Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have to reflect on Deputy Ó Cuív's contribution. For me, it sums up Fianna Fáil's approach to social housing. We have a long-standing commitment to the concept of social and public housing. There are criticisms of where that policy differed in the past. I repeat the line that I gave in the motion of confidence in the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, during the week, that a Fianna Fáil Minister in this new Government has provided more money so that local authorities can build more houses, and homes will be available to more people.

This increase in the local authority income limits is one example of that. Now the increasing number of local authority houses we are building are available to 16,000 more people. I wish to acknowledge the Minister's bravery, though maybe that is not the correct word because I do not think he wants to take credit here. I acknowledge his decision to increase the social housing list by 16,000. Let us be honest that over the past ten years, there was a lack of bravery in not increasing the income limits. Successive Ministers did not increase the limits because they did not want to increase the waiting lists. As a previous Deputy said, that was a denial of reality. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has recognised you cannot have a situation where income limits do not increase for ten years and subsequently people who were on the list for those ten years are removed from it, because either they or a family member have earned more or improved their position, while in no way coming near a situation where they could either privately rent with security for the long term or purchase a home.

Then you can ask yourself the question of whether there should be an income limit at all. It is one we should ask. The introduction of the cost rental model has answered that to some degree because we now have what is effectively public housing support for people right up to what might be close to an income of €80,000. Therefore, people under the income limits for social housing, as well as those above the limits, have access to public housing. In one format it is through local authority housing and on the other side, it is through access to cost rental. However, you must ask yourself whether that is an artificial divide. Perhaps we should be moving to a situation where we use the differential rent calculation and make it available to people of very significant incomes and make public housing available to a much broader group of people.

I argued for that when I was in opposition and when I was in the local authority. An argument put to me by other councillors, officials and so on was they wanted to maintain an income mix in any new developments. We must address that because the argument was that to provide an income mix by having these two pools of eligibility, you could mix the income in an estate. I believe in the issue of mixed income. That is not to stigmatise anybody but to recognise the genuine reality that when people are dependent on social welfare, it is often for significant reasons and that when we concentrate large numbers of people in an area, that puts huge pressure on services and on community. It challenges community and Governments have never supported community in that way. I believe in mixed income, not because I believe in stigma but because I believe in community and in the capacity of community to respond to those issues. Returning to this idea, on a short-term basis, cost rental on one side of the divide and local authority housing on the other can be argued for because it helps us build large new communities. Oscar Traynor Road, for example, will be entirely public housing with 40% cost rental, 40% local authority and 20% affordable purchase. I understand the planning application for that from Dublin City Council will go in either in the next week or so, or early in January. That will allow us build nearly 1,000 houses for people on a mix of incomes and it will be 100% public housing by having those two pools. However, in the long term, we must move to a situation where local authority housing is available to far more people. That is a significant step forward and will increase the ability of people to access housing. It will remove the stigma wrongly associated with people who live in local authority housing and brings us closer to the European model.

I get a little annoyed sometimes when the lead Opposition party talks about Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael being in power for the last ten years. It is even harder to listen when it is followed by the Labour Party standing up and criticising housing when it must be acknowledged its members were in power for five of those ten years. They are not here but Opposition Deputies who actually voted for the vulture fund budgets have stood up and criticised me on this side of the House when I spent ten years in opposition criticising them. Apparently, it is all our fault but there were ten years when Fianna Fáil had no access to Ministers, was not in government and did not have the influence we have now.

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