Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister coming in for the last ten minutes of the debate. I look forward to hearing from him the reason he was not here earlier. I believe, in all fairness, that it is disrespectful for the Minister to claim he was present for a debate when he arrived in at the very end. It is indicative of a Government that is unwilling to listen to new ideas.

When this country was dirt poor, the State built houses. It built the estates of Marino, Crumlin and Ballymun. In towns and cities across the country, councils built housing for our people. Now, however, with unprecedented wealth, we say we cannot do it. We have to bring in global vulture funds and hand our young people over to them to become income streams for them in perpetuity, to become permanent renters in poverty. We do not agree with this and believe there is an alternative way. The Minister claims the State is doing all it can. That is misleading. It is not doing all it can. In this regard, consider the delays affecting the tenant in situ scheme and the failure to protect tenants from eviction. Just 2,000 homes were liable for the vacant property tax last year when there are at least 88,000 vacant homes. The Minister talks about the private sector. A significant proportion of the overall housing budget is going directly to the private sector not to build homes but as an income stream, through the rental accommodation scheme, the housing assistance payment and social housing leasing. Every year, some €1.5 billion goes to the private sector. It does not deliver homes but takes money out of the public budget.

We have put forward very clear solutions today. One is to develop a new State savings scheme that would provide additional finance – we have €160 billion in deposits – to build social and affordable housing. We have heard in the debate from people across this country who are very clear that the councils, our local authorities, are not funded sufficiently to develop on land banks, tackle vacancy and tackle dereliction. They do not have the capacity to deliver the affordable and social homes that are needed, so we still need to see the radical reset of housing policy. We have suggested that the Government put an additional €2.5 billion into local authorities and not-for-profit housing bodies to deliver the housing.

The question is not where we will get the private finance from but why we are not using the public funds available to deliver social and affordable housing through our local authorities and our not-for-profit housing bodies.

In our health system, we do not say to people that we are restricting the funding and restricting their access to accident and emergency or to maternity care because the State has decided the private sector has to deliver them and if the private sector does not deliver the accident and emergency wards or the GPs, they will not get access to healthcare. In housing, the State has to guarantee and deliver the homes people need. That is the Government's responsibility, it is the State's responsibility, and it is time we got the policy changed to do that.

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