Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Housing is a basic need. Without housing, all aspects of life become radically more difficult. Physical and mental health starts to deteriorate and a family's ability to provide even simple nutrition falls apart. Education and work life are next to impossible without a home, and the human condition disintegrates if a person does not have a house. Ireland is suffering from a prolonged housing emergency and the level of human misery being caused by this prolonged housing emergency is unprecedented. I firmly believe that about 1 million people in Ireland are currently in housing distress in some fashion, whether it be mortgage distress, homelessness, years spent on housing waiting lists or grossly unaffordable rents and mortgages. This crisis has been going on for so long that the media and the political establishment have now become desensitised to it. The whole housing crisis has been completely eclipsed by Covid and this is an absolute disaster for many people around the country. It is the primary responsibility of the Government to make sure that people have access to affordable and reasonably priced homes and that those who cannot afford homes at market prices have an alternative route to a home. In this, in every measure, this Government and the previous Government have failed. In a normal society the cost of a house should equal about two and a half times to four times a person's annual income. In the South of Ireland, the average wage is about €44,000 but the average price of a home is now eight times the average income of an individual. That is double the high end of what the cost of a home should be in relation to a person's income. Even the Minister has to admit it at this stage, to hold up the white flag, to hold up his hand and say that the Government has radically failed the people of Ireland when it comes to homes. In Dublin a family on an average wage pay well over 50% of their after-tax income on average rents. For people on the minimum wage, both buying and renting homes is now absolutely impossible in Dublin. The record of three successive Governments on housing and homelessness has been nothing short of shameful. Last year 79 people died in homelessness on the streets of Dublin. The Minister's response to this shocking humanitarian crisis has been very poor. First, the fact that he has not rushed to make all the other local authorities in the State record the deaths that are happening in homelessness in those other counties annually is amazing. We will go through another year during which only Dublin will have recorded the number of people who died in homelessness. That is a major mistake. Second, the issue I brought to the Minister's attention in the dying months of last year in respect of people who are from outside of Dublin being refused homeless services in Dublin has not been fully resolved. It needs to be fully resolved. In addition, many people with disabilities on local housing waiting lists have been waiting more than a decade. The average rent in Dublin is well in excess of €2,000. Annually, this is a full €3,000 more than the before-tax income of a person working full-time on the minimum wage. In my home county, people who are single must wait well over ten years on the waiting list for a home, another shocking fact.

I note that last week, a Green Party Minister stated in the context of a plan for direct provision that he would guarantee a person coming into Ireland a home after, I think, four months and that he or she would have a guarantee of his or her own front door.

I oppose direct provision. It is a shockingly inhumane way to house people who are fleeing war, violence and famine. This country should offer refuge to people from abroad who are fleeing war, violence and famine. However, the idea that this country, which currently cannot home a person who has been a waiting list for ten years, will have the capability to home people with their own front door within four months or arriving in this country is so outlandish that it is amazing that the Government has even made that ambition known. We believe that people who are going through the direct provision system should have their application for direct provision fully completed after 18 months. Those who are refugees, seeking refuge from violence, war and famine should be offered refuge, and those who do not fulfil the law should have the law imposed on their particular situation.

To afford the cheapest accommodation in Dublin, a couple or individual needs to have an annual income of around €100,000. The cheapest two-bedroom apartment available to buy in Dublin costs €375,000, which would require a deposit of 10%, or €37,000. The list goes on. The fact of the matter that in housing terms, we are in a perfect storm that has been handed down from Minister to Minister like a hot potato, with each of them afraid to deal with it. At the same time, there are tens of thousands of houses around the country which are empty. At the same time, there are thousands of acres of land around the country that have been zoned, are in developers' hands, and are lying idle. There are sites that are not being taxed for site valuation tax. There is a dysfunctional housing market that this Government is refusing to make functional.

One of the difficulties that I have with this Bill that the Minister has brought forward is the fact that the Government is saying that local authorities will be bypassed. Local authorities have been gutted by this Government and previous Governments for a long time. The town councils were derailed and closed and local councillors are basically in hock to the officials in councils with regard to what they can and cannot do. They are extremely powerless already. One power they have is to represent local people when it comes to the building of social and affordable homes. They provide rich and invaluable information and oversight, in respect of how those homes get built in local areas. That is going to be deleted by the Government's plan. Local democracy is going to be totally deleted with this Bill.

I have concerns with regard to the percentage of the lands that will go to social and affordable homes. I know that the Fine Gael Bill, of which this is a close copy, contained a 30% limit in this respect. I am not sure exactly what the Minister is planning but I am significantly worried that much of that property will end up in the hands of private developers and the lands will be used to build homes under a definition of "affordable" that is marginally below the current market price, which to many people is absolutely unaffordable.

Before I finish, I make the point that the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, recently warned the Minister that the Affordable Housing Bill would jack up house prices. It is incredible that the Minister is deaf to many independent economists and organisations that are trying their best to advise the Minister on keeping house prices down, and the Minister is implementing policy that is actually going the other way. I note there was a report in the Irish Examinerwhich stated that when the ESRI was making its presentation to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, there was lobbying from Deputies, asking it to tone down or delete its critique of the Minister's work. Perhaps the Minister had nothing to do with that but nonetheless, it was reported. If it is the case that we are going to seek to reduce the ability of third-party organisations and experts in their fields to present us with information that is economically sound for political reasons, that would be a big mistake.

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