Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government's Housing for All plan lacks ambition and gives little comfort to those who are in desperate need of housing right now. There are numerous reports on house prices and rental prices. Whichever of the reports one chooses, the results are damning for this Government. The most recent national survey by Real Estate Alliance found that, since June, my county of Tipperary has experienced the biggest rise in house prices of any county. Prices for a three-bedroom semi-detached house in the county have soared by 9.2% in just three months. However, that is not the end of the story. In Nenagh, prices rose by 23.7%, to €235,000. That is back to boomtime levels. Meanwhile, even more extreme, a report by daft.iefound that house prices in Tipperary increased by 13.9% year on year. Rental prices have increased by 12.7% in the past year.

The Government has lost control of housing provision. That is made obvious by the claim in the Housing for All plan that there is a target of 156,000 private homes by 2030. That target means nothing as the Government cannot control or deliver it, but it is well able to shift blame. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen failure on the part of the Government to make any effective contingency plan. We have seen it in the education sector and now we are seeing it in the housing crisis. The impact of Covid and the procurement issues have resulted in the loss of 10,000 social homes. One would think the Government would address that shortfall, but it is not doing so. Instead, there is a commitment to 90,000 new social homes by 2030. However, that figure is 10,000 below the number of social houses promised under Rebuilding Ireland and the national development plan. Rather than making up for lost time, Covid is being used as an excuse for an underperforming Government with an under-ambitious housing policy.

The purpose of a plan of this nature is to make housing available for communities, towns and villages, but also to make it affordable for the people who need it. Again, the Government has failed to grasp this issue. That may be due to its over-reliance on the private sector to provide what the Fine Gael arm of the Government wants or it may be because the Fianna Fáil part of the Government has a history of failure. Whatever the reason, this plan again fails to grasp the reality that what people need is for house prices and rents to come down, rather than the Government's preferred option of increased debt for working people.

There is nothing in this plan to tackle the ever-increasing rises in rents. Through this plan, renters are being told to hang tight for another decade. They have been left with the possibility of facing eviction into a marketplace with nothing to offer.

Sinn Féin knows that the housing crisis can only be fixed if Government focuses on what it can control, namely, the direct delivery of social and affordable houses. We need a minimum of 12,000 social houses a year and 8,000 affordable homes - 4,000 through affordable purchase schemes, and 4,000 through affordable rent schemes. We need a doubling of direct capital investment by Government in public housing and public land; a three-year ban on rent increases and a month's rent back in every renters pocket through the refundable tax credit; and a referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution.

Housing for All offers nothing new. Only a Sinn Féin Government and a Sinn Féin housing Minister will make the kind of change in housing that is needed in response to the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing crisis.

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