Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to take the opportunity to speak on this very important issue. I have listened all morning to what people on all sides of the House have said. I am not very impressed with the way people are shouting one another down. It is important that we look at this issue of housing in a constructive way. I would challenge the Government that the proposals we made last week and which the Government accepted need to be implemented. There can be no phasing away from that. There are other issues that can help with what we need to do. It is all about the supply of housing. We cannot be pitching tenants against landlords or blaming one or the other. We have to increase the supply of houses. I have suggested before that the issue of the local authorities supplying social housing is being stymied by the fact that the public spending code is delaying the process of getting houses built. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, is here and he is responsible for the national development plan. It is time he took hold of this and made sure power is devolved to the local authorities to deliver the housing without having to take the risk. It is important that we could shave at least 18 months off any social housing project by allowing the local authorities to get on with their work.

The help to buy scheme should be extended to second-hand houses. The Regional Group looked for this in the last budget. It is something we need to do. The Government must make sure that people who are brave enough to purchase their own house can have the same opportunities with a second-hand house as they can have with a new house.

When we talk about housing, people seem to get all tied up on this thing about new ways of building houses. The shortest period in the whole process is the construction period. When the contractor gets on site, he will build the houses to a programme and every week and month he will say where he is at and whether he is behind or not. It is the process from the inception of the project to construction stage which leaves us all in a limbo for three or four years. That has got to stop. It is an emergency. We need to get that out of the way. If we are to solve this housing crisis, we have to increase the number of houses. We have 70,000 planning permissions ready to be built. I am not saying we build 70,000 this year. I am not going to be saying we are going to build 100,000 this year. I believe there are 70,000 houses on which we have planning permission and no work has been undertaken. The Government needs to get involved and invest in these sites to get them to a stage where we have affordable housing or whatever name we want to call it, shared equity schemes, it does not matter as long as first-time buyers and young people have a house in this country where they can live and be proud to stay in.

It is important that we forget about all the political rhetoric and theatre. We must make sure that whatever we are doing, we are looking after the tenants and looking after and respecting the landlords. I will say here that I am a landlord. If we keep going on the way were are going, we will have nobody delivering houses and we will be relying totally on the State. The State needs to come up to the mark. We need to get on with it. We need to have a proper programme where we can deliver houses with pace. We need to resource our local authorities in a way that enables them to do that. That is the solution. This is not about shouting anybody down. I have respect for everybody's opinion.

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