Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----throughout this debate to hear this motion. That is very disappointing and if it is a sign of things to come, it is not a way to start off this Dáil term.

Nevertheless, I am delighted to move this motion, the Labour Party’s first Private Members' motion of the Thirty-fourth Dáil. This motion calls for and sets out our vision for the radical reset in housing policy as called for in the Government’s own housing commission report, which it has, by and large and conveniently for itself, ignored.

Ireland is not just in the midst of a housing crisis but a housing crisis that is getting worse and worse, and that the Government seems intent on worsening through successive ill-thought-out interventions that we know will only serve to line the pockets of property developers and institutional investors. Meanwhile, the burden of its failed policies will continue to fall on those who simply want to have a home of their own, and in particular renters in the private rented sector whose narrow shoulders, it looks like, will be forced to bear the burden of more rent increases.

We in Labour are clear in our vision. The State must play a greater, more active and more interventionist role to solve this crisis, and when the State does intervene, it should be to increase the supply of social and affordable homes, not to turbocharge already inflated house prices and rents as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done and appear intent and happy enough to continue doing.

The Government likes to lecture us in the Labour Party, accusing us of populism and irresponsibility when we have consistently and continually put forward constructive, evidence-based solutions to the housing crisis. I find it ironic that the Taoiseach took to the media to float the idea of ending rent pressure zones, RPZs, on the hoof and without setting out a viable alternative to protect renters. That goes beyond irresponsibility; it is reckless. We know rent pressure zones are not a panacea but they are all many thousands of renters in the private rented market have between them and homelessness.

The fact is, Housing for All has failed, and it needs more than a nip-tuck. The numbers speak for themselves. House prices are up more than 25%; rents are up by the same; homelessness is up by 70%; and worst of all, child homelessness is up by more than 75%. All of this is since Housing for All was introduced in September 2021. Fianna Fáil, to be frank, is going to need a better answer than accusing us of being disinterested at the prospect of going into Government to drive on with this failed policy.

To lay the blame for the falling number of apartments being built at the door of renters and RPZs is simplistic and disingenuous. We know that ECB interest rates increased every quarter from the last quarter of 2022 until mid-2024. If the Government’s answer is to scrap one of the few protections renters have, then frankly, it is looking in the wrong place.

The Government needs to realise that it is time for a complete reset on housing policy. We need to create a paradigm where housing becomes the bulwark of our commitment to reinforce our social pillar to allow everybody in this country to live in a secure home. I call on the Minister to meet and engage - well, I would call on him if he were here - with the new EU housing Commissioner as soon as possible and to invite him here, as this is a crisis where the EU can play a role, particularly around economic and state aid rules.

If the Government really feels that its housing strategy is working, why did the Taoiseach unceremoniously dump the previous Minister and feel the need to fluff the numbers to get through the general election? The fact is that the Government is making it up as it goes along. Its policy is not working so it has resorted to the old reliable of ill-thought-out tax cuts for property developers. It is like, "Welcome back Fianna Fáil". It is like Government, or Fianna Fáil in particular, is a mere stepping stone away from heralding the return of the Galway tent. We know where that got us before and frankly, people my age still paying the price.

I read the Government’s countermotion and it is as if it could have been generated by ChatGPT. It references the Housing Commission’s report that was published last May, the same report that this House has not even debated. It will not give one crumb of comfort to any renter in the private rented market terrified by what the Taoiseach said at the weekend on radio about rent pressure zones.

We need a radically different approach if we are to have any hope of bringing the housing crisis to an end and this motion sets out what we believe that approach should be. Our key message is that the State needs to step up. We want Government to properly resource the Land Development Agency, LDA, to give it power to acquire land and not just from other State bodies, and to assemble land. We in the Labour Party supported establishing the LDA, but it needs to be given teeth.

In my own city of Limerick, the agency has not turned, and will not turn, a single sod for many years. That is not acceptable and this is what we in the Labour Party mean when we talk about providing a permanent State capacity to deliver homes. We are not talking about some Soviet quango, as has been alluded to in the media. The LDA must be given the necessary resources to deliver zoned and serviced development land.

The Government talks about cutting the cost of building homes, yet refuses to even consider implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report, which has been idle since 1973.

Labour has been crying out for it to be implemented to bring down the cost of land and the cost of building homes. We have even done the work to produce a Bill that would implement those recommendations for the Minister of State, but the Government has stuffed its fingers in its ears. Instead, the policy is to continue transferring wealth to property developers and institutional investors without any guarantee that the savings from their proposed tax cuts will be passed onto putative homeowners. We are also calling on the Government not to leave renters in the cold grip of investors and landlords, and to bring forward a ban on no-fault evictions and introduce a rent freeze until supply improves.

The Department of Finance estimated that €11.5 billion of private financing will be required to reach a target of 50,000 homes a year. Builders cannot access affordable bank loans or only have access to expensive private equity financing. The State needs to give them alternatives to vulture funds. This can be done by developing new financing mechanisms for private home construction by deploying the billions invested in the Future Ireland Fund and unlocking private savings through a housing solidarity fund.

Housing is the single biggest issue in this country and the Government are not being honest with the people. It was wilfully misleading when it knew it would not reach its targets and now that it has completely run out of ideas, it is resorting to the same policies that germinated the seeds of this disaster, which have robbed an entire generation of young people of the dream of home ownership and will only line the pockets of big developers with taxpayers' money.

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