Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment. I have not had the opportunity to address him in his position. He is a man of some knowledge, having spent a long time in the political sphere.

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the motion, even though I do not agree with much of it. Nevertheless, we are discussing a very important topic. The reason I do not agree with most of the motion is that, like so many of our debates on housing, it does not address the underlying problem that is the biggest part of why there is not enough housing, namely, planning policy. Every councillor in the country, including Labour Party councillors, has either drafted and passed county development plans or is in the process of doing so. What we have in this country is a one-size-fits-all planning policy, but outside the M50 a high-density planning policy does not suit rural Ireland. That is where our viability issue is.

I asked the Secretary General in the Department how much it costs to build a two-bedroom apartment. All we get at minimum densities, which are high density in the countryside, at 35 dwellings per hectare, are terraced housing and apartments. We need front and back gardens and we have the room for them. We have the space to live but this is the policy that is being dictated. The Secretary General did not know the answer by the way, but without site costs it costs €250,000 to build a two-bedroom apartment, versus just €150,000 for a two-bedroom house. How does it make sense that we insist on this policy in the middle of a crisis when the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, is now saying it is unlikely to be able to build the 1,214 houses it has prepared for because of commercial viability. The issue of viability has developed because of all the planning policy and all the neglect for the past ten years when houses were not being built. Our planning policy, our entire procedure, is a mess.

That is not the Minister of State's fault - he is new in his position - but it has developed over successive governments. I hope he, as a new Minister of State, is going to address this issue. I assure him we can afford the land, particularly in Wexford, to have front and back gardens. Why would we build four-storey apartments with no lift shafts? Fifty-six-year-old people will turn into 76-year-old people, their hips or knees will go and then they will not be able to climb stairs.

The two young departmental officials sitting beside the Minister of State will probably never own houses because if it costs €250,000 to build an apartment without site costs, it probably will not be able to be sold for less than €350,000. Who will get a mortgage for a two-bedroom apartment at that level? That leaves only one entity to buy those apartments, namely, the county councils, which means we will just corral those in society who cannot afford to buy their own home into high-density settings that will become ghettos because the county councils are well known for not maintaining their properties, especially at this juncture.

I do not want to get into our history of high-density settings. We pulled them down and now we are building them back up. We are making the same mistakes again. The Government is not listening. It is not trying to resolve the problem but is throwing money at it. Eight hundred modular homes, at a cost to the State of just short of €1 billion, will not cut the mustard. It is a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government. We could build houses more cheaply. We will never produce those modular homes in this country. It is insane that we would go down that road when all we have to do is look at our planning policy and make the changes that will incentivise development and ensure the commencement of planning that has been granted.

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