Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I spoke earlier during statements and, not for the first time, I brought up the so-called affordable housing scheme at Cois Farraige, Blackrock, just outside Dundalk. In fairness to Louth County Council, it extended the time to ensure people could actually apply. Of the initial 26 applicants – I do not know how many more applied later – only five were able to meet the criteria. While there were meant to be ten affordable houses offered, only five applicants could meet the criteria and get a house. Therefore, there was a loss even on an attempt by the Government. I would like to reinforce the point that council officials made, namely, that the issues were the thresholds, criteria and difficulty. Forget what we are proposing, which I can easily state is workable and affordable; the fact is that the Government’s own system is absolutely failing the people. It is failing those in Louth County Council and other councils throughout the State that are trying to employ it. When something is broken, that needs to be accepted. The Government needs to examine how the problem is addressed and then move on.

The Government’s own Housing Commission has asked for a radical reset of housing policy. A radical reset of housing policy is not about Ministers coming in here telling us things are getting much better. The fact is that we all deal with people in absolutely drastic circumstances. We do not need to see the Daft.ie report to realise people have unaffordable rents, if lucky enough to have got a property. We all have people who contact us in the hope we will know somebody or have a contact in a rental agency who can provide them with accommodation.

In Louth, €1,661 was the average rent for quarter 1 of 2024. I read out some of these statistics earlier but if one searches on daft.iefor a rental property in Dundalk and its surrounds, one will find only 11 available. For just Dundalk, only nine are available. The cost to rent a three-bedroom house is €1,750. A four-bedroom house would cost €2,450. A three-bedroom apartment would cost €2,200. As I said earlier, I could go on but not for too long because there is not a whole pile of properties available. This is what we need to deal with.

What else did we learn from the leaks from the commission set up by the Government? The report refers to systemic failures, ineffective decision-making, reactive policy-making and risk aversion, all of which impact supply and undermine affordability. It identified a failure to treat housing as a critical social and economic priority. We have one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing and one of the poorest outcomes. That is damning. What are we going to do about it?

The commission has called for social and affordable housing delivery to increase to 20% of total housing stock. I accept that the Taoiseach said earlier that people need to read this report. That is definitely the case. From what we have already seen, there is a lot of reading for the Government. It must look at the issues of rents and affordability that people are facing. We need some sort of delivery. I would like to think the Government will read and internalise the report. Solutions are being provided and we need to finally see action from the Government rather than the abject failure on housing, which is the cause of many of the issues with which we are all dealing.

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