Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The last speaker has cracked it; the answer is "public housing on public land". It was a potent sentence. We all know it is not easy to deliver the housing but it needs to be delivered.

I got involved in political activism because of the housing issue in 2008. Circumstances have evolved since then, and we are where we are. We have a homelessness crisis that is beyond comprehension, an affordability crisis that beggars belief and a supply crisis that shows no sign of being resolved. It is an absolute catastrophe and an indictment of successive Governments. I accept that my party was in one of the more recent Governments. The current position is an indictment of the last Government and the current one, in particular. There is only so far back in history one can go; eventually one will have to take responsibility. I refer to successive budgets, housing policies, planning policies and planning Acts. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the current Government.

The people are angry. I got involved in politics in 2008 and was first elected in 2014. I was a public representative in a local authority for over five years and I have been in this House for a year and a half so I have seen a bit. When we look under the bonnet of politics in general and at how we deal with housing, we realise it is really shameful. It is perfectly understandable why people are so angry. They hear politicians object to housing. Some object for very good reasons and others for dubious reasons. People hear politicians objecting to Traveller housing, social housing, high-rise developments, large estates and medium-sized estates. There will always be a reason. Some of the reasons may be valid as there may be violations of master plans and objectives, and we all reserve the right to protect these and to speak to them and to democratic processes, but many of the reasons are not valid.

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Many are purely to protect votes in their own backyard. That is the reality. Politicians have to be honest with themselves. Bills were presented to the Oireachtas last night which we believe will not solve the affordability crisis. We supported the Land Development Agency Bill on Second Stage because we believe in the concept of a land development agency but we have little faith that it will do what needs to be done. We all need to take responsibility. This is another good motion presented by Deputy Ó Broin. There is much good in it but people, who are angry, will look at mud being slung from side to side of the Dáil. I refer to an article by a friend of mine, Conor Sheehan, who is a county councillor in Limerick. It was in the Irish Examinertoday. I know he is a county councillor, working in politics, but Conor is essentially a worker, like everyone else, who earns an average income like everyone else. He does not have a permanent pensionable job but he is a worker who is working hard and is performing his side of the social contract. He is not getting anywhere and he is not able to afford a home. He is doing everything right.

I mention him because he is based in Limerick. There is sometimes a focus on the housing crisis as a Dublin issue. Maybe it is felt more acutely because Dublin is the most expensive place to live or rent in the country. Our media and many of our politicians, and so on, are based here. Our housing and affordability crisis, which affects young people, is in every county in this State. People are furious. On the road I grew up on in Finglas, when you look at the houses there, there were people who worked in Superquinn, in the local pub, painters and decorators, retired people, porters in banks, glazers, people who worked in hospitals, electricians, nurses and a postman. A whole gamut people lived there and were able to afford a mortgage on a decent home in a good area. If I went and asked them, none would say that they got that easily. They worked hard for it. They followed the pathway that was there and, ultimately, they got what they worked hard for. The difference now is that people are working as hard as they did in the past but the State is not living up to its obligations. It is failing on every single level. People's anger is palpable. It is difficult when one sees the social contract being broken in such an egregious way.

How do we go about fixing this system? We need to go back to the Kenny report and its recommendations. We know we are going back in time but we need to look at the price of land and how to tackle that. The recommendations of the Kenny report need to be implemented. If they are to be challenged, let them be challenged. It is there and too many Governments have ignored it or not tested it. That cannot go on. We will promote this in the coming weeks and look for support. We need to link up secure work, trade union membership density and the living wage with the ability to afford a home. That ability is lacking and the insecurity of work, low pay and poor conditions are impacting people's ability to afford a home.

We need to reorient our thinking along those lines as a State. As has been mentioned so much over the last weeks, we need to kick the cuckoo funds and for-profit investment funds out of this area. They are causing corrosive damage, not only with the bulk purchasing of new estates, but their activity in the second-hand housing market is going under the radar and is having a significant impact that I believe is not being measured accordingly. They are going in to take houses before they even hit the market, so first-time buyers or people downsizing are not even aware that these houses would have been available to them. That has to end. There is certainly unanimous agreement in the Opposition on that but I believe that the vast majority of individuals in Government have to believe that this needs to end.

We need State investment in affordable housing at scale, as is mentioned in this motion. There is no other way around it. We want to be able to support the affordable housing Bill, as mentioned by our spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, last night. We will have a lot of difficulty because there is a fundamental flaw in the Bill, which is its failure to provide a definition of affordability linked to income. This one flaw cuts the credibility of the affordable housing Bill in half. As Senator Moynihan said last night, we should call it what it is, which is a market discount Bill. When one sees a Bill such as this being presented at a time when a three-bed apartment in the proposed O'Devaney Gardens development is being presented for €420,000, one gets a sense of just how crazy, how wrong and failing this system is. This Bill will not resolve that. The shared equity portion of the Bill, despite all the voices beyond politics, including the Economic and Social Research Institute and other agencies raising issues, and the examples of it failing to work in other jurisdictions, still remains part of this Bill.

First-time buyers, young people and workers are watching the debates in the Dáil. They are not just looking at this via social media, Twitter or Facebook. They are watching the actual debates on Oireachtas TV. They will be as angry after this debate as they are after every other debate and every week that goes by without any progress, with every Bill that is presented that they know will not solve the problem. There is a lost generation. With the way things are going, we could have two lost generations. We, as this small island with a relatively small population on the west coast of Europe, are failing again with a key issue, which is the provision of affordable, secure housing for the island's people. I do not want to be anywhere, whether here or on a bar stool, having this same conversation in ten years in front of a Ceann Comhairle or a friend. This has to be resolved straight away.

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