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

I disagree with the assessment made by Deputy Ó Broin regarding housing policy, and I have not seen from him or his party a substantive policy response to Housing for All. It just does not exist. Housing for All is a very comprehensive and substantive document, with a suite of measures that will take time. There is no doubt Covid-19 has been a key factor over the past two years, which the Deputy ignored for obvious reasons. Construction was closed twice, in 2020 and 2021, for three or four months each year, which slowed construction, but it has rebounded quite well. The issue is we need to build about 35,000 houses, between the private and public sectors, every year over the next ten years. The more we can accelerate, the better. It will mean all house types - social, affordable and all other types - will have to be facilitated to meet the needs that exist. I am very clear about that.

To me, the biggest challenge now is the war on Ukraine and the inflation that has emerged coming out of Covid, in terms of the imbalance of supply and demand, which has been exacerbated by the energy crisis caused by the Ukrainian war but also by the impact of inflation more generally and on commodities. As we all know, builders are now talking about much higher increases in the cost of materials for building. The cost of building any building, including homes, is increasing because of the cost of materials, and even tenders for State works are being received in much smaller volumes because of the concerns arising from the inflation that has occurred because of the war.

Notwithstanding that, a range of schemes have been introduced to increase and help affordability and to promote the building of cost-rental and affordable homes. Capacity and resources have been given to local authorities to build up their in-house resources to enable them to do much more, on both the affordable and the social housing fronts. There is no other way but to build more houses and have greater supply across the board. Given that the population continues to increase and has done so significantly in the past decade, that imperative of increasing supply still stands. We do not have the luxury as a country of trying to oppose various other schemes, types of buildings, mixes of developments on certain sites and so on. We just do not have that luxury because we urgently need a significant ramp-up and increase in the supply of houses across the board.

To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, multiple factors underpin the homelessness issue and it is not simple, nor as simple as the Deputy presented. I take on board what he said, but about six rental Acts have been brought in. One of the features of the rental situation has been the exodus of small landlords, with one or two houses, from the market. It is a market the Deputy and others say is very lucrative, yet many landlords have left it in the past two to three years. That is a challenge.

Deputy Barry referenced that some people are using their properties, whether bed and breakfast accommodation or whatever, for other purposes, all of which takes from the housing market. My point about the smaller landlords issue is that we must balance all measures to ensure we continue to get supply into the market, both for rent and for house-building. That is the key. Furthermore, we have to have private sector investment as well as public sector investment. Public sector investment is being provided for, with €4 billion a year being provided by the State through various means for house construction. In addition to that, we will need up to €5 billion or €6 billion from the private sector to get the level of house construction we require. That is why I referenced build-to-rent, for example, and other issues. The primary focus of the Government is social housing and affordable housing, and to get as much private sector development as possible on top of that in order that we will get a broad mix.

Deputy Ó Murchú raised the HAP issue. As I said in response to him earlier, we will talk to the authorities about that and the background to it.

On the housing adaptation grant, there is always some degree of discretion with local authorities and I will discuss that further with Deputy Murnane O'Connor. The modular builds will take much longer than 11 days, depending on quality and so on, but that has been initiated.

I think I have largely dealt with Deputy Barry's points. I do not accept his point about pitting refugees against those on the housing lists. We are not doing that at all. The vast bulk of Ukrainian displaced persons have been in hotels and various other forms of accommodation sourced by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Red Cross through the pledging situation.

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