Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the limited time I have I will focus on just one issue relating to the Housing for All plan. Over the last weeks in my area of South Dublin County Council there have been over 60 25-year leases available for people on the social housing lists. These are private homes that were bought on the market and leased back to the local authority. Investment firms are buying these homes on the private market and then leasing them back to the local authority for big profits. This is another barrier to first-time buyers who are seeking to get onto the property ladder. I tabled a parliamentary question seeking a cost analysis relating to the cost of public funding for this model.

On average across the State, it would be €300,000 for the lifetime of the lease, but on top of that there is also the cost of maintenance and the landlord's responsibility to the local authority. However, in Dublin because the rents are much higher, it would cost on average €450,000 over the lifetime of the lease. Public money is being used to pay investment firms €450,000 to rent the property. The local authority must do all the maintenance and all the landlord obligations.

At the end of the 25-year lease, the local authority returns the home back to the investment company. We have no asset at the end of it even though it will cost €450,000 or more. At the end of the 25 years, the other side of it is that the 60 families in South Dublin County Council who have used this scheme over the past six weeks will be banging down the door of the local authority again seeking social housing support.

HAP tenants who were in these homes previously and received notice to quit from the investment firms also need to go back to the local authority again seeking social housing support. This means we are evicting social housing tenants to supply other social housing tenants, which is absolutely bonkers. It is another way of putting investors before workers or families.

Listening to the debate across the room, it is like being in the twilight zone. Fine Gael Members seem to forget they have been in government for the past ten years. They presided over the housing crisis. Fianna Fáil Members like to forget they propped up the Government with the confidence and supply agreement. It definitely was not the confidence to supply homes. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Unless we move away from the tired measures of putting private developers before public housing, things will not change.

See this speech in context