Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Delivering on housing is the defining challenge of this Government. After over a decade of undersupply, our country is catching up but too many of our people are still left behind. We need to do more and do it quicker and we will.

I know how hard things are for people but we are making progress. In 2023, more homes will be built and more homes will be bought than in a generation. We will break through our Housing for All targets and ramp up our ambition for next year. Under this Government we have the highest number of home completions since 2008, the highest home commencements on record and the highest number of planning permissions since 2008. We have over 400 first-time buyers every single week, over 20,000 more workers in the construction sector, the first ever vacancy grants, the first ever cost-rental homes and the first affordable homes in over a decade. We are building more new social homes than we have in 50 years.

Ireland is back building and under this budget we will build even more, with our highest ever capital investment of over €5 billion. In addition, we are also using the long-term proceeds of our economic prosperity to capitalise the LDA further, up to €6 billion, and expand the Housing Finance Agency by a further €2 billion. Never before in our history have we committed so many resources to housing. Housing for All, our multi-annual plan to 2030, is a clear framework to underpin a new era of home building.

The budget moves forward a number of key provisions. For first-time buyers, we are extending the help-to-buy scheme, which has helped over 40,000 people buy their own homes. We are continuing to fund the first home scheme. In just over a year, over 2,600 families and households have been able to buy their new home through that scheme. We are financing 6,400 affordable homes, which is the largest number ever in our history, through our local authorities and the Land Development Agency. For renters and landlords, we are increasing the rent tax credit by 50% to €750 and introducing income tax relief to retain landlords in the system, worth between €600 and €1,000 per annum over the next four years. We will continue to expand cost rental to record levels. For social housing and homelessness, we are funding 9,300 direct-build social homes and increasing homeless funding to €242 million, an increase of €27 million. We also have a €35 million housing first acquisition fund, increasing the single-stage approval process threshold from €6 million to €8 million. There will be a continuation of the successful tenantin situscheme into 2024 and we will exceed our target in 2023. We have a fully funded multi-annual plan that gives certainty and allows long-term investment, which is needed to meet our people’s housing need.

In contrast to that detailed plan, the Opposition has committed just two and half pages in a 52-page budget document to housing. If that is what Sinn Féin says is its priority, I would hate to see what it regards as a normal issue. We are over three years into this Government's term and the Sinn Féin alternative housing plan can be described as the Loch Ness monster of politics; often talked about but never actually seen. We do not know what Sinn Féin is for but we are clear that it is against homeownership. Sinn Féin would scrap the help-to-buy scheme that has helped over 40,000 families. It would scrap the first home scheme and even more inexplicably, it would scrap the €70,000 vacant property grant that 4,500 households have applied for already. It is hard to find a homeownership support that Sinn Féin would not scrap. Even its own scant budget numbers show the scale of its attack on homeownership. It is scrapping €260 million of supports but only putting €74 million extra into affordable homes.

The attacks on homeownership go even further and extend to parents passing the family home onto their children. Sinn Féin proposes to increase the inheritance tax rate to 36%, which is a €59 million hit on a child inheriting a family home. This means a child in Dublin inheriting an averagely valued house would pay €36,900 in tax. The Sinn Féin budget also imposes a €400 charge on small landlords, as well as a raft of new restrictions on property. This is despite the fact that last year Sinn Féin called for crisis intervention and a plan to slow down the disorderly exit of private landlords exiting the rental market. Deputy Ó Broin said that “all options must be on the table for consideration including ... tax reform in the private rental sector.” Now, however, Sinn Féin is imposing a €400 additional tax that would affect one in three homes in the country. Its strange solution to the rental crisis is to drive out landlords with no plan to replace them. All the while there is a glaring €200 million hole in its rent tax credit. It is loaves and fishes economics where Sinn Féin says it would give more money to renters but with a smaller budget.

This is all we know of the Sinn Féin housing plan - scrap, tax and hope. It would scrap homeownership supports, tax existing homes and hope that changing targets without an actual plan to build and drive out landlords will somehow work out. Housing for All, in contrast, is a fully funded long-term plan that is getting Ireland building again. The Opposition has soundbites, dodgy numbers, black holes and an aversion to homeownership across two and half pages of scant detail. This budget funds a radical, realistic and fully funded policy, underpinned by record State investment, which puts homeownership back at the heart of Irish life while helping those who need it through the delivery of social homes. These are our best values and our finest traditions. Our plan embodies them and this budget will help to deliver it.

See this speech in context