Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is hard to switch from one subject to another. We have been speaking about Bobby Aylward and what people said is on my mind. That description of him as a republican stuck with me and I cannot stop thinking about it. I was watching the Civil War television programme last night on RTÉ. I do not know if anybody else saw it but it stuck out that people who were the best of friends were fighting each other. They were on the same side one week and then the next week they were at odds. Many of parties in this House have roots in that republican tradition. In fact, the very socialist parties, I would imagine, would claim a similar understanding of that, which is that we are all equal. That is the first premise of socialist thinking. From a Green Party perspective, one of our founding principles is trust in the people, trust in constitutional democratic systems and trust down to the lowest, most effective level. We, too, have a republican bone in the very centre of our body.

I mention that because I do not think that it matters whether you come from Malahide or Mullinavat. It is important how you see the world. If you come with that republican tradition, that is a central test in this democratic House as what you will deliver, what you will do and what decisions you will make. I think the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, who is from Malahide comes the same republican tradition of which we just heard about the Aylwards in Mullinavat. That is important in a world in which, as the Taoiseach said, it is so easy to play it up and say, “You are the bad guys and we are the good guys”, or to divide our country between young and old, or rural and urban. That does not work for people either rural or urban.

There is a depiction of Ministers that if they cared, they would address the housing crisis or that if they had similar ethics or a belief in the people that some people have, we would all be sorted and there would not be not a problem. In my mind, that is false argument which I do not believe to be true.

The Minister, Deputy O’Brien’s job is not easy, nor is anyone’s job in wider Government. It is never easy in politics but this has particularly been the case in recent years in the delivery of housing, where there have been a number of headwinds. There is the fact that during Covid-19, we could not get people working on buildings at the time when we most needed people working on buildings. There is the fact that interest rates have just risen and a lot of the projects that would otherwise get built and funded will now not happen. This is a real challenge. There is the fact that global inflation, the price of steel, the price of all the raw materials and the supply chain are proving difficult and will add to all those headwinds. It is not easy, but I believe the broad approach that has been taken by the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, has been the correct one.

In the Housing for All programme the word “All” is republican in its perspective. This Government is looking to deliver that - housing for all our people while prioritising social housing for those most in need who cannot protect or provide for themselves. The statistics or the numbers are clear in terms of meeting our targets this year despite all those headwinds. In particular, we have scaled up social housing delivery in a way that has not been done in this State for many decades, or for most of my lifetime.

I could cite other examples of real progress. In Cabinet today, we were discussing the various elements that we, as a party, have been arguing for decades, which is that we listen to that constitutional case which was made four or five decades ago that the increased value from zoned land does not belong to the landowner, but to the wider people. We are legislating for that. We are also legislating for what condemned and killed this country's housing for decades, which was the storing of land as a wealth gaining measure. We will take that on by introducing a land use tax that taxes land that is zoned but has not been developed. During the week, I heard others arguing against that and I can understand their concerns, but I think it is right and the republican thing to do.

Similarly, there is the redefinition by this Government of what is possible in housing with the introduction of cost-rental housing. This is a critical, historic change towards creating a new form of public housing that is open to everyone. That will bring the price down in a real way. We all agree that the rental sector and our young people are being hit hardest, particularly those who are trying to raise a family. That cost-rental housing offers real hope. I have heard the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, speak about how he is determined, as this Government is, to scale it up massively. I believe that will be seen as one of the most transformative changes that will come in this time of real change.

I could go on. Croí Cónaithe, the town centres first philosophy, is a change from the abandonment of towns that has occurred for the past four of five decades and it will start bringing people and life back into the centre. That is happening under this Government with all of the challenges that are involved. There is Croí Cónaithe, Project Tosaigh and the planning reforms. In Cabinet today we discussed a significant and essential upgrade of the planning system so that we can help to deliver housing for our people. We cannot on the one hand hammer everyone, saying they are not doing enough on housing, but then when they start deliver, saying that they are doing too much or that they are doing the wrong thing, as though there was there was a magic, easy, alternative formula. I do not believe there is one.

I will vote in support of confidence in the Minister, our colleague. I will do that in the determination that in the next two years of this Government we will deliver the housing our people need and we will deliver the change, particularly in how we see public housing. We will build back into the centre and build communities. This is still ringing in my ears from hearing about the Aylward family.

We deliver community when we deliver good housing, and we are determined to do that.

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