Dáil debates

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

Residential Property Market: Motion [Private Members]

 

8:15 pm

Photo of Eoin Ó BroinEoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is very telling that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage spent far more time misrepresenting Sinn Féin housing policy than he did addressing the issue at hand. What is remarkable about that is that when the Minister was in opposition, he was the arch-enemy of what he at that time called the cuckoo funds. He tabled legislation which he said would clip their wings and he campaigned on an election manifesto which guaranteed action to ensure that no single buyer could purchase large numbers of homes that were not intended for the build-to-rent sector.

Despite this staunch opposition to what he then called cuckoo funds, when the programme for Government was negotiated, there was not a single mention of the issue. The Minister must have forgotten about it or else he decided the promises he made to get elected were no longer valuable. The only reason the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, are even considering this matter now is the huge public anger at the failure of the Government to keep its word. People do not want bluff and bluster. They want action and they will judge the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, by what he does.

With respect to the Minister for Finance, the difficulty is that by every single indicator from the beginning of the ten years of Fine Gael in government until now, the housing crisis is worse. Homeless levels, rents and house prices are higher. The Minister is right in one aspect. If we are arguing that high-yield, short-term, speculative investment funds are the wrong kind of investment, then where will the money come from to build the homes? It is a very reasonable question, although the Minister knows we have answered it repeatedly. The first answer is that the State needs to do far more than it is doing. Half of all the social and affordable homes that are required should be fully funded by the State. The Government should do what the ESRI advised and double capital investment in public housing from €1.2 billion to €2.8 billion. It also needs to start attracting the right kind of private sector investment, instead of investment that leads to rents in Dublin city centre of €2,500 to €3,000 and pushes house prices up to €350,000 to €450,000. That is the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael way. Let us have more public investment and the right kind of private investment to deliver the homes working people desperately need and rightly deserve.

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