Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, for bringing forth this timely and important motion. Fine Gael claims to be many things. It claims, for example, to be the party of law and order and yet we cannot see gardaí on the streets. I certainly do not think that people across Dublin city, including those in my constituency, would believe this claim holds any weight. Fine Gael also claims to be the party of the squeezed middle and we spent last week arguing about facile tax breaks rather than talking about the actual everyday realities of what is doing the squeezing here, which is this Government's failed policies. Fine Gael also claims to be the party of homeownership. The Minister of State lists off schemes and he expects us to close our eyes and pretend that year in and year out we are not seeing a decline in homeownership rates. We are also expected to appreciate that billions of euro in public money have been pumped into schemes which have been doomed from the beginning, to the point where nobody is surprised anymore that things are not getting better.

The Minister of State highlighted that thousands of people have got deposits through the Housing for All scheme. We cannot, however, clap him on the back and say "well done" for creating the conditions in which house prices are increasing to astronomical rates and for offering people deposits for homes which the Government is making too expensive for them to go into. There are other examples in this regard. We cannot step away from the fact that Fine Gael has been in government for more than 11 years now. The 2016 Rebuilding Ireland policy remains a stellar example of how not to approach a worsening housing crisis. The strategy saw €10 billion lost to the ether because the policies it powered were broken, flawed and doomed to failure.

In my constituency, for example, in Dublin Central, we talk about affordable housing. I cannot step away from the fact that when I go canvassing around an area like Cabra, as I did last week, for example, almost every second house where the door opens to me has people in it who want to be able to afford to live in Cabra but cannot. Yet all the while they look up and see major housing development programmes underway in which they cannot afford to buy a house. There is no possibility of purchasing because these units are simply buy to rent. These people also have no capacity to rent even those units that are there.

I will take one example, of Hamilton Gardens, located just behind Carnlough Road in Cabra. This is a traditional, working-class heartland that sits in behind a new-build development. I refer to the prices for these new-build units that went up in recent years. If people are selected to take on a lease, because they must be selected in this instance, it will cost them €2,225 monthly for a one-bedroom apartment in Cabra. The two-bedroom apartments have a rate of €2,525 monthly, while three-bedroom apartments will set people back €3,675 monthly. I want to have a society where it will be possible for people in a strong, traditional working-class stronghold like Cabra to live and grow up there and then aspire to be able to continue to live there. There are similar situations in other parts of the constituency, including in Drumcondra. Yet every time I walk around these parts of my constituency, I meet people who see these housing developments going up but who have no capacity to buy homes in them or even to live in them.

Communities are being eroded and decimated by the introduction of these developments. Generations of young people have been forced out of not only where they are from but we also once again have a conveyor belt of young people going to live in Europe and Australia. They are taking those skills they gained here from our strong education system and going to work in hospitals and schools elsewhere. These are the conditions that have been created by the housing crisis the Government, in the context of its ideology, has presided over for more than a decade now.

These build-to-rent developments are causing irreversible social harm to an entire generation locked out of homeownership. The impact of this situation is already evident. Young people are leaving Dublin every day in search of possibilities in other cities across Europe and the world on the promise that they will be given a better life there.

Rent prices are now at record levels, having increased by more than 85% in the past 12 years compared to the EU average of 18%. The median income of first-time buyers of new homes is now more than €90,000, and more than €103,000 in Dublin. That is incredible. The share of 25- to 34-year olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, falling from 60% to just 27%. Young people are leaving our shores and they cannot be blamed for doing so.

We ask the Minister of State to stop incentivising a model of housing provision that makes home ownership nearly impossible. The effects of this will be felt for decades. We ask him to bring forward the motion with urgency in mind. Public money must not continue to be vested in the delivery of private rental-only developments that are unaffordable to rent and unavailable to buy, if people wish to do so. A new perspective on developers must be adopted. The subsidies thrown at them have led to house prices skyrocketing, which feeds investor greed and kills the hopes of all who wish to live here. We need a change in approach and a change in Government.

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