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

I am sharing time with Deputies Paul Murphy and Mick Barry. I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing forward the motion. Anything that gives us an opportunity to highlight the housing crisis and the plight of renters is very welcome. I support overwhelmingly the thrust of the motion. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and Deputy Devlin's attempts to defend the Government's position and their countermotion are threadbare in the extreme.

A few weeks ago, I described the LDA legislation as a heist where the Government had opened the door, not just so that private developers and speculators would control the private market, but for the entire public land bank to be plundered by private financial interests. I pointed out that the references to setting affordable prices and rents subject to local market conditions meant they would not be affordable. With the affordable housing scheme, my worst fears are confirmed. What planet is the Government living on? For €450,000 in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire to be affordable, one would need an income of about €120,000. Average wages in this country are €39,000. A single person can forget it as he or she has not got a chance.

The legislation refers to market rents - not even average market rents but local market rents. In my area, local market rents are between €2,000 and €3,000 or even €3,500. The Minister suggests the cost rental will be a discount on the local market rents. It is a joke. What will happen and is happening is that the cuckoos come in, buy all the blocks and lease them back to the council, which pays an extortionate fortune. They make a fortune, paid for with taxpayers' money, and in 25 years they feck off. They have made a fortune and people are put out, as is happening with the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. It is extraordinary. I cannot believe Shanganagh is mentioned as a positive example. Shanganagh was handed over for public housing by a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government in 2006. Since then, we have had Fianna Fáil in government, Fine Gael in government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government and not a sod has been turned. Now we discover the affordable, cost-rental housing on it will be subject to a benchmark against local rent and prices, which are the highest anywhere in the country.

It is flipping unbelievable. In Cherrywood, which is also in my constituency, former NAMA land, a Fianna Fáil construct, was handed over to private developers who are now building four blocks of build-to-rent apartments. I met the developers and they told me it was costing them €400,000 per unit to build and that every single one of them had been sold to a Dutch state pension fund. Even the Dutch understand that its state should invest in public housing, but they are doing it here because our State will not do it. It will not build its own affordable housing and public housing that is genuinely affordable. It is beyond shocking. In Cherrywood originally, when €15 million of public money in local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, funding was given to pay for the infrastructure, we were promised that 40% of all housing built with that money would go for affordable housing and that it would cost no more than €300,000. Within weeks, that had disappeared. There was no 40%, or any other percentage: in fact, we do not know what percentage of affordable housing there will be. Yesterday, the Minister told us that affordable housing has increased from €300,000 a few years ago to €450,000. How is housing affordable based on people's income if it is capped at €450,000 in one area, €400,000 in another area, €350,000 in another area, €300,000 in another area and, €225,000 in another area. It has got nothing to do with affordability. Does the Minister think people get different wages depending on whether they live in Leitrim or Dún Laoghaire? It is just disgraceful.

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