Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Doherty for tabling this Private Members' motion. The current housing strategy where we see more investment funds buying up blocks of new housing or huge build-to-rent developments is a clear example of how this Government’s policy on housing has been an unmitigated disaster for ordinary people. Faced with a generational housing crisis the only political will the Government has shown is keeping wed to the idea that no matter what the cost, the most important thing in our housing market is that the big developers, vulture funds and landlords get to keep their hands in the cookie jar. This is no accident. It is a political decision to continue to put profit at the heart of every solution the Government comes up with for one of the worst housing crisis this country has ever seen.

Time and again, the Government has shown that it represents the interests of profits and wealth and not ordinary working class people. There are people dying on our streets because they do not have a roof over their heads yet it is landlords, vulture funds and developers whom this Government chooses to prioritise in its housing policy. Whether it is bulk purchases, which this motion addresses, or CSO data shows that over 50% of homes built in the Dublin City Council area between 2018 and 2020 were build-to-rent, this is a housing crisis in which those with big money see massive growing profits and ordinary people see no end in sight.

Take one recent situation we know of in north county Dublin, Belcamp Manor, where 46 out of the 54 homes were bulk bought by a vulture fund. Now we know that nearly 40 homes every month are bulk bought even though the Government brought in legislation to try to stop that. It is going ahead because they are making lots of money doing it.

We need policies that are committed to providing secure, affordable homes to people, whether public or private. That starts with a massive public housing building campaign led by a State construction company. It requires real and enforced security of tenure and rights for tenants and it requires taking back power and profits from the giant landlords, developers and vulture funds so that we have a housing system that is designed for people to get homes and not for companies to make profits.

Finally, I want to put a question to the Minister of State. Recently, I have dealt with several constituents who are above the social housing income threshold but are below the income threshold for new LDA cost rental projects. For example, while the social housing threshold is €40,000 for a single person in both Dublin and Kildare, you need to earn over €46,525 for the Harpur Lane LDA cost-rental project in Leixlip or above €46,286 for the Parklands LDA cost-rental project in Citywest. The Housing for All cost-rental policy states it is targeted at middle income households with incomes above the social housing limits. The national average in 2022 was €41,824. How are these projects targeting middle income earners or those above the social housing threshold if an average worker cannot afford the cost of it? I want a response from the Minister of State on how the Government plans to respond to the gap the Government has created for people stuck below the threshold of a scheme that is supposed to directly target them.

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