Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Housing is a basic human need. Without housing most aspects of people's lives break down. Physical and mental health starts to deteriorate. A family's ability to provide healthy nutrition for their children falls apart. Education and work life are practically impossible without a home.

Ireland is suffering from a prolonged national housing disaster. Up to 1 million people in this State are affected by the housing crisis, either through mortgage distress, homelessness, spending years on housing waiting list or grossly unfair rents and mortgages. This crisis has been going on for so long that many in society, in particular in the political class as well as some in the media class, have become desensitised to it.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil consider themselves parties of the free market. In truth, both are parties of market distortion. Much of the dysfunction in the housing market is a direct result of actions taken by Fine Gael and supported by Fianna Fáil. At the bottom of the housing slump, Fine Gael rolled out the red carpet to international residential investors and vulture funds in its efforts to put a floor under house prices and improve the balance sheets of the Irish banks. It achieved this through providing generous taxation policies and light-touch regulation.

As a result, international investors piled into the market, made massive profits, pushed prices for rents and mortgages through the roof and put first-time buyers out of the market. We saw what happened with the majority of homes purchased in a Kildare housing estate in the past week.

What is happening, which is shocking given Fianna Fáil's history, is that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are now creating a tenant class, something that has not been seen since the likes of the Irish landlord system. There is a form of feudalism recurring in Irish society at this time. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are pitching REITs with massive competitive advantages against young couples and families on a daily basis in David-and-Goliath battles. There can only be one winner in such situations.

The solution is not rocket science. If international investors are hoovering up housing units due to the massive competitive advantage they have, even up the odds. The Government should reduce the advantages they have and increase the buying power of young families. It is very simple. If institutions have enormous power in the market, the Government can pull the economic levers to reduce that power and make sure that young families can purchase homes and pay lower rents.

Builders have said that financing is a major difficulty. If they get financing from an international investor, it gives them the confidence to proceed with a project. However, it can take six months from the time a young family views a house to put finance in place, if such a family can get finance at all.

On the supply side, building costs are skyrocketing. I spoke to a builder today who showed me a list of about 25 key items in the building of a house, all of which have increased in price, in some cases by double digit percentages. The supply of land is still being controlled. Speculators, hoping to harvest increased prices in the future, are sitting on vast tracts of land. All of this is adding to the fact that homes and rents are being pushed beyond the reach of families.

On the demand side, REITs get away without paying property taxes. They do not pay proper capital gains tax or stamp duty and are paying a tiny amount of corporation tax. They achieve interest rates on the international market at levels far lower than the interest rates young families have to deal with. They are being turbo-boosted by these factors in their battles with young families.

Aontú would level the playing field between REITs and families. We would strip their advantages from them and ensure they are no longer sheltered from proper taxation. We would build a public banking system to ensure that the other distorted market, namely, the banking market, is reformed so that families can get access to decent mortgages at their interest rates. We would increase the supply of land by taxing vacant land to the level that it costs to hold it. We would fund the return of thousands of empty houses around the country to the market and tax those who refuse to bring those homes back onto the market. We would increase the level of CPOs that happen with regard to empty and derelict houses. We would increase the number of trainee apprentices in order to increase the pool of skilled workers. I ask the Minister to make sure that he implements these reforms so that young families have a chance to purchase their own homes.

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