Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Unfortunately, the Minister of State can probably pre-empt what I will say on the matter. I thank People Before Profit for bringing the motion before the House. It is a very important talking point and very concerning to most people. The real question is why we need an eviction ban. We need an eviction ban because the Government has failed to provide adequate housing. It has failed to acknowledge and deal with the root cause of the failure, which is poor planning policy.

Before I move on I want to reiterate what my colleague Deputy Canney said about landlords and the same goes for developers. On the subject of landlords, the RTB in its current form has been described to me by constituents as being as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. Even though we live in an IT world, the RTB is informing members that it will not or cannot accept their email address. The RTB refers them back to a paper application and a money postal order. I ask the Minister of State to address that situation. If he needs to call the head of the RTB in and sit down to have that conversation, I ask him to do it now. Ultimately the RTB should be a mediator between the landlord and tenant, but it is only working for the tenant at this point in time.

I move on to planning policy. Does the Minister of State know it takes 20 weeks to build a three-bedroom semi-detached house? How could we have a problem with housing, if it only takes 20 weeks to build a three-bedroom house? We have a problem with planning policy because to be granted planning permission for any sizeable development it takes 104 weeks, two years, to go through the process. That is if it is straightforward and there are no objections. If it goes to An Bord Pleanála, it takes 182 weeks and that can be further tempered by judicial review proceedings. However, in the ten years that Fine Gael has been in government, nobody has attempted to change the planning policy at root level. It is the high-density measure that I talk about all the time that does not fit rural areas. I spoke to the Minister of State about that only last week. I have been hearing about new guidelines and ministerial orders, but I have not received anything nor have any of the local authorities.

Given the timelines, some developers who applied for planning permission three years ago are being granted permission today. The problem today is with viability. How can they possibly build affordable housing given that since they applied we have had a pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine? We are talking about housing, not about affordable housing. All the commencements are within social housing or for those who can afford to buy an exorbitantly priced lovely family home with front and back gardens and probably four to five bedrooms. The people falling between two stools are those who are working hard but will never own their own home.

We have 11,632 people homeless and those figures are very debatable given that we have 4,500 people within the direct provision system who are now citizens of this country. Even though they no longer belong in direct provision, they cannot find accommodation and so are stuck in the system. This is not rocket science. It takes 20 weeks to build a three-bedroom house. The Government knows what problem is, but is reluctant to do something about it.

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