Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Regional Group, I am grateful for the opportunity to make some brief comments on the Housing for All strategy. As the Minister of State knows, we on this side of the House are always fair. From a political point of view, Housing for All is the only strategy that exists, so we are critiquing a strategy in isolation. I would like it if there were two or three alternatives for objective comparison. Unfortunately, this is the only published one we have. When the Housing Commission’s report is published by the end of the week, we will at least have something objective to examine thereafter.

There is some good stuff in the housing strategy, but as the Minister of State and the Minister know, it falls well short of tackling the scale and depth of this housing and homelessness crisis. It is worthwhile discussing the origins of the crisis. Some of them were international and beyond our control and some of them were very national and very within our control. The root cause of the housing crisis arose approximately 40 years ago when housing became financialised moving from being a basic human need to a financial asset or asset class. It is no accident that the countries with the largest housing and homelessness crises at the moment are in the Anglo-Saxon world. They were the ones that embraced this financialisation with the greatest gusto. That is where we are at the moment. Housing is no longer a basic human need. Instead, it is still perceived as a financial asset. I have no problem with commercial property being perceived in that way, but when residential property is, it is a completely difference scenario.

The population is increasing. There are 8 billion people on the planet. The population of Ireland has increased by 3.5% in the past 12 months, which is a major increase that has caused considerable public upheaval. Many people are restless and uneasy about it, but it is adding considerable demand to the crisis. There is also building inflation. There has been a war, a pandemic and a disruption of supply chains, but there is more to it than that. I am sure that, as a Green Party Minister of State, he is aware that the quality of housing now is high in terms of environmental standards, but that is also pushing up prices. This is rarely mentioned. It is good that the quality of the stock is improving and that the houses being built now are infinitely better than the ones the Minister of State and I grew up in.

There are international factors, but the national factors are a bit closer to home. The boom-bust cycle that we have experienced over the past 20 years has been horrendous and there is no excuse for it. We are still recovering from it. I welcome the rainy day funds that are being established. It is important that we have a countercyclical intervention, as the best time to build a house is during a recession when land and labour are cheap and materials are relatively cheap. We should be able to continue building houses through the next recession rather than lurching from one extreme to the other, which is what we have done in the past.

Another national factor has been poor housing policy. Bedsits were not perfect, but I am not sure that we should have banned them all those years ago.

I certainly spent plenty of time in a bedsit. You are better off with a roof over your head rather than sleeping on someone else's sofa. Those are the origins of why we are in this current crisis. I do not want to dwell on the problems, however, I want to focus on the solutions.

Everybody in the House agrees that the solution to this crisis is to build more houses. Obviously, there is disagreement in the context of how those houses should built but we absolutely agree that we need more houses. If you go back to economics 101, the factors of production are very simple. You just need four things, namely land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. If we want to mobilise the country to build houses, those are the four factors we should be focusing on.

As stated, the first is land. We have loads of it. Ireland is one of the least populous countries per square kilometre in the European Union. There should be no problem with land, but there is because the planning process is paralysed. With the planning Bill that is due to come before the House us before the recess, we hope we will be able to address that.

I also want to focus on the potential for a state construction company. I agree that the Land Development Agency is a type of State construction company, but the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, will be aware from experience that the OPW is there and it is assembling small villages of modular homes. We need to take full advantage of the Land Development Agency and the OPW from that point of view.

From a labour perspective, I very much welcome the return to an emphasis on apprenticeships. In fairness, it is important to state that the Taoiseach brought that focus back when he was Minister. Around 20 years ago, apprenticeships were looked down on. People wanted everyone to go to third level education. They wanted you to use your head rather than your hands. At least the emphasis on apprenticeships is coming back.

Also around 20 years ago, we built the State's motorways in conjunction with international companies. We have the best motorways in Europe for good reason. We did not have the expertise or the muscle, so we got companies from Turkey and France to build our motorways. Why can we not do the same thing in the context of housing? If the State wants to build large property developments, can we put the contracts out to tender and get international companies involved? If there is a finite amount of labour available in Ireland, why not look abroad and see whether we can access the labour in that way?

From a capital point of view, there should be no difficulty. Home Building Finance Ireland is pumping out loans, banks are giving credit to developers and approved housing bodies are getting the money they need. There is no difficulty from a capital perspective, but perhaps what we need to look at is entrepreneurship. This is the fourth factor. I welcome the waiving of development levies over the past couple of months. They made a sizeable impact from a construction point of view. It is good that the levies relating to the local authorities and Uisce Éireann have been waived.

The Croí Conaithe scheme is very important. The Minister was saying that there are 8,000 successful applications in the system already. This shows that it can be done.

We can do more when it comes to one-off housing. Many people out there need to be empowered. They have the site, the money, the means and the contractors lined up but they do not have the permission to build.

I believe the Minister of State will agree that there is room for improvement in the context of using modern methods of construction. Ireland is one of the few EU countries that only allows modular houses to be constructed to a two-storey level. If you drive across the Continent, you will see modular hospitals, modular schools and modular office blocks. There is no mica or pyrite in them. There are 70-year guarantees. We can certainly embrace modern methods of construction to at least help address the crisis that we have.

I very much look forward to the Housing Commission's report being published at the end of the week. I would hope that it is a blueprint for progress. I would hope that it has an alternative strategy put forward and that it is not merely a critique of the existing strategy. By all accounts, it appears to be quite comprehensive. I look forward to that.

I welcome the fact that the Minister came to Portarlington recently to open a housing estate. His visit and the opening of the estate were very well received by the people who have been accommodated there recently.

I welcome the good stuff from Housing for All, but I am sure the Minister would agree it does not go anywhere near to address the scale of the crisis we are currently facing.

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