Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Many of us on this side of the Chamber expected the Green Party to play, to some extent, a sort of a watchdog role within the Government. We believed that, given its election manifesto and its long-held objectives in regard to housing and many other issues, the party would ensure it put pressure on both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to make them do right by key issues such as housing.

I spoke to a Deputy last week about how the Green Party seems to have completely retreated from these types of objectives in the areas of housing, healthcare and education. We had a conversation about whether this was the right thing for the party to do strategically. Perhaps it has decided that action on climate change and the environment is the only thing it can hope to achieve in this particular space and it is willing to concede, lock, stock and barrel, all the other elements of its election manifesto and platform on building economic justice and equality in this country. Perhaps that was the right decision for the Green Party. Perhaps it has no other option but to compartmentalise itself into one or two Departments and focus only on those areas. If that is the case, it may be strategically correct insofar as its objectives on climate change and the environment are concerned, but it means a whole section of Irish society is radically weakened as a result. I do not accept that it is necessary for the Green Party to retreat completely from those areas, put its hands up and say it will allow Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael free rein in that regard. There was some hope in the early days of the coalition, when a number of people in the party were kicking back, making the right sounds and adding a level of dissent, but their voices seem to have gone completely silent in recent times.

To give an example of what I mean by that, let us consider the situation whereby 180,000 homes are vacant in this State right now, according to the CSO. An Post says there are approximately 90,000 vacant homes, according to its figures. I put a question on this to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who came back with the CSO figures, which are obviously way out of date at this stage. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came up with the vacant site tax, which has brought in approximately €21,000 in total. That is probably less than it cost to draft the legislation in the first place. It might be the first time in history that a tax took in less in a given year than it cost to produce the legislation that introduced it. I asked the Minister for Finance whether he would double or triple the local property tax on vacant houses, to which he replied that it cannot be done because we do not know exactly why those houses are vacant. We need to find that out, he said, and the research will be done on it. In the budget the Government introduced a zoned land tax, which will not be implemented for two or three years and that will be charged at 3%, compared with a rate of 7% under the previous tax. The Business Posthas released documents and evidence showing that a significant lobbying effort was addressed to the Government to go down a particular route on taxation in this area and that the Department is now reticent about, if not pushing back against, taxing vacant homes. This is just one clear example of where one would struggle to find what the Green Party influence has been - in this instance, in respect of getting vacant housing units back into use.

Another example is what has happened in the Airbnb sector. When Covid hit, we had a magical situation where all of these properties came up for rent in Dublin and the rest of the country. All of a sudden, rents started to fall and rental supply to increase. Of course, the reason that happened was that when the Covid crisis began, the Airbnb business model had to change. As short-term rentals were no longer viable, landlords started to switch to long-term renting. When the situation began to reverse recently, as tourism took off again in the summer, the opposite opened. Houses that were out for long-term rent were withdrawn and pushed into short-term rental, which led to a massive contraction of the supply of housing to the rental accommodation sector throughout the country but especially in Dublin, with a surge in rental prices. A Bill brought to the Dáil by Aontú to ensure people could not put second homes up for short-term rental in urban areas was a logical proposal that one might assume the Green Party naturally would support or, at least, as a partner in government, that it would push for it. Again, however, there is no evidence that the party has made any push or had any influence in this area.

In the case of real estate investment trusts, REITs, one would again assume the Green Party would have liked to do something about the competitive advantage those trusts have in buying up housing stock, in competition with first-time buyers and families looking for homes. Aontú, the smallest party in the Dáil, produced a Bill to delete the competitive taxation advantages REITs have in regard to buying houses. This seems like a platform that would be attractive to the Green Party and one on which it would have influence in the Government. Again, we see no sign of its influence in that space. There is a whole series of areas in which levers could be pulled that would make housing more affordable and accessible to families and first-time buyers, reduce the competitive advantages currently held by large-scale international investors and create a level playing field in these markets. We are not seeing any evidence of the Green Party pushing or holding the Government to account in this regard.

Perhaps the party does not feel it is possible to do so. However, if we look at other Governments in the past, it has been done. I would be no fan of the Progressive Democrats, which, in many ways, had the opposite politics to those of my party and me. However, when the party was in government with Fianna Fáil, it was the tail that wagged the dog. In many ways, Fianna Fáil is without ideology and without an ideological compass. It is a party well suited to being pushed in a certain direction. There is no evidence of the Green Party doing any pushing in the areas I have outlined. I urge those members of the party who have a strong social conscience on real issues, such as housing, to start to flex their muscles while they can. The electorate will not thank the party for remaining silent on these issues, if it does so, for the remaining years of the coalition.

Another example is in regard to the capping of rents. Rental prices are surging around the country at the moment. There is no excuse at this time for such increases. I expect the Minister of State probably agrees with me that there is no logical business or social justification for increasing rents throughout society at this time. Even those landlords who were in negative equity in the past are receiving rents that cover mortgages that may have been taken out prior to 2009 or 2010. However, we have come back to the well three times in terms of legislation on capping rents. All of those Bills have been weak efforts. All the while, we have a society in which there is massive housing distress. I reckon there are 1 million people in housing distress in the State, including those who are still working their way through the courts following the mortgage distress arising from the banking crash, people who are locked out of housing because of the surging rents facing their generation and those who cannot afford to buy homes. In Dublin right now, people need a deposit of approximately €52,000 and an income of €100,000 to be able to buy one of the cheapest homes available. Hundreds of thousands of people are still on local authority housing waiting lists. Thousands of people are homeless and some of them are dying on the streets. Last year, I brought to the attention of the Dáil that 72 people had died in homelessness on the streets of Dublin, a figure that was far higher than that for the previous year. Those data - that human story - were not even being collected in any other county in the State.

I am amazed that Green Party Members were not jumping up and down on issues such as this. I hope they have not corralled themselves into one or two Departments. I urge the Minister of State to start using his influence on issues such as housing, which is a national emergency in this country at the moment.

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