Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

How is it in 21st-century Ireland, when we are into our ninth year of eye-watering budget surpluses with, of course, the exception of the pandemic, that securing an affordable and sustainable home for so many people is largely down to luck? It is down to luck in terms of the family one is born into and whether the bank of Mam and Dad will be able to help with a deposit. More than one third of people in this country are relying on their parents for help with a deposit. It is down to luck in terms of whether one has a partner or is married, because if one is single and trying to buy a home in this country, good luck. It is down to luck in terms of when one was born. Even when wages were a fraction of what they are now, it was possible to buy a home.

A Rubicon has been crossed in this country, whereby even a salary of €100,000 and savings in the bank of €40,000 are not enough to get a mortgage for a three-bedroom house in two thirds of the postcodes in Dublin. If that is the case for those who have done well and have a great salary, what hope do our young people have when they are starting out? What hope does anybody trapped in low-paid employment or those paying massive childcare costs have when trying to look for a mortgage? There is an inequality in housing in the city, in terms of who controls the land and the destiny of so many families. It is in the gift of the Government to change that. We in the Labour Party believe there is another way.

In the constituency I represent, Dublin Central, very clear actions could be taken. There could be aggressive tackling of dereliction. We know there are about 1,000 long-term vacant units between the canals which could be turned into homes if the political will was there. We have a long-term vacant homes tax that is not worth the paper it is written on. That could be changed. There could be changes to CPO laws, but we heard nothing from the Taoiseach about that over the weekend. There is a way in which newly built homes could be made available for purchase. If the private sector cannot viably build apartments for purchase, then the State must step in.

The horror of what the Taoiseach is now proposing is to condemn a generation of people to insecure renting and astronomical rents. That is the reality of what we have here. There is a great hypocrisy at work. When we had an uproar about the bulk purchase of homes in Maynooth three years ago, nobody cared about apartment dwellers. We have a set of planning constraints, tax and higher stamp duty for the bulk purchase of houses, but nothing for hubs. That is condemning a generation of people in Dublin and other area urban areas across the country to long-term insecure renting. There is a way to ensure more social and affordable homes are built. The Land Development Agency, LDA, has identified 33 acres in my constituency that lie empty. We heard nothing from the Taoiseach about that over the weekend.

In our motion, the Labour Party calls for an end to the disastrous experimentation that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have unleashed in this country since 2016. Unfortunately, the area I represent has been a microcosm of all of the experiments that have gone so badly wrong. First was the tax incentives for student accommodation, and we saw a rush of money into that. We then had co-living, which was thought to be the great new way of housing young workers. Thankfully, that ended in 2022. We then had build to rent, which was another way to reduce apartment standards and introduce thousands of apartments to the area while ensuring that nobody could ever buy. Thankfully, that experiment has ended. The latest wheeze from the Taoiseach is to try to bring in more tax incentives. It is akin to changing the goalposts.

Last year, the handwringing was all about capacity. The Labour Party has brought forward proposals with regard to a State construction company. To be frank, the Taoiseach sneered at those proposals. The culprit is now private investment. Next year there will be somebody else to blame. We all want to build more homes, but for whom? That is a critical difference between the Government side of the House and ours. We want to build homes for ordinary working people, not line the pockets of institutional funds.

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