Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The line Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, repeated the line used by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste earlier today that the Government's housing plan is working. While the Minister of State did not use that phrase, he indicated that he believes the plan is moving in the right direction. Let us just look at the facts, because the Minister of State is not a man who does not take what he says in this Chamber lightly. He has been in government for three years. During that period, homelessness increased by 39%. Then there is child homelessness. On the Minister of State's watch, the number of children in emergency accommodation has increased by 44% and yet he stated that the Government’s plan is moving in the right direction. He cannot believe the words he read out.

The Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, along with the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage launched a 75-page progress report for the first and second quarters of this year. Did they tell us in that report how many new social homes have been delivered in the first six months of the year? No, they did not. Did they tell us the number of genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy that have been delivered in the first six months of this year? Did they outline the actual number of properties bought by local authorities and approved housing bodies under the tenant in situscheme to prevent homelessness? Did they tell us the actual number of vacant or derelict properties brought back into active use by any of the schemes that the Minister of State mentioned in the first six months of this year? No, they did not. Why would the Taoiseach, Tánaiste, the leader of the Green Party and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage launch a 75-page report on so-called progress when they could not report on any of the things that would make a difference in respect of this crisis? The reason they did not answer any of those questions is because if they did, it would be patently clear that there has been no progress. In fact, the most telling thing about this was that it took place during the much-anticipated testimony of Ryan Tubridy and his agent in front of an Oireachtas committee. If there was ever a definition of a blatantly cynical move by the Government to hide its lack of progress on the single biggest social issue affecting society today, that was it, and the Minister of State comes in here and he stands over that? We work well on so many other issues. However, the Minister of State cannot come here week after week and trot out these lines and expect us to take him seriously.

There has never been a time in modern history when it has been so difficult to be a renter. Tenants are less secure, they are paying higher rents and they are more at risk of homelessness. What are we proposing today to tackle the deepening crisis for private renters? First, we propose an emergency three-year ban on rent increases for all renters, existing tenants, new tenants and new rental properties. We are proposing a real refundable tax credit to put a full month’s rent back in every renters pocket, which all renters can avail of. This is not the paltry €500 credit that the Government has offered which only half the renters in the State have been able to avail of. We have talked about real, emergency measures using emergency planning and procurement powers, targeting new building technologies and vacant homes to provide an additional supply of social and affordable homes, targeting those people trapped in emergency accommodation - single people, pensioners and parents with children – to dramatically reduce the numbers in emergency accommodation and alleviate the crisis. We have also called for the reintroduction of the ban on no-fault evictions until such time as the numbers of people in emergency accommodation falls. This is something that is commonplace, in fact is standard, in many European countries. Then finally, yet again, we have said that the Government needs to increase the funding for social and affordable housing. It needs to increase the targets and cut the red tape that is strangling the life out of our local authorities and approved housing bodies to deliver those much-needed homes. Of course, the Government will not do any of that.

One of the things on which I disagree most with the Minister of State is his final comment to the effect that we all want the same thing. I do not want what he wants. I want Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party out of office as quickly as is humanly possible. Fine Gael has been in government for 11 years. Fianna Fáil, which has propped up Fine Gael, has effectively been in government for seven years. The Green Party has been propping up Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for the past three years, and the housing crisis has never been worse. What does that tell us after all of that time and after all of those plans and initiatives? It tells us that the Government has created this crisis. It was created by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and is being perpetuated by the Green Party. The only way we can turn this around and start to provide the social and affordable homes that people need it getting these people out of office and bringing forward a housing plan that is going to do something very simple: build a volume of social and affordable homes that is commensurate with the level of need. This Government will not do that. The sooner it realises this and the sooner we get it out of office, the better, particularly for those adults and children that have become homeless under the Minister of State’s watch and that of his colleagues. I commend the motion to the House.

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