Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the first instance, I am somewhat taken aback by the commentary on auto-enrolment. Surely everyone in this House agrees we should as a State and society deal with poor pension provision for workers in this country, both those who own homes and those who do not own homes. The auto-enrolment scheme does not discriminate when it comes to home ownership and pension provision is not good enough where we are today as a society. I disagree with the Deputy in her reference to short-termism. This has always been the problem where pensions have always been put on the long term and decisions and have been deflected because of a lack of the sense that we had to deal with the here and now. It is essential for workers and for a proper society into the future that we develop a pension system that is complementary and supplementary to the State pension system. I am delighted that the Government has taken a very decisive step to get on with auto-enrolment in the decision we took yesterday. That is the type of reform and decision-making this Government is about in implementing the programme for Government we have laid out. We will not be deflected from that.

This scheme is irrespective and does not differentiate between whether a person owns a home or does not. The most significant issue for us for auto-enrolment is the dearth of cover for so many people. Our supplementary pension cover has remained static over the past 20 years, hovering around 50% of the total working age population. This rate reduces to less than 35% when the private sector is considered in isolation. There can be no argument against doing the right thing and it will have challenges for all concerned but it is the right thing to do.

On housing and rent, I have said and acknowledge the crisis that housing presents to us today. We have produced the Housing for All strategy some months ago before the end of last year. It is a clear strategy that has financial resources behind it, and it will take a number of years to get to the critical mass of housing that we want built throughout the country, but supply is the key to this. I have no doubt about that. We cannot go on with 20,000 houses a year. We certainly need 33,000 to 35,000 and perhaps more houses per annum and they have to be of a mixed type.

I mentioned the 31,000 homes that have commenced construction in 2021. That is the highest since 2008. That is important and is a 42% increase year on year, but that is based on the previous year which, of course, was affected by Covid-19. Some 1,580 cost rental homes is the target to be delivered this year and I believe cost rental is something that can be accelerated to give real options to people. The new national first home affordable purchase shared equity scheme will also assist in the purchase of homes.

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