Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this Bill. It is a necessary Bill to achieve better affordability in housing. I want to pay tribute to our party colleague, Deputy Duffy, and thank the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, for the openness he has shown in working with him to improve this Bill. I want to thank the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, for coming in to hear the debate.

In particular, I want to welcome the introduction of cost rental on a statutory basis. It has been a long-term aim of my party to introduce this, not just to achieve a short-term improvement in the affordability of housing for people but also to achieve the long-term impact of moving the property and rental markets away from boom and bust by taking a universal approach to housing provision.

One aspect of housing affordability that I wish to highlight is the issue of transport. We simply have to stop building houses in places where people have to own cars to live in them. The AA estimates that the average cost of running a family car for a year is over €10,000. The price tag on sprawl is significant and it is falling on families.

We know the answer, namely, transport-oriented development, as recommended by the NESC and international experts. It means building housing at medium densities around public transport stops. The Government has a plan to increase public transport services significantly, especially outside Dublin, but we must develop housing in a way that can be easily served by those services.

Recent Irish research shows the phenomenon of forced car dependency in Ireland, with people being forced to own cars even though they cannot afford them. The measures in the Bill will significantly increase housing affordability, but we must also get our planning right so that we are not forcing people to pay an additional price tag of €10,000 per year because of where they live.

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