Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to debate the issue of housing in this House. Housing is consistently the number one issue of concern in communities throughout the country. It is acknowledged by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, by the Taoiseach and by other Ministers that housing is the single biggest challenge facing the Government now. We often hear from Government benches, even while they are acknowledging that, that progress is being made and we are not unique in having issues with delivery of homes. Instead of making a serious contribution, engaging with the issues addressed in motions such as this and acknowledging where the Minister's plans are simply not working, what we see instead, time and again, are these rather cynical countermotions and the Minister and other Government spokespeople using their time in this House in responding to these motions to heap praise on Housing for All, as the Minister did tonight in a somewhat perfunctory fashion without acknowledging where it is not working. We acknowledge there are aspects of Government policies which work. We welcome interventions that are effective. Across the Opposition, that is the case. We want to see the Land Development Agency become truly effective. We want to see developments, such as the hugely important development in Poolbeg, working and delivering. We want to see construction ramped up, but we have to acknowledge there are so many people who remain locked out of housing precisely because the supply is still too low, because the Government targets are too low, and because the Government has not got sufficient ambition or urgency in tackling the housing crisis.

There are so many locked out of housing in Ireland. This is not only those on the lowest of incomes, although there are so many people who are really desperate with the cost-of-living crisis and with exorbitant rents and mortgages. If the Minister looked, and he may well have done, at David McWilliams's piece in The Irish Times on Saturday, he will have seen his account of how even those on the highest salaries, the top 5%, are squeezed and are paying more than 30% of their wages on housing. Mr. McWilliams makes the contrast with housing built in the late 19th century that was seen as affordable and he uses the example, taken, in fact, from my own constituency, of Harold's Cross Cottages, which are now for rent, and they are rare to get for rental, for €1,558 per month or well over 30% of the earnings of most people. The reality is that homes are unaffordable at all levels.

We are seeing at the sharpest end that 13,866 people were recorded as homeless in official statistics in March, including 4,174 children. It is a truly shameful figure. That excludes all the desperate people who are forced to sleep in tents, including those along the Grand Canal about whom we spoke earlier in this House who came here seeking refuge but who are sleeping in tents because the Government has made such a mess out of the asylum system and the accommodation system for refugees. That figure, large though it is, also excludes those who are fleeing family violence, sleeping on a friend’s couch or, indeed, living in a cramped childhood bedroom all through adulthood, right into their 30s and beyond.

When the Government’s countermotion passes next week, because we assume it will, the Dáil will no doubt agree with its text "that the continued implementation of Housing for All ... represents the most appropriate response to deal with the housing challenges which Ireland is now facing". We cannot sign up to that. Housing for All is clearly not equipped to deal with what are described euphemistically as our "housing challenges". The words "crisis", "disaster" and "chaos" feel far more appropriate, particularly to those we all meet every day in our communities for whom housing is the single biggest crisis. Of course, the Minister is entitled to make people aware of schemes that are up and running and which are having an impact, but it is disrespectful to all those whom I have just referenced, for whom schemes are not working and for whom the Government has not been able to do anything, to see any denial of reality by those in government.

The reality is housing is the civil rights issue of this generation and it is multi-generational. I am thinking of households such as the one I canvassed yesterday in Harold's Cross where three generations are under one roof. I spoke to a woman constituent, not much older than me, whose adult children and very small grandchildren are now living in the house in cramped conditions because they cannot afford rent and because they have been on the housing list for years with no prospect of ever getting their own home. We have multi-generational families and huge pressure caused for so many communities as a result of this. These are working people who simply cannot see a prospect of owning or renting their own home.

Increasingly, lack of access to homeownership is impacting severely upon health outcomes. It is impacting upon family dynamics for sure but it is also impacting on health outcomes, emotional well-being, and access to education because children are being moved through different schools where they have issues with housing and so many other factors.

The reality is that Housing for All is not working. It is not the appropriate response we need for this enormous crisis. The Minister is not building enough homes and his social and affordable housing targets are too low. In the past two years, the Minister has not delivered any affordable homes in Dublin city or in 15 other counties. The rights of renters are too weak, rents are still rising too fast and evictions are causing record homelessness. There is simply not enough urgency about tackling that scourge of vacancy and dereliction that we in the Labour Party have spoken about extensively and, indeed, campaigned on. The Government is too reliant on private developers to build homes and we have seen the slowing up of the planning system due to the introduction of SHDs, leading to judicial reviews of An Bord Pleanála decisions.

We have seen all sorts of obstacles to delivery but change is possible. We cannot paint such a bleak picture because it can be changed. We have seen housing developments in the past, and I referenced Harold's Cross Cottages. I have referenced previously, as David McWilliams did, the building of so many homes at a time when this State was much poorer, when we saw the Dublin Artisans' Dwellings Company delivering homes at scale that were affordable and that is the sort of political urgency that is needed now.

We need political urgency too on renters' rights. In 2021, the Labour Party introduced a Bill to end no-fault evictions, to reduce rents, and to give renters more agency over and more rights within their homes. The Government did not oppose it at the time but the Minister has not implemented it. The same year we introduced a Bill to implement the Kenny report - a long overdue measure - and cap the price of land. Indeed, recently I put forward amendments to that effect again on Committee Stage of the Planning and Development Bill 2023, but we have seen no action on that either. I have called on many occasions for the Minister to engage with us and with Focus Ireland to pass the Housing (Homeless Families) Bill 2017, produced by the Labour Party some years ago, and yet still nothing.

Continuing with Housing for All alone and suggesting it alone will get us out of the housing crisis will not work because, since publication of Housing for All, things have not improved; they have patently worsened by every objective factor. Now that we are into the depths of local election campaigning, Labour Party candidates across the country are telling me of the same issues. Indeed, I am hearing it as I canvass across the country. Housing is simply not available. There are not enough homes to buy or to rent, the ones that are there are too expensive, and those locked out of homeownership are subject to what can only be described as a rental casino.

What we need to see is real change and really constructive measures that can be introduced. All too often, the Minister and other Government spokespeople suggest the Opposition has no ideas, that we are not being constructive. In the Labour Party, we are constructive. Indeed, in March, we put forward a motion to this House suggesting a range of measures the Government could take to ramp up the delivery of homes. The Government did not oppose that motion but, again, we are not seeing action on it. The sort of actions we believe should be undertaken by the Government include the following. The Minister should increase his building targets to match the established need. I have spoken on this on many occasions. We know a minimum of 50,000 new builds is required per year. It is time the Minister stopped being in denial on this and published increased targets to try to ramp up ambition. He will say that targets are one thing and delivery is another. The problem is if targets are low, delivery will never overtake the targets. The Minister needs to set his targets high. Whether it is in sport or in any other endeavour, you need to set targets high to have any hope of achieving a scaled-up supply. We also need to see the ring-fencing of funding for accessible homes for older people and disabled people. We need to see the measures we have called for to end no-fault evictions. We need to see regulation of Airbnb-style short-term lettings, an issue which is a real factor, especially across Dublin. The Minister is aware of this too. We need to create real enforcement powers for the RTB to crack down on dodgy landlords such as Marc Godart, whose case I and others have raised on many occasions in this House. We need to see much more powerful measures provided to local authorities to tackle vacancy and dereliction and to enable them to deliver social and affordable homes as they and other entities, such as the Dublin Artisans' Dwellings Company, used do in years gone by.

This country once had one of the highest rates of homeownership in the EU.

Our social protection, pension and nursing home care systems are all predicated on an assumption of home ownership, but that is no longer the reality for so many people. The price of a home is up 9% this past year and home ownership levels are dropping. We need to ensure there are affordable homes available to people to buy and rent and we need to ensure the Government is going to scale up supply. We are all conscious there is only a relatively short amount of time left of this Government's term, but there is still time to try to genuinely change things. However, the Minister needs to engage with the Opposition on this and not simply put forward countermotions that amount to a denial there is a problem when there patently is for communities all around the country.

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