Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The first thing to say about affordable housing is that it needs to be affordable. A number of contributors today stated the Government and Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage will be graded on the basis of the delivery of houses. The issue is not just the delivery of houses, but of affordable houses. Reference was made to affordable purchase but it cannot just be a heading; it needs to mean something. In Dublin, it needs to mean regular houses costing around €230,000 and outside of Dublin, considerably less. If that is not what we are talking about, then what are we talking about? We have heard figures in this House of €400,000 and €450,000 in the context of affordable housing but that is obviously not affordable. It may be affordable for some but I do not know many such people. That level is definitely not going to cut it.

We also have the issue of affordable cost rental and we have heard nothing but support for this particular idea. Every speaker who contributed to the debate yesterday, including me, talked about every town and village and city in his or her constituency in the context of house prices. Anyone who does a look-back on the Oireachtas website or on kildarestreet.comwill find this issue time after time, the only difference being that every couple of months there is an increase in our top line figure for rent for regular families.

Affordable cost rental has to work. Examples have been given with regard to affordable cost rental and the outworking of particular schemes that are being proposed by the Government, with rents of around €1,200 per month for a two-bedroom unit. That is not going to cut it. We really need to be talking about figures of between €700 and €900 per month. Only a couple of years ago, those figures would have seemed extravagant and ridiculous but such is the world we are in. That is why, when we spoke yesterday about the absolutely necessity for rent control, we said it needs to happen now because the rent pressure zones are not working. We are not keeping rent increases to 4%. Furthermore, the 4% increase has been doubled in some cases following the Covid period, which is hammering families who are already under severe pressure. It is not working so not only do we need a rent cap for the next three years until we get beyond what is an absolute crisis at this point, we also need to run with the Sinn Féin proposal for a tax rebate for tenants that would be the equivalent of one month's rent. That is both fair and absolutely necessary.

We have all spoken about homelessness, of which there are varying levels. There are people with severe difficulties who fall into homelessness. Some of that is because we do not provide the necessary interventions. We are not providing the individual and family supports that are needed at an early stage before people get into acute situations. I refer here to support around addiction, mental health issues and so on. We always wait until it is a disaster. When it is a disaster, it is far more expensive to deal with from the point of view of the State. Not intervening in a timely manner is an utterly false economy. We really need to get our act together across that area.

The other homelessness involves people who cannot afford the absolutely crazy rents and we need to get our act together in that regard too. It cannot be beyond the Government and the State to deliver housing for affordable purchase or affordable rental and to build council houses. This was done at particular times in this State when there was not a huge amount of money available. It cannot be beyond possibility that the tools of government are brought to bear to deliver a solution for the people. We cannot continue with this crisis.

I fear that there is a belief in this Government, as there was in previous Governments, that if we tip around the edges of this problem, the market will eventually kick in and rectify the problem. We are in an absolute crisis, however, and all of the rules are out the window. If we do not take action, look at this strategically and do everything that needs to be done, we will not deliver for our people.

That brings me to the crux of the matter in this legislation, namely, the shared equity scheme. I will not shock anybody by stating that Sinn Féin has a real difficulty with this. The difficulty is that we are backed up in this regard by the Central Bank, by the ESRI and even by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We are talking about putting something into action that has been operated in Britain and which led to an increase in house prices. In the middle of a housing crisis where costs have gone through the roof, we will introduce this policy, which will add further cost. We are not sufficiently thinking in the long term, we are not solution-oriented and we are not doing all that needs to be done. We are failing abjectly.

It is no more than the difficulties that we and many others have with the Land Development Agency from the point of view of us getting the best bang from our buck in delivering public housing. That means council houses, affordable mortgages and affordable cost rental. No matter what certain commentators from the Government might state, that is what we are talking about. We have no difficulty with anybody owning their own home. The difficulty most people have is that they cannot afford to own their own home and they cannot afford some of the spectacularly high rents to be found across this State. We need to deal with that; it is as simple as that. The shared equity scheme is inflationary. As I said, the Land Development Agency will not provide the best bang for our buck and we are going to give sweetheart deals to developers to make huge profits. I have no difficulty with a developer that is making money on a development but when it is public land, we need to ensure that we get the best bang for our buck.

On what is going on in the private side of the market, we still have a huge difficulty in that we have offered overly fair sweetheart deals to investment trusts. Everybody comes back and says there is a need to deliver apartments and they talk about Berlin, Europe and the rest of it. I will repeat what Deputy Ó Broin said about dealing with one of those big investment trusts that was formally a pension trust in Berlin. He stated that it would have no interest in investing in this State at this point in time because of the chaotic housing crisis we have. We have a yo-yo scenario with prices that go through the roof and then drop off. We also have rents that are sky-high and then we have a drop-off so there is no consistency. These sort of investment trusts that are different from some of the cuckoo funds we have that come in to take what they can, make as much money as they can as quickly as possible and then leave. The difference with these other entities is that they are looking at a return over 50 years. They are looking at whether it is somewhere between 3% and 5% of an annual return.

The problem is that we need a Government that is thinking in those sort of cycles of 50 years and of putting solutions in place that will be there for a considerable amount of time. The problem is that we have short-termism in politics from a point of view that people are sometimes interested in what the next rung in the ladder within a political party is, as opposed to delivering for the people and putting long-term solutions in place.

A number of speakers from all parties have spoken about the difficulty of those people who earn too much to get themselves on the local authority housing list, which is bunged up anyway and we have people who are waiting huge amounts of time to get local authority housing. However, we have people who cannot meet those criteria because they earn slightly too much but then they have to try to compete in a town like Dundalk with three or four workers from the WuXi plant, for example. Those workers are coming in to work in a plant but three or four of them are all earning so they can afford some of these spectacularly expensive rates. They might also go up against a family that is getting HAP, as it should in order to ensure it is in housing. The problem is that the baseline rent is being set somewhere between €1,000 and €1,400 or more per month, which is disastrous. That is why we have the difficulties we have so we need to deal with that.

It would be remiss of me not to mention a number of issues that have come across my desk in the last while, including that of people who fall into another bracket again. Not only have we been hearing consistently about reviewing figures or rates for being able to access the local authority housing list, we also need to ensure that discretion can be shown and that scenarios in which people's circumstances have changed drastically can be taken into account. We are all aware of people who have children with severe disabilities that require certain types of housing and which involve huge costs. These people are trapped and will find it difficult to even get a landlord who will rent to them because they are considered to take a bit more effort. This means they fall between stools and hit the ground. There is no discretion and there are no write-offs for earnings.

I know of a constituent who has been considering the job they are in for a huge amount of time. The person is wondering if the best thing to do is to leave the job and get onto the dole because then at least, that person might be able to access housing. Given this person has a child with severe mobility disabilities, they could at least access a house in that scenario. If they were considered and could get the housing then that person could possibly look at going back into employment again. Think of the mad system that allows for this to happen.

In addition, Louth County Council has huge amount of really old housing stock. It was built in the 1970s, some of it before that and some of it after that. A huge amount of it needs to be upgraded and updated and the difficulty is the moneys are not there. There are insufficient moneys for maintenance. I accept that money has been drawn down recently for voids and that will put a considerable amount of houses that have been lying vacant across Louth County Council's portfolio for a number of years back into use. That is what needs to be done but we need to deal with the fact that this housing stock is falling into disrepair. The residents of those houses may never have looked for any upgrade works but now are dealing with serious situations where the maintenance budget is not there to deliver. The problem is that we wait until it gets worse and worse and then it becomes more costly and eventually will need to be dealt with. I acknowledge that a retrofitting programme has begun but it is small scale at this stage. I accept that it will be escalated but it will not deal with the remedial works that are needed. I call on the likes of Louth County Council to do a full audit on housing stock from the point of view of needing a programme of works that at least looks at windows and doors. We talk about climate change but a huge amount of this housing stock is losing every bit of heat and is utterly costly from a climate change point of view.

We need to get serious about all of this. It is like the person asking for directions in Kerry who is told the person answering would not start from here but unfortunately here is where we are, so we need to take this action and there are no two ways about it. The thresholds for local authority housing need to be reviewed. I will return to this with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and I have already brought this up with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, in the area of disabilities. There is a separate issue in respect of disabled person's grants and I am dealing with a number of people who fall into priority 1 in Louth County Council. I am talking about people who have severe disabilities, some of them caused by cancers. I know of one person suffering from brain cancer who is in a really difficult situation.

Another has considerable mobility issues following cancer care. We are dealing with issues for people in council houses and those who own houses. They have been accepted and assessed as priority 1. However, the problem is the list is so great, these people may not be able to access these absolutely necessary supports for another two or possibly three years. That is not good enough. It is another situation where we are facing an incredibly difficult problem. We have a health need but we do not put sufficient money in and allow the situation to get much worse. We let the problem escalate and will then have to deal with it when to do so will be much more expensive from the State's point of view. That is what we are doing. We need joined-up thinking.

I add my voice to the other scenario. Even if we get our plans for council-led building correct, we will then need to ensure councils have full powers, are able to draw down moneys, deal with developers, put developments in place and get houses built. We have heard from directors of services for housing in county councils throughout Ireland about the difficulty that can exist, from time to time, in drawing down money. We know that, over the years, it has been much easier for an approved housing body to draw down the money. It was also easier for those bodies to get planning approved. We have created difficulties for councils in building houses. That is before we get into the necessity to put money aside for upgrade and upkeep and whatever other resources are needed.

We must get absolutely serious about all of these matters. We are talking about going down individual culs-de-sac that will all end in costly failure. I am not absolutely dogmatic about any form of housing delivery. I am not ideologically caught up in how we deliver housing. I am caught up in the fact we need to deliver. The Minister will be graded on how well this works.

I will come back to the Minister on the individual issues about which I have spoken. There is a real issue for people who are experiencing particular issues and costs around disability. On the wider issue, we need to use every tool there is. We need to make sure a full Government approach is taken to delivering housing. That must include affordable housing, affordable purchase, affordable cost rental and council housing. We must get serious and think long term. If investment funds are coming into the country, buying up housing estates or building unaffordable rental properties and taking all they can, we need to shift the paradigm. We need to introduce special purpose vehicles, as has been done in other countries across Europe. We need to ensure we create companies that are acting from the point of the State but operating in the private sector and which can draw down money, whether from the European Investment Bank, EIB, or the many other sources that exist. We then need to deliver housing. It is as straightforward as that. As I said, this Government will be graded on housing delivery and nothing else. It must deliver from the point of view of affordable purchase, affordable cost rental and council housing. That is before we go into the wider issue of estate management. As I have said before, we need early and clever interventions that include providing family supports, building houses or whatever we need to do. We need to resource all the bodies that are needed to deliver.

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