Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Deputies for their contributions. I thank Deputy Ó Broin and Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. Deputy Ó Broin continues to bring constructive ideas to the housing debate. This evening's discussion has been useful.

I will start by addressing some of the points I have listened to since I took over on this side of the debate. Deputy Verona Murphy and others raised the issue of medium-density housing. We believe that in large urban areas that is simply not viable or sustainable for reasons of public transport and spatial planning. The notion of family homes is changing significantly. We are trying to create sustainable communities as well as just units.

Deputies Shanahan and Mattie McGrath and others spoke about rural housing and one-off rural housing. The preference in the national development plan, NDP, is for clustered settlements and ensuring that housing is located in the right place where it is close to and connected into water and wastewater infrastructure because we have a significant problem with groundwater and pollution from septic tanks. It is also about the renovation of housing in smaller urban settlements in line with the Town Centres First policy.

Questions were raised about the role of the Office of the Planning Regulator. The Government's view is that the office is a vital cog in the wheel of our planning system and ensures we have sustainable planning in this country. We reject any commentary regarding the role of the Office of the Planning Regulator. That office provides a vital role in ensuring sustainable development and avoiding unchecked planning.

There have been calls to disband An Taisce. An Taisce is a prescribed body and an essential partner in our planning process.

In response to the points made by Deputy Joan Collins, we are working to resolve myriad issues relating to housing and affordability. There is considerable commentary about what has happened in the past, but we are trying to secure a sustainable future for everybody, something on which everybody in this House needs to work collectively. It is a crisis and a significant challenge for us all. All Deputies in this House should be working collaboratively to try to achieve that.

I firmly believe that home ownership is good for individuals, good for families, good for communities and good for the State. With this in mind, we have put delivery, affordability and the chance to own a home at the very heart of our housing policy. In its proposed amendment to this evening's motion, the Government reflects this and makes clear, as laid out by the programme for Government, that its actions will be guided by the core principle that everybody should have access to good quality housing to purchase or to rent.

This is also an opportunity to raise simple but fundamental questions of the proposed plans laid out by the main Opposition party. It points out the cross-border hypocrisy, misleading definition of ownership and opposition to real housing projects that characterise Sinn Féin's actual policy. The promise of 20,000 homes comes without any indication of where they will be built or who will build them. Why is shared ownership promoted in the North but vehemently opposed here in the South? Why does it refer to long-term lease as "ownership" under its scheme? I assume it is a concept similar to that of housing in other EU states, but it is not described as ownership. These are fundamental questions that remain unanswered.

In contrast we are focused on delivery and that will be a key test for the Government. The Affordable Housing Bill 2021, which the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, introduced to the Oireachtas last night, together with the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 will work to give people the opportunity of ownership. These two landmark Bills are backed up by the largest housing budget in the history of the State and our most ambitious social housing targets on record. Combined, this represents a major step change in our housing policy that mobilises both the public and private sectors.

Using these Bills as its foundation, the upcoming housing-for-all plan to be published this summer will set out the ambitious range of affordable housing targets across the country over the coming years. Will the Opposition support these crucial pieces of legislation?

The proof of the pudding of our housing plans will be in the delivery of units. Let us consider what we are doing in one specific important area, the roll-out of local authority-led direct-build affordable housing, which will be a central plank of Government's affordable housing plan. Homes will range from €160,000 to €310,000. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is working with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to reform the €310 million serviced sites fund to ensure it can effectively fund major delivery.

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For example, a development this year at Boherboy, County Cork, will be the first serviced sites fund, SSF, scheme delivering homes under the affordable purchase legislation. It will deliver 116 affordable homes and two- and three-bedroom homes are expected to be made available to first-time buyers at purchase prices ranging from €198,000 to €223,000.

Fingal County Council is currently constructing an affordable housing development with 39 affordable and 12 social homes in Dun Emer, Lusk, comprising two- and three-bedroom houses and apartments. The council is accepting applications for these homes which will be offered by the local authority at property prices starting from €166,000, with an average of 25% reduction on open market values. The House will agree that these are affordable prices.

We need local authorities to bring forward many more of these types of projects at pace. That is the message that we have given. For our own part, we will ensure that the necessary budgetary and statutory supports are in place. We should also note that drafting and amending provisions to Part V of the Planning and Development Act to increase the current 10% social housing requirement for all new developments to a mandatory 20% social and affordable requirement is a very worthy and useful mechanism which has worked well in the past and should never have been reduced. Additional to the affordable housing Bill 2020, the Land Development Agency, LDA, is using €1.25 billion from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, to assemble strategic sites in urban areas to deliver social and affordable homes for rent and purchase. Cost-rental is being delivered and this was a key ask of the Green Party in the programme for Government.

In conclusion, I reiterate that our core approach in the middle of a national housing crisis and confronted with such an emergency is that we must use all tools at our disposal to address this challenge across both the private and public sectors, and by not tying one hand behind our back. I am committed to pragmatism over ideology and to delivering over dogmatism to boost supply and to open up home ownership to a new generation. We need to stop letting parties be the enemy of everyone’s good when facing a crisis. Silver bullet fantasies, cross-Border hypocrisy, misleading claims of ownership and cynical hysteria politics will wreak havoc on a generation locked up in a rent trap and they deserve better. I also reiterate that it is important that we work collectively to try to address this crisis. We in government will be more than happy to work with parties across the House to try to achieve that.

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