Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Can the Minister tell us what exactly is the Government's policy for apartment living? We know what the Green Party policy is supposed to be. It says it wants sustainable, high-quality developments that are located a 15-minute walk or cycle from a city centre. However, does it only want people to be able to rent this kind of housing, and rent in insecure tenancies? That is all that is available to people at the moment.

The Minister for Finance tells us apartments must be omitted from the meagre measures announced this week that purport to stop the bulk purchase of homes by cuckoo funds because they will not otherwise be built. Fine Gael has said something similar before. Back in 2017, when Eoghan Murphy was Minister, he said he had to reduce design standards because apartments were too high-spec and were costing too much to build. He slashed standards for every kind of apartment project but the changes he made for build-to-rent apartments were particularly damaging. There is no restriction on dwelling mix. The apartments are smaller and poorly ventilated at a time of a pandemic. There is a complete lack of storage space, no private outdoor space and they are not at all suited to working from home.

Mr. Murphy was pleased with himself when those changes were made. He claimed at the time he had single-handedly reduced the cost of delivering apartments by 15%. He should perhaps have been concerned that developers and cuckoo funds were also very pleased with themselves. Planning permissions in Dublin for apartments now vastly outstrip permissions for houses, and build-to-rent apartments comprise more than 70% of the permissions. These apartments are cheaper to build, more expensive to rent and impossible to buy, a description that summarises the Government's housing policy very well. Where are people who live in Dublin supposed to buy homes? They cannot buy the apartments that are currently under construction because practically every one of them is being purchased by funds. Eoghan Murphy's bright idea to slash costs for developers and cuckoo funds delivered for neither home buyers nor renters. All it did was boost developers' profits.

The Minister's party, we were told, entered Government to have a positive impact on environmental issues. I have some questions for him. Why are he and his party facilitating this planning bonanza for cuckoo funds? Does he accept that the Government is declaring Dublin city centre a no-go area for first-time buyers? Is it not the case that young people who want to live in a city centre cannot aspire to home ownership?

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