Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had a terrible sense of déjà vu when listening to the Minister's speech. So many of the rhetorical flourishes of what he said were used by the then Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, when he stood in this Chamber and told us it was the most ambitious and radical State-backed plan in the history of the State, and again, when former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, stood in the Chamber saying the same thing. What has become a feature of this Government is the ever-growing gap between the rhetoric of Ministers, and, particularly, the Minister with responsibility for housing and the reality for working people on the ground trying to secure appropriate and affordable accommodation.

The Minister used three words to describe this Government's housing plan: "ambitious", "honest" and "committed". I cannot think of three less appropriate words for this heavily-padded document. It is not ambitious and I will explain why shortly. I do not believe it is honest, certainly not if it is claiming to tackle the decades of failed Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy. I do not believe for one second that this Government is committed to the kind of fundamental policy change that would be required to meet the housing needs of working families.

I noted with great interest the Minister's quote in The Irish Timestoday. He was asked whether he believed the housing market is out of control, and, if the quote is correct, the Minister said, "I don't accept it's out of control". Rents are now higher than they were at the peak of the Celtic tiger.House prices are not far behind that peak. More than 100,000 households are dependent on rent subsidies. Homelessness is rising again, and, in many parts of the State, waiting times for social housing are between ten and 14 years. I do not know what indicators of "out of control" this Minister needs, but, on all of those indicators, from what I am seeing, it is very clearly out of control.

The really interesting comment made by the Minister was that this problem is "not unique to Ireland", not unlike the comments he made thereanent. The Minister is correct as there is a housing crisis, particularly in most large urban centres in the world. Let us consider the most recently published data from EUROSTAT, however. Housing costs in this State are the most expensive anywhere in the EU. We are at top of the housing cost table. In fact, the only country in the European free-trade area with higher housing costs than us is Switzerland. While there is a crisis, therefore, there is something much worse here that we need to understand.

The Minister is absolutely wrong. The crisis of house price inflation is not, in the first instance, caused by Covid-19 restrictions. They have made an already bad situation much worse but what is the actual cause of the housing crisis that has been escalating over the past ten-plus years? It is decades of bad housing policy by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In fact, if anybody can be accused of carrying ideological baggage, it is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which simply cannot break away from the failures of their ideological past.

If we look at the plan and the few pages of the lavish 160-page document that contain hard facts, we begin to see that what is in it is not that ambitious at all. Let us consider social housing. On average, there are 9,000 social housing units provided for per year over the lifetime of the plan. That is 1,000 social housing units less than what had previously been promised by Fine Gael under the national development plan, NDP.I accept that last year and this year, Covid-19 has reduced the overall output. What the Minister should have done in this plan, however, is accelerate beyond the original NDP targets. Instead, he has cut them. We are worse off because of this plan than we would have been if Fine Gael had stayed in charge and led housing over the next five years.

The Government is also saying that it will deliver 4,000 affordable homes this year, 5,000 the year after and 6,500 the year after that. That is not true. The Government should be honest with people because 2,000 of those homes annually are unaffordable, open-market priced homes that will be purchased with the shared equity loan scheme and, therefore, affordable housing provision next year will, at the very best, be 2,100 units. It might go up to 3,000 the year after and somewhere close to 4,000 the year after that, and that is if the Government meets the targets. The number of affordable homes to be delivered through the cost-rental equity loan and affordable housing fund this year is so low that I do not see how the Government is going to deliver 2,000 affordable homes through those schemes next year. I would be appreciative if the Minister could provide detail on that.

He said the Government has changed Part V, which, I suppose, it has, if he means it has changed it post 2026 because of the sweetheart deal or get-out clause for landowners who have yet to apply for planning permission. Thankfully, we have the Housing Agency's report, which is a good piece of work numbering more than 70 pages. The agency gave a variety of options, however. Of course, the Minister chose the most pro-developer option available, which is that any landowner who has not secured planning permission has until 2026 and only the 10% applies. That is not reform; that is giving developers everything they have asked for on a plate to the detriment of the delivery of affordable homes for working people.

At the same time, house prices will be pushed up because help-to-buy pushes up house prices. Despite the fact 60% of the people who had availed of the scheme did not need it, given that they had a deposit and mortgage finance, the Minister then increased it last year in a move that was criticised by the ESRI and other bodies. The Government is then going to combine that with the shared equity loan scheme and, if it gets its way, that will be again doubled with the participation of the mainstream banks. All of this, along with the excessive tax breaks the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath, will continue for real estate investment trusts, REITs, and others, will increase the level of credit in the market, push up prices and make home ownership even more difficult for working people.

There is nothing meaningful for renters in the plan. I wish the Minister would stop telling people he is going to introduce tenancies of indefinite duration because that is not his plan. Unless the section 34 grounds for notices to quit, namely, sale of the property, use by the landlord or his or her family member and substantial renovation, are removed, tenancies of indefinite duration will not exist. Until that is changed, renters will still live in precarious and, unfortunately, unaffordable accommodation. We can talk later during oral questions about what the Minister will do about spiralling rents, given that the previous legislation he introduced in that regard did not work.

Croí Cónaithe seems to be a reheated local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, although the Minister might convince us otherwise, and the targets in respect of vacant properties are just as weak as they were under the previous Government. Nothing in the plan resembles the Kenny report recommendations on land. On the contrary, Mr. Justice Kenny was against the kind of measure the Government has outlined in the plan because it will do nothing to tackle land price inflation, but why let the facts get in the way of a good sound bite? I note with interest there is no date for the referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution because, of course, while the Minister says he is in favour of it, he has not convinced his Fine Gael colleagues who are against it, and until that is resolved, the referendum is out of reach.

When I read this plan, what struck me most was that it is a sign of a Government out of touch and out of ideas. Increasingly, that is how the public sees this. Time after time, the Government puts the needs of big developers, large landowners and international institutional investors over those of regular working people. It is clear the Government does not have what it takes to make the types of policy changes required to tackle this housing crisis. I do not for a second believe there will be over the coming years a significant increase in the supply of genuinely affordable homes, anything that will be close to the level of social housing required to tackle lengthening waiting lists and rising homelessness, or anything that will deal with the significant burden of sky-high rents, let alone the insecurity of security of tenure, all because the Minister is wedded to the past. He is wedded to a particular view of housing policy that believes the private sector can meet the overwhelming majority of social and affordable housing need.

To contradict him, I want private builders to build as many homes as possible and private developers to develop as many homes as possible, but I also want there to be a level of direct investment in public housing on public land that will not be contained in this plan. The €4 billion figure is a fiction. Come budget day, when the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform announce the capital interest in direct voted expenditure, it will be so far below what the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is claiming that he will be found out. At the very most, he will secure a couple of hundred million euro for the cost rental equity loan, CREL, scheme and the affordable housing fund, and any additional capital will be spent on more subsidies and grant aid for developers. We know that because the Government's targets are so low for affordable housing and it is cutting 1,000 social homes from what would otherwise be delivered.

I have no faith or confidence in the Minister, the Government or the housing plan. That is why, more than ever, if we are to tackle the ever-deepening housing crisis for social housing applicants, renters and people who want to buy, we need a change of Government, not more bluff and bluster from the Minister.

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