Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their contributions and the points they have raised, all of which will be taken note of and I will do my best to respond to all concerns. I am sure the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, will fully debate these matters with the Members later this evening on Committee Stage of the Bill. I have listened to colleagues intently in what has been quite a detailed debate. Overall, I am confident the House will agree to pass this Bill today to quickly put in place enhanced protections for tenants immediately upon its enactment until the winter is over, and until 18 June for some tenancies.

The broad consensus of Deputies across the Opposition is that five months of enhanced protections is not long enough and these essential protections should be extended for up to 17 months. The efforts by Government through Housing for All in delivering supply at scale over the coming months aim to counter the need for a longer application of these enhanced tenancy protections. The Government is acting now, in line with the advice of the Attorney General, to protect and balance the rights of both tenants and landlords.

Housing for All is underpinned by unprecedented levels of investment, with annual Exchequer funding standing at an average of €4 billion a year for the next five years. Budget 2023 provides €4.5 billion. This Government commitment provides the construction industry with the certainty and stability it needs to build the housing the country needs.

While global and external challenges have emerged since Housing for All was published, the Government remains focused on achieving its targets. As committed to last year at its launch, the Government will review and update the actions in Housing for All. The updated actions will be contained in the next quarterly report, to be published in the autumn. This will allow Government to respond to the challenges facing the sector and to redouble our efforts in prioritising measures to activate and accelerate the delivery of housing supply.

The Housing for All plan is working. Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures for the second quarter of this year record the highest number of completed homes in any quarter since the CSO series began in 2011. This year, the Government’s target is delivery of 24,600 homes.

In the year to the end of June, just under 25,000 new homes were completed. The number of commencements over the 12 months to the end of September stood at 27,417. These figures give confidence that the Government's overall supply target for 2022 of 24,600 homes will be exceeded, with the Central Bank forecasting 25,000 completions this year and some commentators forecasting up to 28,000. Figures on home completions, commencements, permissions, home purchases, first-time buyers and mortgage drawdowns are all very encouraging and give confidence that the Government's overall supply target for 2022 will be met. The impending changes to the Central Bank's mortgage lending rules will also help people become homeowners and move to a more suitable home. Renters will be in a better position to own their own home. The Central Bank aims to ensure sustainable lending standards in the mortgage market. Local authority home loans are also available to help people own their own homes. The latest Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures show that planning permission was approved for 44,715 homes in the year ending in the second quarter of 2022. This represents an 11.4% increase on the same time period ending in the second quarter of 2021, when the figure was 40,131.

Last Wednesday, 19 October, following collaboration with local authority partners, the Land Development Agency, LDA, renewed its Project Tosaigh invitation for expressions of interest, seeking further submissions by 4 November from those in the house building sector on delivering housing and apartments, with a focus on high-density developments within urban areas. The current call is focused on projects that have full implementable planning permission; projects capable of commencing construction in the near term and those that have commenced and which are either fully or partially paused; and high-density typologies, including apartments and duplex houses, preferably at a development scale greater than 75 units. The LDA will prioritise proposals for these higher density homes in the cities of Dublin and Cork, where the developments would otherwise struggle to be advanced in the current market environment. The LDA recently announced a new affordable purchase scheme of 95 homes in Mallow, County Cork, under its Project Tosaigh initiative. This new supply demonstrates the progress it is making in accelerating the delivery of affordable housing. Project Tosaigh will see 5,000 new social and affordable homes delivered by the end of 2026, which will complement the supply the LDA is already working on through its State land pipeline.

The Minister, Deputy O’Brien, has made a number of announcements aimed at stimulating and securing as much new supply as possible in the coming months. The Minister has made clear to local authorities that, where there is a risk of tenants being evicted into homelessness as a result of a landlord selling a home, the local authority will be supported by the Department to purchase that home, should that be the appropriate course of action. Local authorities have been encouraged to be as proactive as possible in returning vacant properties to use through the use of the voids funding programme as well as the buy and renew and repair and lease schemes. Local authorities have been asked to prioritise additional tenancy supports and prevention measures in their homelessness expenditure programmes. Additional financial support is also being made available, where needed.

My Department has approved the reintroduction of the place finder fee incentive, implemented through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. This will be payable where suitable properties are made exclusively available to homeless families and not advertised elsewhere.

To ensure housing supply ramps up to the scale of delivery committed to under Housing for All, we must increase productivity and the number of people employed in building residential accommodation by 27,500 to 67,500 workers by the middle of the decade. We may possibly have to increase that number to 80,000 thereafter to deliver housing at the required scale. Recent data released by the Central Statistics Office show that we now have more than 167,000 people working in the construction sector, which is 20,000 more than the pre-pandemic level and 40,000 more than this time last year. We are, therefore, well on the way to having the skills to deliver the homes we need.

As housing delivery builds to the requisite level throughout the country, this Bill provides for the deferment of certain tenancy terminations taking effect over the coming winter emergency period to alleviate pressure arising from the ongoing acute supply constraints in the residential rental sector and the expected increase in homelessness presentations over the period to 31 March 2023. The Bill seeks to reduce the burden on homelessness services and the pressure on tenants and the residential tenancies market generally during the winter months.

In proposing the temporary pause on certain tenancy terminations taking effect, the Government is balancing the competing priorities of preventing people falling into homelessness and fairly stemming the continued exit of small-scale landlords from the private rental sector, which we recognise we need to do. The Government is proposing a number of exceptions to the winter emergency period provisions to ensure the core rights of a landlord to protect his or her property and to secure a rental income will not be limited in any way by this Bill. We need to retain a landlord’s right to deal with antisocial behaviour and any other breach of tenancy obligations. We need to maintain a viable rental market and retain a landlord’s ability to deal with issues such overcrowding, which may pose a fire hazard or a health and safety risk to tenants.

In addition to addressing supply constraints over the coming months, the Government will be examining what further reforms of the market are also needed. The Government is reviewing and modernising the planning system and implementing actions to increase capacity, innovation and productivity in the construction sector. Given the exit of landlords from the sector, we propose to include a new measure in the review of Housing for All, which is to be considered by Government shortly, to conduct a review of the residential rented sector by the end of the second quarter of 2023. Subject to any final terms of reference, the review will examine the current acute supply constraints within the residential rented sector with a view to identifying what measures are required to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector, ensuring sufficient affordable supply and making it a viable and attractive tenure of choice. A report on policy considerations will be made ahead of budget 2024. In addition, consideration will be given to any relevant recommendations from the commission on housing, which is due to report by July next year.

The provisions of this Bill have been carefully framed to maximise their benefit to those considered most vulnerable and to balance the legal rights of tenants and landlords. I thank all Members of this House for facilitating the swift passage of this Bill to ensure these protections are in place for tenants at such short notice. The Minister, Deputy O’Brien, looks forward to debating the Deputies’ proposed amendments on Committee Stage later this evening.

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