James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Do not worry. All is forgiven. I raise the issue of the potential to add units to our annual new housing stock through modular accommodation. Modular housing was looked at as an emergency response initially to the Ukrainian crisis, and there has been much debate on it in the migration space. I am concerned that it seems this is not being viewed by the Department of housing as a potential addition to the housing supply when it comes to what it can do.

I have gone on site to see what has been done in Backweston. I walked away with an incredibly clear picture that these homes are not necessarily what might be believed by hearing the term "modular accommodation". The quality they are built to and the lifespan of these buildings is exceptional in terms of what has been provided with modern technology. They are built internally in enclosed spaces. The actual capacity and how quickly these can be delivered is, I believe, a missed opportunity.

We have done huge work to increase the supply of housing. To be fair, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, inherited a poisoned chalice. If anyone is being honest and decent here, they have to acknowledge that he has given it everything he has. I have seen in my own constituency particularly the increase in housing supply stock in such places as Carrigtwohill, Cobh and the Midleton area. We have projects in Youghal that are still in the pipeline but are on the way. I have seen a visible change in the number of housing units being built, which is welcome. Much of that is down to the hard work done in the Department by the Minister and his officials.

I am concerned about that missed opportunity to analyse what modular can do in terms of housing stock and supply. I have spoken to and engage with people in this industry. Within a 12-month period, outputs could be increased to 225 units per month. I am told that if a plan is put in place, that number could increase over a 36-month period to more than 500 houses per month. That is 500 homes for families. It would help to deal with such issues as hidden homelessness.

From the perspective of being a young person in the House here, I am also concerned that, seeing how acute the housing challenges are, for not only my own generation put indeed the one in front of me, this is not being looked at as a solution. Although the homes and how they are built, with the quality in terms of the internal fitting-out, are expensive, and I acknowledge they are hard to deliver for less than €350,000 per unit, they have a 60- to 100-year lifespan depending on the particular specification of the build. Why are we not looking at this in terms of providing potentially an additional 10,000 or 15,000 homes per year if the plan was put in place?

I am in no way critical in terms of what the Department has done in the ongoing work to expand the number of housing units being built. It is working quite well in my constituency. I highlight also that in Dublin city centre and in Cork we are seeing an increase in apartment construction. We need to look at the issue of ownership as well. That new two-bedroom units are being built is welcome, as seen in places like Cork Street coming into Dublin. However, between the canals I would like to see further focus on the delivery of affordable first-time homes for people to purchase, not build-to-rent. We see a huge amount of build-to-rent units being put in place. It is a very unfair burden for my generation of people to take on. They may be in their late 30s or early 40s, at the rate things are going, before they actually get out of that rent trap. God help them if they have children because of the additional costs that come with that. That is not the correct way for our society to be. People should have every chance, just as our parents and generations before them had, to work hard and eventually have the privilege of owning their own homes. For so many people paying those exceptionally high rents, that is beyond the reach of what is now considered normal. That is unacceptable. We need to do more to deal with that. I would like to see a huge increase in affordable homes for purchase, especially in Dublin and in Cork city. It is part of that cycle of people who come out of university and go working in city centres. Many people would like to do that for the first ten years of their careers then move home to have a family and settle in their respective home areas of the country. There is a missed opportunity to address that.

My two asks are, very simply, increasing home ownership of new units being built in high-density areas like Dublin and Cork and other areas, and recognising modular accommodation is not a false dawn. It is not something we should turn our eyes away from because of previous misconceptions of the quality of these builds. The technology has now caught up so much there is arguably a case that they are better than any concrete build, the direction they are going. There are good companies interested in coming here, or that are already here, so that if a plan were put in place by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage under the work of the good Minister here, they could actually deliver a substantial additional amount of units per annum.

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