Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. There is not a Deputy in the Dáil who would be against anything that can help the housing situation. That is the first thing that needs to be said. We have come up with a lot of reports, legislation and different ideas in the past few years but, the bottom line is, unfortunately, they are not helping the situation on the ground.

The first thing we need to do is start joining heads together and get people thinking together. There is no plan for three to six years down the road. Roads, sewers, electricity and water need to be put in place. The budget for the likes of Irish Water to build that infrastructure needs to be agreed. Some 35,000 sites in this country are owned by the State. Some are unserviced and some were not even known about. The infrastructure has to be put in place when talking about affordable houses. At the moment, we have housing agencies, councils, developers and ordinary people trying to buy a piece of land. When there are four people trying to bite one apple, the apple gets pretty scarce and dear. We need to have one body that will look after the land side or use the land we have. We are long enough talking about State land. To be honest, the councils need to stop blocking progress in other areas.

In my opinion, affordable housing is where the State is able to supply a fully-serviced site. I do not care whether someone is building a 1,200 sq. ft house or 1,300 sq. ft semi-detached, because that is the size they are. Be that in Dublin, Cork or Galway the costs are roughly the same, maybe 5% to 7% more in Dublin compared with anywhere else. When we talk about affordable housing for a house of that size, once there is a serviced site - the State needs to use its own land for social and affordable housing - a design should be drawn up that is the same for Dublin, Galway or wherever, bar the facade at the front, so we can buy in bulk. It is wrong to have people designing houses, twiddling their thumbs and looking at changing this, that and the other. If there are two to four bedroom houses that are the same inside, and at the back and sides, and the only thing to be changed is to comply with the architecture in each area at the front, a lot of bureaucracy would be eliminated straightaway. We would then have a design we can move on and that can be priced in bulk in any part of the country.

We have a dysfunctional banking system for what I call the small builders. There are plenty of small builders throughout the country who are well able to build ten or 12 houses a year and who are basically pushed out of the way through the procurement set-up at the moment. If the State has an area where there are 60 houses to be built, it could give five different builders 12 houses each. In countries like the Netherlands the money put into a house is got back once the house is sold. These small builders need help because all I see at the moment is one or two, or four or five, of the big builders and big announcements of 600, 800 or 1,000 houses. The ordinary builders who have four or five people working for them are not in that category and will not give a price for that number of houses.

I heard the Tánaiste talk about building more houses and fair play to him if they can do it. I am not cutting down those who are trying to grow their businesses but, my God, if we pump another €2 billion, €4 billion or €6 billion into the housing industry, prices will go up and we will get no more for what we are doing. We have seen over the past year that materials have gone up by about 30% or 40%. To get materials now, the likes of timber and so on, is the other question. As I said earlier today, a load of timber could be coming here from a foreign country and somone in America or elsewhere could bid higher and the boat will turn. Suppliers here who had promised something are then left high and dry.

I heard Deputy Collins talk about people looking down on those in social housing, but there is a snotty attitude towards someone who is a digger driver, a pipe layer, a plasterer, a wet tradesperson, a carpenter or a plumber, of "you did not stay in school so you decided to go out to the buildings." These tradespeople go through many courses, get their certificates and are highly skilled with their hands and they should be appreciated. Over the years we have had a boom-bust situation, and that is the way it was in housing. People who come from rural areas, especially, are like swallows. They go to different places, see that Dublin might be going well and then, bang, they go away to London or somewhere else. That is not the way it has to be. What has really happened during the pandemic is that we shut down house building and sectors like that, while the Brits kept them going and have poached most of the digger drivers that were in this country. We now have our tongues out trying to get digger drivers to work on sites and they are not available. They cannot be made overnight.

The workforce is one thing on which there must be a focus. I hear many stories about apprenticeships and so forth. We must introduce a new system of apprenticeship to give apprentices high recognition for what they do. The other thing that must be done relates to houses made off-site. We must get into that further, with factory-built houses that can be erected rapidly when they come on site.

The one thing the State will have to do is make sure that it does not talk about an affordable house to the new poor in what I call middle Ireland. I refer to people who are above the threshold to qualify for social housing and are not earning enough to afford a mortgage. They are the new poor in this country. With regard to affordable housing, I saw a reference from the Minister for Finance to the Irish Glass Bottle site - I am almost sure it was that from the top of my head - where people were referring to €450,000. Lord God, one would want two houses for that. I will give my opinion on an affordable house in Dublin. We must get it into our heads that the cost of the house is the same in different places, bar 5% to 10% as I outlined, if one has the site. One should be able to build the house for between €200,000 and €220,000 or €230,000 if the State is supplying the site. If a couple decides down the road to sell that house and if the site is worth €50,000, €60,000 or €70,000, they pay it back to the State. That is the simple way of doing it.

Another thing we need to do in the LDA is make sure we do not give cosy little jobs to people who were in the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, and the like. We have to poach people. That is how it was always done in the private sector. One poaches the people who are able to deliver. One gives them a bonus. We should forget about salaries and just give them a good bonus to deliver, because it is about delivery. What somebody produces, be it as a Deputy or in building houses, is what the person will be marked up on. This is the road we must take. Unfortunately, the councils do not have the resources at present. The councils have been depleted over the last ten or 15 years because of the way the country was or for one reason or another. Most councils now do not have enough people in their planning departments or in any other departments. There is no point in talking to them about building houses when they do not have the resources to do it. One will not get people by magic overnight who will do it.

The one thing we must do is make sure we have houses that are affordable - in my opinion, that is between €200,000 and €250,000 - for the bracket of people I mentioned. That is achievable if one does it the way I have said. We can talk about housing for years. I have listened to many debates about it here and about the things that are going to be done. However, if the attitude in the Department does not change, if the shredding machine is used for ideas that have been brought forward - I am saying straight that it has been, because the Department will not go along with them - and if Ministers do not take the bull by the horns, we will dangle along in the same way. If the same piano players are playing the same piano and they are not producing the goods in the first place, they are not going to change over the next few years.

We need a radical review of this. It requires joined-up thinking that involves Irish Water, the planners and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The private sector must be involved to be able to produce the goods. We must ensure we nurture and bring forward people who will work in the sector. Every year I visit schools, as I was involved with different companies down through the years on water jobs and so forth, and try to encourage youngsters to go for water pipe-laying, blocklaying or to be electricians. I go to the schools so that perhaps 50 youngsters would get that opportunity. If we do not do that and put a carrot before them, they will stay doing different courses and we will end up with a problem in the housing situation.

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