Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak on this issue. It is emotive and needs to be dealt with. I reject in their entirety the continuous allegations against Fine Gael and whoever else to the effect that we are all a bunch of hard right-wing opportunists and that we have no concern for the people. I remind everybody on all sides of the House that in the 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Fine Gael itself, or in conjunction with the Labour Party, brought forward some of the most progressive legislation in the history of the State. If anybody does not believe that, let them go back to look at it again, both where it came from and the circumstances that prevailed at the time. Similarly, in respect of the housing situation, we might refer back to the 1980s.

The late Peter Barry, when Minister, introduced very important legislation six months after coming into office. It established the Housing Finance Agency loan system, which was the means by which many people who could not acquire a house beforehand acquired affordable housing. He was sneered at and regarded as a merchant prince but the legislation he introduced dealt with the housing situation quickly and in a very meaningful and serious way.

The Minister now proposes to introduce regulations to address the issues that have emerged. My only criticism is that we were not alerted to these issues by the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator, or by others on whom we rely to let us know what is happening in financial environments at an early stage. That did not happen and I have raised that issue separately in the relevant committee.

The Ceann Comhairle and I dealt with housing issues for many a long year in our constituency in Kildare. We dealt with these matters successfully and, through our own efforts and our example, we ensured that people on the average industrial wage were able to acquire and own their own houses, which they did. Various people tried to dissuade us but we prevailed.

The Minister has fired warning shots across the bows of the strategic investors, the vulture funds or whatever we want to call them. Anybody who intervenes in the provision and supply of housing at the present time in a way which will, in any way, increase the price of the product or restricts its availability to the market is not acting in the national interest. Let us remember that affordable housing is part of our taxation system and always has been. It was always necessary to ensure that there was a supply of houses available to people who wish to own their own house.

It should not be forgotten that, for many years, we were criticised by people who said that the real problem in this country is that people wish to own their own houses when they should rent properties. This was all rubbish, as the Ceann Comhairle and I know well. Security is what follows people. It is part of what they think about all the time. When they go to purchase or rent a house, the first thing they look for is security. Why do people want to buy a house? It is for reasons of security. It allows them to not be at any landlord's beck and call. They cannot be kicked out of the house on somebody else's whim. Under our Constitution, they are entitled to that and long may it continue.

I support the Minister's proposals but I ask that they be monitored very carefully in the very short term to ensure that the provisions now proposed do their job. To those who want to be cynical and say that it will not work, I say that we do not know whether it will. However, I remind everybody that we were all part of an all-party committee set up by the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, to study housing needs and what to do about them back in 2016. I remember well that I made proposals very similar to those now put forward by people in the Opposition in order to deal with the housing situation quickly and effectively. What I effectively said at the time was that the focus should be shifted to direct building for the local authorities. I did not necessarily mean direct building by the local authorities because local authorities do not employ plumbers, bricklayers and others needed to carry out work themselves. That is ineffective. It went out with the ark. The new system involves the contracting of a contractor to design, to build and to look for planning permission, if necessary. Planning permission is given at the behest of the local authority in any event. Building directly would provide houses that were affordable to rent through the local authority system or to purchase. They would all, however, be affordable. Let us not forget that there was always a provision allowing a tenant to buy a property after one year. That was very progressive and helpful and, as a result, an income derived from that property by way of mortgage.

Let us go back to what happened. The all-party housing committee made a mistake. It did not determine that there should be a total emphasis on the provision of affordable housing. It came up with a series of proposals because the parties could not agree. That is what the problem was and what it still is, as we can see. A series of measures were proposed and, although not everybody agreed to all of them, all agreed to some. The problem is that we have been pursuing that policy ever since. We are pursuing it to this day and will continue to do so. As long as too many options are available, with each doing a little bit, some will conflict with others, which will cause confusion and create obstacles. We will end up in a situation in which each is succeeding a little bit but in which, in the final analysis, we will not reach our targets.

I agree with the measures the Minister is proposing. Various people will dispute whether they are severe enough to do the job required. I honestly do not know if they are but we will need to know fairly soon. If these particular measures do not do the job expected of them, we will have to go back again.

People have a right to feel we are thinking about their interests at some stage. There is not much sense in thinking about our own interests; we have to think about their interests. We have to be seen to respond to their needs as they arise. Like everybody else, I get emails and from time to time some of them say that I speak strangely for a member of Fine Gael. I do not. I have spoken like this all of my life, as the Ceann Comhairle well knows. He spoke the same way. The fact of that matter is that we never spoke in a way that suggested we were adversely disposed to our electorate, by which I mean all of the electorate. They are entitled to live and to benefit from their constitutional rights at all times. This pertains in the provision of homes, jobs and infrastructure. Housing is a vital part of our infrastructure. We need to invest more in it and to deal with these issues now.

One of the mistakes the all-party housing committee made was that it did not identify the size of the problem we faced. I am not certain that we have done so yet. We are told that we have to build 35,000 houses a year. I believe we need to build 55,000 houses for each of the next two or three years and maybe longer. If we look at our individual local authorities, we see that the numbers on housing waiting lists are increasing. That should not be. I know that the onset of Covid interrupted matters and that we previously had the financial crash and the housing crash but we have to get out of the situation in which we have found ourselves at some stage. We need to put ourselves on a solid financial footing insofar as the provision of housing for our population is concerned. I refer to all of the population. Nobody should be left out or feel they are likely to be left out. They are all entitled to the best that can be given under our Constitution.

As I have said before in the House, I have already tried this. I know that other Members from our county have done the same thing and proved that houses could be produced at a fraction of the cost at which they were placed on the market in the middle of the Celtic tiger. If that could be done then, it can still be done. We have to set about finding the ways and means to do it. As I said at the beginning, I hope that these measures are sufficient. If they are not, we will have to move again. The Minister knows this. We have discussed it many times. We have to make it quite clear that no government should act at the behest of powerful financial organisations that can move deckchairs from under the people sitting on them. We should never tolerate that.

We must with full resolve provide more houses than we have targeted in order to meet the full extent of demand.

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