Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to be able to have an opportunity to speak on this cross-party Raise the Roof motion today.

Every day in my political life, particularly as a Deputy, is a day where I am dealing with people in housing distress but today is one of those days that I think most Members have experienced where the cases I am dealing with had that extra air of complexity or sadness or a dead end to them. That is the day I have had with the people with whom I have been dealing and I am glad this motion is being debated tonight.

I am also glad it is being debated on the same day that we had this showpiece debate late this afternoon which, quite frankly, did not show this Parliament in its best light considering the depth of this housing crisis. The Chamber was full for almost two hours. It was a breathtaking display of barracking, one-liners, jokes, heckles, arrogance and detachment. Anyone with whom I or many of us dealt today, in the past week or the last months, anyone on the housing list and anyone who is waiting for an offer letter to drop onto his or her letter-box floor but who will probably get a notice to quit before he or she gets an offer letter would say, were he or she watching this afternoon, that there is no combination of groups in that Parliament that will be able to resolve this housing crisis. This motion is timely in that it comes so quickly after that. It is a good motion. It is coming from a cross-party, cross-political NGO group that is speaking to the heart and the complexity of this housing crisis, which, too often, we do not get to the root of in this Chamber, and we have seen an element of it already in this debate this evening. It does a disservice to the people that we all purport to be representing.

The Minister has gone all in on Housing for All as his policy. Nearly two years into the term of this Government, at most there are three years left. At present, it is hard to see how Housing for All would be delivered for all. That is the reality. It seems to be housing for those who can afford it and profits for those who can build it. I am not seeing it. Deputy Mairéad Farrell said it earlier. Even six months ago or a year ago, if anyone came to one of my clinics, at least one would have a couple of options for them. Sometimes that option might be only to help people look through daft.ie, to telephone rental agencies or whatever the case may be. Now it seems those ways of helping are being diminished. With the Covid protections now unwound and with there being no rent freeze and no ban on evictions, we are seeing the notices to quit drop at a rate that is quite frankly frightening. We are not building houses quick enough. We are not acquiring houses. They are not coming on. Whatever the method of supply, and we can argue over the method, they are not quick enough to meet the standstill target we have. That target is getting bigger and bigger every day with the rate of notices to quit.

The level of private rental accommodation available is minimal and the short-term rentals are soaking up a large number of homes in our cities and towns. I have yet to find any value in or any good about Airbnb as to why it exists. It is anti-worker. It is anti-standards. It is contrary to a fair housing system. These gig economy superpowers, such as Airbnb and Uber, are global behemoths with a substantial amount of resources. They do not build a house and in the case of Uber it does not own a car, but they undermine absolutely everything. It is the worst form of capitalism with a glossy progressive branding that is tricking the rich part of the world into believing that it is engaged in something that is somehow helpful because it might be saving a few bob. It is killing the rental market. Any hope we have of having supply for long-term rents is being absolutely undermined by the likes of Airbnb. There is not one reason I can think of that that company should be in existence.

The price of a home is moving further and further out of reach for multiple generations. I will never forget one of the first presentations I ever attended here from the trade union movement in the audiovisual room. A representative from the Mandate trade union said that 20 or 25 years ago someone who worked on the bakery counter in Superquinn who married someone who worked in the local shoe shop, if they worked and saved, and it was never easy, would be able to afford to buy a house. Now we know that if the baker in the local SuperValu is married to or in a relationship with a person who works in the shoe shop, all they could hope for is social housing and they would have to be 13 or 14 years on the list.

The reality is that because the income limits have not changed, they may be 13 years on the list. We are all getting it now. They are so long on the list and they see it incrementally going up and up, then they are in the offer zone and, bang, they are asked for their income details. Two low-paid people in a couple might be on €43,000 and they are ticked off the list because they are over the income threshold. Those income thresholds have not changed in over a decade and they need to change to reflect the reality. We cannot trust the housing list when people are being knocked off for having low incomes which are above those income thresholds.

Rents have increased by 15% and we have heard the figures on homelessness, with 5,000 single people, 3,000 children and 1,366 families in homeless accommodation. During a cost-of-living crisis, the loopholes that exist in the rent pressure zones have allowed these funds to contribute to this problem by charging exorbitant rents of €2,140 per month for a one-bed apartment up to €5,220 a month for a three-bed apartment. When someone comes into my clinic and says they have found something for €1,800, and I find myself saying it is good value, it shows how crazy it is. That is where we are. We are not seeing anything ticked down in a structured manner. The Minister said that we have had commencements and supply and that people are going to build, but given the tragedy that is happening now, we are not seeing any evidence of it working. We are just seeing prices go up and up.

The next six months is going to see this crisis taking off to a whole other level. More than anything else, the struggle to find affordable accommodation is in part due to the fact the Government is refusing to regulate these cuckoo funds in recognition of their increased dominance in the housing market. We see it in every constituency, we know where they are, we know the developments and we can see them pushing out existing tenants who may be on legacy rents so they can get new tenants in at the market value as it exists right now.

We know the power of the State when it acts. We know the State can introduce a rent freeze. It has done it before and it should not take a pandemic to do it. What the Minister is doing instead is spending €560 million on the help-to-buy scheme, which has helped some people but, as shown by the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office, was not needed by a third of those who availed of it. The €450 million Croí Cónaithe scheme is essentially a slush fund for those who have squatted on prime development sites instead of developing them. We have handed over millions to these developers to build to their own timetable and to apportion out these schemes and these phases in order to continually push up the price. Anyone could set their clock by it - phase 1 will be expensive, phase 2 will be more expensive, then phase 3 and phase 4. That is how they do it and nothing the Minister has brought in is going to stop that.

Last September, the Labour Party brought forward a comprehensive renters rights Bill to limit the multiple excuses used to evict families and to enshrine long-term tenancies. We have seen no changes in that regard. The two words the Minister seems to most hate are “rent freeze”, which is a real, tangible measure that could help to reduce the burden of rent bills, along with a ban on evictions. The argument is beyond being made that they have to be brought in. We need urgent action on Traveller accommodation and the implementation of the Irish Refugee Council proposal on emergency accommodation for all refugees. In the budget, the Government can also show its willingness to tackle the rental crisis by increasing taxes on REITs, IREFs and the speculators. Again, none of us have any sense that is going to be done.

It is quite a depressing day all round to be bringing this debate here but it is much needed. We need to have a more sophisticated debate on housing. We need to put the people who are in housing distress first every time we are in the Dáil. As we come out of Covid, we are seeing those notices to quit fall like an avalanche on people's doorsteps over the course of this blistering hot summer in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. This winter, when people are not able to afford heating, food or medicines, they will be in an even longer line outside the homeless offices of our local authorities all over the country. It is a shame that we are there but, based on my experience, that is exactly where we are.

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