy. Thus when we hear Members from the Government side talking about investment in housing they do not mention that billions of euro of that investment has actually been spent on subsidising private landlords through rent supplement and housing assistance payment, HAP, supports rather than through building houses, such that rent interventions actually cripple other renters because they push the cost of the rental market up. That in turn forces house prices to increase, meaning those people who are renting private accommodation cannot save for a deposit, or even if they are managing to save something, they will never be able to afford those ever-increasing house prices.

Sinn Féin's solution is to actually build houses, supporting those who need access to council houses and providing real affordable housing schemes. This will contribute to easing rents in the private market and ensuring house prices return to a realistic and sustainable level. Fianna Fáil's solution through this shared equity mechanism is yet another developer-led scheme. It has been rightly criticised by everybody who has objectively analysed it because it will increase the cost of housing. Only Fianna Fáil could come up with an affordable housing scheme that actually makes houses less affordable. This is the type of developer-led project that must stop now. The Government must see sense and adopt the policy provisions that have been put forward by Sinn Féin and start building houses.

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