Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I wonder whether the Minister got lost on his way to this debate or did not have it in his diary. Is it not the case that Opposition parties like mine should be listened to by the senior Minister on debates as important as this one? In most debates in the House, the Minister is typically gone by the time the Regional Group gets to speak. That is a pity, as we can all learn from one another.

Ireland is in the midst of one of the worst housing crises in the history of the State, one that has spanned more than a decade. One would not know that from the Government's response, though. There are approximately 1 million people in housing distress. They are either grappling with spiralling rents, on housing waiting lists or being outpriced in respect of rents and mortgages. People still come to my office who are in mortgage distress and who are the collateral damage of the previous housing crisis. They are still trying to navigate their way through the courts system.

In practically every action that the Government has taken in the housing crisis, it has been pulled kicking and screaming into making those interventions. Even where it does, it does so in the smallest way possible. It must then intervene again and again. Interestingly, we have probably had three or four Acts on rent in my time in the Dáil. This is the third Bill coming from a Fine Gael Government and supported by Fianna Fáil.

The rental crisis is unprecedented. Rents in my county of Meath have doubled in the past 18 months. I am sure they have also doubled in the Ceann Comhairle's county of Kildare. The average rent in Meath is €1,473 per month. That is approximately €17,676 per year. Let us think about that for a second. For a person on the minimum wage, this would make the average rent 100% of his or her post-tax income and 90% of his or her pre-tax income. This means that we are saying, "Tough luck", to a section of society that is working 40 hours per week and that the average house is not available to such workers in that county.

We are seeing a wave of people moving from east to west. I am sure that Deputy Durkan has witnessed it himself. We have people coming to us who left Dublin four or five years ago. They moved to Ashbourne to access rents that were affordable. They then moved to Navan, then Kells and are now living in Virginia. They are surfing a wave of affordability westward just to be able to stay in a house. Each time, they are taking their kids out of school so that they can move again. This is having a significant impact on those individuals.

The median wage is €36,000 and it takes a long time to reach. Young people who have just started work will still be nowhere near it after five, six or seven years. In County Meath, rent swallows up 64% of after-tax income for a person on the median wage. This means that he or she has just 36% of his or her income left to spend on everything else. That is incredible. This is on the back of rising electricity, fuel, insurance and childcare costs as well as other monthly bills. It is outrageous that the Government has created in this State a whole section of society that is earning right up to the average wage for whom affordability in terms of renting houses is out of reach.

In Dublin, the situation is even crazier, with rents of up to €2,000 a month. I looked at a studio apartment, and by "studio apartment", I mean "bedsit". It was one room and everything was in it. It is renting now for €1,200 per month. In rent pressure zone towns such as Maynooth, the same is true. The average rent is €200 more there than it is in the rest of the country, making it unaffordable to students who are now staying in hotels and guest houses to access their universities.

The Government's response has been to come back to the well of rent controls three separate times. If someone has to do something three times, it shows that there was a lack of ability the first two times, whatever about making a mistake the first time. It is incredible that this is the third occasion of going to the well of rent caps. The situation is undoubtedly at emergency level and Aontú is calling for a rent freeze to protect renters and ensure that they can hold onto their current standards of living and will not be pushed out of their homes and made homeless.

I wish to discuss a few of the causes of the disaster of rent costs. For us, vacant houses are one of the most frustrating elements of the housing crisis. The CSO stated that there were 180,000 empty homes. An Post reckons that there are approximately 90,000 vacant homes. When I submit a question to the Minister asking how many vacant homes there are today, he refers to the CSO figure, which is nearly five years out of date. It is incredible that the Government cannot even measure the scale of the difficulty in terms of vacant homes. It is incredible if there are 90,000 vacant homes when there are tens of thousands of people on housing waiting lists. The number of vacant homes in Meath is exactly the same as the number of people on the housing waiting list there. This is so crazy you could not make it up.

In the North of Ireland, the Aontú deputy leader, Denise Mullen, tabled a question and she was able to discover the number of vacant sites in 2021 across the North, broken down by county, town and city. They are able to measure the problem in order to deal with the problem. There is an old management saying, which is that if you cannot measure, you cannot manage. That is certainly true of the Government.

What was the Government's response to the number of vacant homes? The Government introduced a vacant site levy some years ago to deal with a part of the problem. Last year, the tax brought in €21,000. It cost more for the Government to draft the Bill than it took in in a full year last year. Now, the Government has replaced it with a zoned land tax, which will not be introduced for another two to three years and which is lower than the previous rate of 7%. That begs the question of how the Government cannot see the urgency of the crisis that is front of it. There is a chasm between the Government and the experience of the people. It is incredible how out of touch the Government is with the experience of people when it comes to homes.

I wish to speak briefly about another component of the crisis, namely, real estate investment trusts, REITs. The Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael market has been pitting REITs against families on a daily basis in a David versus Goliath battle where there can only be one winner. Because of the battle, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have created a tenant class in this country the likes of which has not been seen since the landlord times. This housing policy gives a blank cheque to international investors to purchase homes. First, international investors are getting credit at very low costs. Second, they have massive funds. Third, they are getting taxed hardly anything in this State. Let us compare that to a first-time buyer with a young family, who are being charged some of the most expensive interest rates in the European Union, who are limited with regard to the credit they can access, plus they are paying tax at the highest level. The Government is creating an imbalance and an unfair competitive advantage for REITs to be able to wipe out families that want to buy homes. We, in Aontú, have created a Bill that would level the playing field. It would take the tax advantages away from REITs, which does not delete them from the sector, because they have some role to play, but it takes the advantages away so that young families can compete against REITs in the purchase of homes in this country. The legislation is just lying there, and I urge the Government to help to get it through.

The Government's system is incredibly slow. The Oscar Traynor Road site that was up for discussion at council level in recent weeks brings to light a number of important issues in the Government's approach. It took eight years to take the plan from concept to decision-making at the council. It will take another four years for those homes to be built. That is 12 years in total from concept to turning the key in those homes in the middle of a national housing crisis. Does the Minister of State think there is something wrong with that? Does he think that is acceptable? Does he stand over that happening within this country?

A number of other issues also arise in this regard. The council states that one of the reasons it outsourced the building of the homes to Glenveagh is it did not think it would be able to get the capital necessary to build them. Why is that the case? It may be because the Government is not providing the capital, or it may be because of EU laws. It is important to highlight the role of the EU in this as well. The EU prevents this country gaining the necessary capital it needs, through lending, to invest in the building of homes in a national housing crisis. That is an incredible situation for a sovereign country to be in. It is wrong. It is overreach by the EU.

The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was asked a question about the EU fiscal rules in June by Christina Finn from thejournal.ie. He was asked if he was going to sort this out and he said: "There's certainly an argument for that". He said he was dealing with his European colleagues on a regular basis on that specific point. He got the ball and he literally pucked it out of the field. He had no real interest on focusing on this issue. His attitude was that the Government would do something about it, but the question was not answered properly. The Government must go to the EU. In the same way that there is a relaxation on investment because of Covid, there must be a relaxation on investment rules because of housing. If the Government does not do that, if it stands over the status quo, it is responsible for it as well.

I wish to raise another issue in connection with the Oscar Traynor site. The council stated that it would build units at €444,000 per unit. Glenveagh said it would build the units at €370,000 per unit. That is a differential of €74,000. What is the reason for a local authority building a housing unit for €74,000 more than a private developer? What part of the supply chain and the construction space is more expensive for the local authority than it is for Glenveagh? In Aontú, we believe in a mixed economy. We believe both the public sector and the private sector have significant jobs to do with regard to housing. We cannot fix the housing crisis without good public delivery and without a good private sector. Unlike many of the parties to my left, who focus just on the public sector, we also believe there must be a good private sector. However, there is a major problem in the State if it costs local authorities €74,000 extra to build a housing unit, and that must be addressed.

Another issue I wish to briefly raise is short-term lets or the Airbnb sector. It is fascinating. Covid has offered a scientific, economic experiment on housing in this country. In March and April 2020, there was a significant increase in the number of rental accommodation units in the State. All of a sudden, the number of homes available to rent in the State increased by 40%. There was a particular spike in accommodation available in Dublin during those months. That spike led to a big decrease in the cost of rental accommodation, especially in Dublin. Why did that happen? It is very obvious that when Covid arrived, the short-term rental space dried up and people were not renting Airbnb accommodation in this State. Those landlords had to repurpose those buildings and put them back into long-term lets and they came back into use.

If we flip the coin to October 2021, people will recall the daft.iereport showed that there was an unprecedented shortage in the availability of homes across the country. There were 1,400 homes in total to rent in the State, with approximately 800 of those in Dublin. In some counties, fewer homes were available to rent than would fit on the palm of my left hand. It happened suddenly because the tourism economy opened again and landlords repurposed those homes back into short-term lets because they can make €250,000 a year out of one home on a short-term let basis compared to perhaps €20,000 on a long-term let. If they are flipping the property night-by-night on a short-term let, they can make up to €250,000. Of course, landlords are going to take that option if it is available to them. What it means is that there is a radical reduction in the level of rental properties in the State, which hits families hard. Again, the Government has done little or nothing about that. I say to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, that it is an incredible situation that under the Government, right now tourists stay in homes and families stay in hotels. That is the mixed-up, muddled world we live in. The Government has created a distorted market in housing.

We, in Aontú, have produced a temporary Bill for three to five years to prohibit short-term lets of non-principal private residences in towns or cities with a population of more than 10,000. Overnight, that would take thousands of houses out of the short-term let sector and put them back into the long-term let sector. That would make them available to families and reduce the cost of rent. I urge the Minister of State to take that on board.

In my remaining time I wish to speak about the mica crisis and the impact it will have on rents, especially in the Donegal area. All of a sudden, we will have many families who will be put out of their crumbling homes and who will have to seek rental accommodation. We are going to see a difficulty arise in that regard.

I attended the marches in Dublin last July. It was a wonderful expression of people power. People were leaving Donegal at 6 a.m. to be in Dublin in their thousands. They very clearly stated that they wanted 100% redress for their families. The Government said it would fulfil that request but, in a sleight of hand, the Government has looked to produce a plan which is nowhere near 100% redress at all. It has put a cap of €420,000 and created a sliding scale on the square footage, which means the mica redress scheme cannot achieve 100% redress for many people. In many cases, the Government's plan will prevent families from rebuilding their homes as many will not be able to tap the €30,000, €40,000 or €50,000 they will need to build them.

True to form, the Government produced a plan that is less than what is necessary but, true to form also, the Government is now actively considering how to plan the U-turn on this issue. We need only listen to the Government at the moment, and I have mentioned that the Government has reached peak confusion and that this is the confusion coalition. We listen to all of the different voices coming out from the Government, where the Minister, Deputy Charlie McConalogue, says he fully backs the mica proposal, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, says it may need some work, and the Taoiseach says all the costs will not be borne by the mica homeowners and that these figures have been plucked from the air, while Deputies Joe Carey and Joe McHugh are still trying to make up their minds on supporting the scheme at all.

Surely, if a person gets 100% redress for pyrite in Dublin, a person from counties Donegal, Mayo or Sligo is entitled to 100% redress. We have to ask ourselves why is it they are entitled to 100% redress. It is because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael created a light-touch regulation system for decades in this country. They allowed cowboys to create building materials that were below what was necessary for them to function properly. I remember Bertie Ahern going internationally and selling Ireland as a light-touch regulation destination. We had systems in County Donegal where the Government did not protect the homeowners, where the insurance companies did not protect the homeowners, where the quarry owners did not protect the homeowners and where the manufacturers of building materials did not protect the homeowners. As a result, we have thousands of families who are stuffed. If, on the one hand, the Government will not live up to its responsibilities and duty of care to make sure that the building materials are of 100% quality, then, on the other, it needs to provide 100% redress.

It is heartbreaking to see that the Donegal families are still no nearer their destination with regard to fixing this and that they still have work to do. For the families who are listening to the storm winds swirling around their broken walls, I urge the Minister of State to make sure the Government fulfils its responsibilities in this regard.

See this speech in context