Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh ár gcuairteoirí freisin.

Last week, I raised some stories about the human face of the housing crisis. They were stories about people at the sharp end of the housing crisis such as the 27 renters who were renting premises within a stone's throw of where I live in the south city centre off Camden Street that was not suitable for residential accommodation. These people were renting patently unsuitable premises because they could not find and afford anywhere else. This week, we heard about a shortage of teachers, particularly in Dublin, and difficulties retaining and recruiting teachers, nurses and staff in every sector from hospitality to retail to the professions to multinationals.

The difficulty arises because people cannot get appropriate accommodation in our capital city. We have got to a point where there is now a Dublin penalty - a penalty people pay where they are seeking to work and live in Dublin but cannot afford to do so. I am hearing increasingly desperate stories of people earning what would be considered good wages who cannot afford suitable or appropriate accommodation anywhere within an easy commute of jobs in the city centre so it has become a Dublin penalty. We see the shortage of accommodation throughout the country, particularly in urban areas.

Like many colleagues, when I cycle around my constituency, I still see properties lying empty and sites undeveloped. In recent weeks, we heard from Dublin City Council that 28,000 live planning permissions in its area have not been activated. Enabling or facilitating the lying empty of premises and the non-activation of live planning permissions is fuelling the record homelessness figures that are so shameful for us all. This is what is fuelling escalating rents, lengthening housing lists and substandard living standards for so many people.

To misappropriate the phrase of the writer O. Henry, Dublin will be a great place if they ever finish it. What we are not seeing from Government is a policy that will encourage and incentivise the finishing of Dublin and ensure that people will have decent places to live in our city centre and will be able to live and work in Dublin city, in particular, but also in towns and cities around the country without paying exorbitant rents and mortgages. We know this situation has arisen because of years of reliance on a policy that has treated property as an asset for investment and that sees housing as a commodity rather than as a public good or a human right. We need to move away from that. What is the Government going to do to ensure there is a clear carrot-and-stick approach - a carrot to incentivise those who are sitting on vacant sites to build homes on them and a stick to sanction those who let sites lie idle while people queue for housing and are unable to afford to live in the city?

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