Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was watching the Minister's contribution in my office just before I came down. I heard him say that Housing for All is working. It is not. Complex as the housing situation is, in many ways it is quite simple to see why it is not working. There are a couple of key metrics. Rents are going up; house prices are going up; and, key to all, homelessness is going up. Unless those trends are being reversed and the metrics are going the other way, the plan is not working, whether it is Housing for All, a plan by an alternative Government or any other alternative. This plan is not working.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing the motion tonight. It is an important motion. As it points out, the rate of home ownership has fallen to its lowest level in 50 years under the Government as house prices and rents continue to surge out of control. We heard the Taoiseach give a performance during Leaders' Questions earlier. He tried his best to state that Housing for All is working in that houses are being built, and stated that there are affordable homes coming on-stream. To use that description is absolutely false. Out canvassing at the weekend, I spoke to a young woman who is a qualified accountant earning a really good wage. By her own admission she is doing really well and has been saving for four years. She is a single applicant and she is still miles away from getting a home. She is doing everything right, saving well. She does not want to live on Shrewsbury Road, she just wants a decent home in Swords or somewhere in the surrounding area, the area where she grew up. She cannot afford that. This is why Housing for All is failing.

Two years ago, Deputy Bacik, the leader of my party, stated that we needed to build 50,000 homes and complete 50,000 retrofits each year for ten years. We in the Labour Party were criticised and mocked by Government for our figures. We were told that they were too high and had been plucked out of the air. They were not; they were taken from ESRI reports. Now we have a Minister, Tánaiste and Taoiseach who, like students who forgot to do their homework, are copying the work of those of the other side of the Chamber. They are copying our work and saying the targets needs to be raised, as if it is news to us on this side of the House. It is not news to the Labour Party.

We do not have to go too far to find out why Housing for All is failing. Ask anyone under the age of 35. Ask anyone under that age in this building. Ask any of our staff members under 35 or anyone who serves this House and its Members. Like any other workplace, people with decent enough jobs on decent enough wages are miles away from owning homes. They are angry; they feel they are doing everything right and are being let down. We in opposition and in the Labour Party have tangible ideas of how to tackle these issues. We want to see a State housing construction company established through the Land Development Agency to increase the delivery of public homes to over 20,000 a year, social homes to 12,000 a year, and 10,000 truly affordable homes to either rent or buy.

The Government does not even know the true scale of the number of empty homes nationwide. While 57,206 properties are vacant according to the local property tax returns, census estimates are much higher, closer to 166,750 vacant homes, excluding the 66,000 seasonal holiday homes. We are not saying these are low-hanging fruit but they do constitute head-room within the housing system that is not being used to tackle the housing crisis. The Labour Party would take radical action to tackle vacancy and dereliction by introducing a minimum vacant home tax of €2,000 a year and increased funding for councils to compulsorily purchase vacant and derelict properties. The CPO process, as we know, is not only underfunded but takes an interminable time from start to finish. That is, if a council can get to the finish line. A real problem we have in housing is not just that supply is below par, but also that the Government does not really grasp the public view on this crisis. It is an unbelievable disconnect to come in from the doors or one of our weekly advice clinics to the floor of the Dáil and to hear the kind of spiel that was given by the Taoiseach at Leaders' Questions earlier or by the Minister for housing this afternoon.

Another prominent example of how the Government is leaving people behind is the lack of housing being built that is truly accessible for disabled people. It is hard enough for people to find a home or apartment to rent. A person who has a disability and is looking for housing is facing a crisis within a crisis, as the Irish Wheelchair Association rightly labelled it. Our national building regulations currently only provide for wheelchair visitable homes, not wheelchair livable housing. What does that say to people in this country who are in wheelchairs? This is a matter of equality but also dignity, to be able to live in their own homes, watch TV, go to the kitchen, go to bed and do everything we can take for granted. The regulations regarding the provision and building of houses and homes are not up to standard for people with disabilities.

I want the Government to take responsibility for the rental crisis that we see. The Government trips over itself to help landlords. Earlier this year, the Minister spoke about landlords needing more tax breaks. When it comes to renters, they are being hung out to dry, continuing to pay high rents to clear the mortgages of their landlords and unable to save for a place of their own. Indeed, they are unable to even move from expensive rental properties to more affordable ones because the latter do not exist.

They are trapped by high rents, and the only way out for many is an eviction notice into the abyss. That is the reality which renters have been living with for the past number of years. Cost rental is too expensive for ordinary workers in this country. Locking people into 30-year rental agreements, where there is supposed to be fixity of tenure, at rents over €1,500 and €1,600 monthly, is what cost rental is now. We need to reimagine what cost rental is. We need a below-cost rental model because the cost it takes to build a home now ensures this cost-rental model is too expensive for ordinary people.

The Government lifted the ban on no-fault evictions almost one year ago against all advice. This was done not only against the advice of the Opposition - we understand that the Government will never take our advice - but also against that of many advocates and advocacy groups operating in the housing space. Those groups said that this move would increase homelessness. What has happened since then? We have seen homelessness continue to increase. The Government's housing policy is an abject failure. Any of us who properly commit to trying to help people in our public work in terms of housing see this day in and day out. It is just getting worse.

While I have the floor, other issues related to this housing never get the coverage it does but they are linked to it. I refer to services related to the provision of housing. The provision of water supplies is key to the provision of housing. Getting connections to the mains water supply can delay the delivery of housing. There is still chronic underinvestment in replacing our water infrastructure. While both the Minister and the Minister of State are here, I take the opportunity to raise the disgraceful issue concerning the quality of water in Cork city, especially in Ballyvolane and the north side of the city. Councillor John Maher, who represents Ballyvolane on the northside of Cork city, has raised this issue with Deputy Bacik and me repeatedly. The Minister needs to ensure that Irish Water addresses this issue and comes clean about what is happening. The water there is absolutely filthy. This has been going on for more than a year and a half, since 2022. People have reported orange water coming out of their taps. It is not clear if it is being caused by sediment from old cast iron mains being replaced or what the actual cause might be. It is also not clear when this situation will be addressed. The water there is not drinkable and people's home appliances are being damaged and broken because of this poor water quality. It is also costing families a fortune in bottled water. This is just one example of a crumbling infrastructure that is required if we are to meet our housing targets. This will be even more so the case if they are to be raised. We need to get this right, but we are not getting it right here. We are not getting housing right and the Housing for All policy is failing.

See this speech in context