Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I again reject the Deputy's assertions in regard to Government housing policy and our commitment to building social houses and, indeed, affordable houses, and providing the first cost-rental scheme in the evolution of State housing policy. The Minister has brought in a suite of measures and initiatives that the Deputy consistently ignores. We have allocated more money to the building of houses this year than ever before in the country's history. There is a difference between my approach and that of the Deputy. She sees the housing crisis as a political opportunity; I see it as a major social problem that needs to be fixed. All her language today is about votes and elections. That is all it is about. It is about how she exploits the problem, not about finding solutions. She sees a lot of young people, as do all Members, who cannot get access to housing and she thinks how she can use their situation to generate anger and division and get political advantage. That seems to be her approach and that of her party.

I look at the issue differently. I want to see how I, along with my Government colleagues, can resolve it. Resolving it means a range of measures, principally direct building of housing, both social housing and affordable housing. To be fair, the Minister has brought in a suite of measures, including affordable housing schemes, which the Deputy has railed against. By the way, she has been quiet enough in terms of actually opposing them in here on the floor of the House. She is saying one thing and articulating against the Minister a lot in respect of his affordable schemes. She opposed the help-to-buy scheme, she is opposed to shared equity and she is opposed to the Land Development Agency, which will be launched shortly and is very important in terms of getting houses built. The Government today approved a plan for Shanganagh, which will be a significant housing development in itself, both social and affordable. We are about action and getting things done. I am interested in getting results in terms of getting houses built. It is the most important task facing the Government and we have allocated substantial funding to it. That is how we are going to approach it.

The very clear focus of the housing for all strategy, which the Minister will be publishing and is being deliberated on at Cabinet level right now, is direct build for social housing and schemes for affordable housing so that young people, and people in general, can afford to buy houses, and the utilisation of State lands to facilitate the building of affordable homes and social homes. That is what is contained in the Land Development Agency legislation and other measures and in the reform of the serviced sites fund that the Minister has introduced. By any yardstick, his activity in the House in the past month illustrates the range of initiatives he is taking in terms of affordability and freeing up housing and direct build capacity. The cost-rental scheme, as I mentioned earlier, will be a further addition to that.

The Deputy referred to comments I made in the House. I do not believe there should be any large-scale leasing by local authorities in respect of social housing. There can be limited use, which I said as well in the Dáil that day. The Deputy should go back to the next sentence, which she excluded, where I referred to mortgage to rent provision, for example, to help people who are in distress. It is important to get people out of mortgage arrears distress, which we have been doing for quite some time, and the repair and leasing scheme is important as well. The mortgage to rent scheme is a hugely important scheme, as the Deputy knows, that allows families and households in mortgage distress to remain in their homes. However, the central pillar of the housing for all strategy will be direct build. It is about getting houses built that people can own and local authorities will own, which will increase local authority housing stock over the next number of years. The social housing programme for the next five years will be the largest in the history of the State. We need to get local authorities building and we need local councils to get the projects delivered and so forth.

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