Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

The housing and homelessness crisis will continue and get worse unless there is a fundamental and radical change in how housing is delivered. The Government's housing strategy is not the fundamental and radical change needed. The right to an affordable home with security of tenure is a basic human right which should be enshrined in the Constitution. I believe many Deputies believe in that right but not many believe it should be enshrined in the Constitution. To vindicate that right, we need a sufficient supply of affordable housing. The reliance on the private sector, the dominance of developer-led planning and the abandonment of council house building by successive governments as a deliberate policy has been an abject failure. These are the causes of the homelessness and housing crisis.

The State has to play the key role. The Government is not doing so. There is already sufficient zoned State-owned land to fit at least 100,000 public housing units. This should be the basis of an initial emergency five-year programme by the State in conjunction with local authorities. It can take up to four years for a local authority to obtain planning permission to build. There is a need for a State-owned housing agency to speed up the planning process for local authorities and build directly, employing workers and apprentices on trade union pay rates and conditions. No public land should be given to private developers in exchange for a limited amount of public housing.

I favour a mix of traditional council housing and the European cost rental model and welcome the fact the housing strategy includes cost rental as a legislative form of housing delivery. However, in the Government's housing strategy there is not enough of it. It was not a party in this Dáil that came up with the idea of cost rental. The first I heard of it was when Tom Healy from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, produced a report for the communities involved in the regeneration of St. Michael's Estate and they grabbed the concept and drove it through the planning application for St. Michael's. It is all affordable and cost rental housing in that estate. We are still waiting for it three years later, but that is where the concept first arose in Ireland.

The cost rental model could achieve mixed tenure with well-designed, well-built, environmentally sustainable housing and an emphasis on community facilities. Rents must be affordable with long-term security of tenure. The differential rent system will apply to traditional council housing and cost rental accommodation. It would cater for workers whose incomes are above the limits of council housing lists. The only impediment is a lack of political will.

The political will existed between the 1930s and 1960s when this country was broke but we built public housing. This is the Government's opportunity and it has lost it again.

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