Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tá áthas orm labhairt ar an rún fíorthábhachtach seo. Affordable housing - or indeed the lack of affordable housing schemes - is a huge issue of concern. In my constituency, Laois-Offaly, we have little or none available, which is leading to couples and single people paying exorbitant rents. Even though some areas are rent pressure zones, it makes little or no difference. This Government needs to get real. It is failing many of our young people because of the lack of action on building affordable housing schemes, which are so badly needed. What is very frustrating to people is that the signs of this problem growing have been there for years and years yet we have allowed it to deteriorate to catastrophic levels.

In 2019 the ESRI made it clear that the trends in housing payment costs across households showed that on average households were paying one fifth of their total income on housing costs. This figure has only grown with the rising costs of insurance and utilities. The ESRI analysis indicated that private renters and low-income households were paying a significantly higher proportion of their incomes on housing payments. Households in the bottom 25% of income distribution in particular were spending between two fifths to more than one half of their income on housing costs, depending on tenure. Again, all this has become worse in the intervening years. We have a society crippled by the lack of affordable housing options, a planning system at the mercy of organisations which should be disbanded, like An Taisce, and a local authority housebuilding system that is not fit for purpose. There are issues with the planning arrangements in local authorities. It takes far too long for these housing schemes to get off the ground. Every local authority should have its own legal department in order to be able to move the process on. We have to see a change here and we have to see the Government stepping up.

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