Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The issue of housing as a right has been debated many times in Dáil and Seanad Éireann. The right to secure shelter of a decent standard is generally accepted by Members of these Houses to be a human right on a par with the right to bodily integrity and access to healthcare or education, but it is a right which this Republic has not delivered upon, despite any number of policy initiatives, programme for Government commitments and White Papers. We could plaster a house with such documents. The Labour Party believes that there is now a consensus, a majority if not an overwhelming majority in this House, on agreeing to the proposal that we must find a policy platform that will finally deliver affordable and social housing at a volume and a cost that will address and resolve the housing issue once and for all, but we also need the policy tools to do the job.

For as long as I have been in politics, whenever housing policy was debated, mention was made of the Kenny report of 1973. The committee, chaired by Mr. Justice John Kenny, which produced that report was set up to consider measures for controlling the price of building land for the common good. The committee was also asked to suggest possible measures to ensure that the so-called betterment increase in land values that accrued as a result of planning decisions or the provision of water or sewerage by the local authority and the State shall not be secured for the benefit of individuals but for the community. The committee was initiated because of the disproportionate rise in the price of building land in the years up to 1973, which, as the leader of the Labour Party has said, was two generations ago. The windfall profit, which benefits landowners, simply because of a land rezoning, servicing or a planning decision, does nothing to change the intrinsic nature of the land but monumentally increases its value and that is an issue that cries out to be addressed. The majority of the Kenny committee proposed the creation of designated areas for housing. The local authorities could outline what they plan to do in the next five or ten years and purchase those lands compulsorily at agricultural values plus 25%. Those lands, once in public ownership, could be developed directly by the local authority concerned or in co-operation with private developers. That is what the overwhelming majority of the committee that produced the Kenny report suggested in 1973.

The line of tension between this eminently sensible proposal and the assertion of constitutional property rights has emerged every time this issue has been discussed. The rights to private property are set out in Article 43.1 of the Constitution, which states:

1° The State acknowledges that man, in virtue of his rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the private ownership of external goods.

2° The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.

That oft quoted property right is modified significantly in further articles. Article 43.2 states:

1° The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.

2° The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.

From the creation of the Constitution, the right to property was always intended to be modified by the common good and we must assert that now. Even jurisprudence has changed, and the view of the Supreme Court has changed over the years. The absolute right that is now reflected in decisions made not only in our domestic courts but in European courts underpin the societal importance of the common good.

The State has attempted various approaches to capture back for the public the betterment value of the decisions relating to land in order to achieve the goal of enabling the average person and the average family on the average income to buy and own their own home. Proposals have come in various Bills and Acts to reserve a percentage of developments for social and affordable housing. That remains the approach today. All measures are tested against these constitutional provisions and by the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Various challenges have been made through the years.

We come to our proposal today, which is fundamentally to go back to basics. I refer to the right to compulsorily purchase land for housing at existing value plus 25%. We must ensure that local authorities are fully engaged in the business of house building and housing supply. That used to be the way. Local authorities had significant housing units engaged in land acquisition, advance planning and servicing years' worth of projected need. Some had direct building units and built housing themselves or worked closely with local builders to address upcoming needs. In the noughties, all of that stopped. A decision was made by the Government that hollowed out the planning and housing units of local authorities and housing provision was largely left to the private sector, with local authorities merely becoming another customer for private developers. That was a fundamental and dreadful mistake, but it also changed the mindset and it established in many local authorities a view that they did not have to be part of driving the solution to housing, as once was.

What we are proposing, to make land affordable to build on, must be accompanied by staffing increases in local authorities. Specialised training and resources must also accompany this important measure.

This is the Labour Party's third attempt to legislate for the Kenny recommendations. In 1990, my former colleague, Gerry O'Sullivan, introduced the legislation. In 2003, my former party leader, Eamon Gilmore, did so. It was always opposed but I believe we now have a change. I said at the beginning of my contribution that I believe there has been a change of heart and that the proposals rejected down the years can now be accepted. Just as we in the Labour Party have worked to change the minds and votes of parties and individual Deputies on the major social issues down the decades, I believe we can achieve consensus on this issue now.

The purpose of this Bill is simple; it is to remove the unwarranted windfall gain to a landowner who is enriched simply because his land is needed by a community and his fellow citizens as a place to build homes. We would ensure a fair price is paid and, in doing so, make a significant reduction to the price a person needs to pay to provide a home. Ultimately, that proposal benefits everybody in society.

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