Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Housing for All plan. It is a plan and a document that recognises the scale of the housing crisis that exists in this country at present. One of the reasons I welcome the document is that it recognises that this is not just a housing issue but also a societal issue. We need to recognise that in this House, and I believe that the Government is coming to recognise it with the publication of this document.

Since Independence in Ireland, a social contract has existed between the citizen and the State. One of the clauses of that social contract was that if you worked hard and got a good job, you would be able to own a house of your own, that is, you would be able to buy a house. As we know, good jobs in this country were not always available, but certainly from the second half of the last century many good jobs did become available, and the vast majority of people who worked in private business or in the public sector were able to say they would be able to buy and own their own houses. Obviously, it was always the case as well that there were people who were not able to buy their own houses. That is why it was so important for the State to step in and build local authority houses. Houses were available for people to rent and to live in long-term with security from the local authority.

It is now the case, however, in respect of the social contract that young people today face a terrifying prospect. They now can find themselves having good jobs and earning very good money but having no prospect of ever being able to buy a home of their own. They are becoming involuntary lifelong renters. We need to recognise that this is not a transient issue. Sometimes there are issues we debate in this House of which we can say fairly that if we leave them for a number of years they will resolve themselves. That is not the case with the housing crisis the country now faces. Let us be clear about it: this crisis is an existential threat to the social contract I described earlier and, if not addressed, the problem will get significantly worse. We have to be careful that we do not allow our society to be divided into two different groups of those who are property owners and those who are not property owners but renters. As well as this having a significant social impact, it will also have a significant political impact. People in this House may think it will benefit those who are in the Opposition and damage those who are in government. That may be the case. My concern, however, is that the political impact it will have, unless we resolve this crisis, will go far beyond the issues that are addressed in this House and there will be political consequences that none of us here are aware will occur. We know that part of the benefit of the social contract that exists in this country is that we have social solidarity between different groups. That is extremely important when it comes to dealing with issues such as climate change or Covid or trying to rebuild our health service. If we lose that social solidarity and lose the terms of that social contract, we will find ourselves in a very difficult position where different groups will not be prepared to agree to terms that we know are for the benefit of us all as a collective. We need to recognise that all generations need to make sacrifices in order to resolve this issue. However, older generations and those of us who are property owners need to recognise that the people who are really suffering are those younger people who are unable to purchase their own houses, notwithstanding the fact that they have good jobs.

Three issues come to mind from Housing for All that we need to focus on and which I wish to address. The first is that we need to focus public expenditure on availability and affordability of homes. I am pleased to say that Housing for All contains a range of measures designed to address these issues and others. We need to implement Housing for All. I know there will be very many criticisms about the fact that it looks like another glossy document. There is much more to it than that. It is a serious plan but it will be dependent on implementation by the Government, and we have to commit ourselves to ensure that it is implemented.

Second, the Government and the Minister need to be flexible in respect of that implementation because, inevitably, some parts of the plan will be more effective than others. We therefore need to have the flexibility to re-evaluate what is working well and what is not working well.

Third, we need to recognise that our laws need to change in order that it becomes uneconomic for large funds to purchase residential property. In my constituency a new site has just been developed. It has not gone up for sale. People pass by and ask how much the units are going for. None of them are for sale; they have already all been purchased. Another site that is about to be developed in Milltown is being promoted in the same way. We need to look at amending our tax laws in order that we impose punitive taxes on those funds that seek to buy up new properties that have been developed. If those funds want to buy their own land, build their own houses and rent them out, they are entitled to do that, but what we cannot allow any further is that these funds come in and buy up properties that young people want and have some capacity to purchase.

We sometimes talk in this House about amending the Constitution to include a right to housing. If we need to amend the Constitution, let us do it. We should not be fearful of that. Let us not spend endless time having different lawyers discuss whether our Constitution is flexible enough at present to permit further State intervention. If we are going to intervene in the Constitution and change it, the way we should do so is by stating expressly that the State can intervene to discriminate in favour of first-time purchasers who are trying to buy a home.

The final action we need to concentrate on is addressing the decline in construction skills. That requires engaging with industry and trade unions. We cannot continue to have a situation whereby, when there is a recession, there is an automatic decline in expertise in the construction sector. We need a viable and long-term solution to ensure those valuable skills remain available to the sector.

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