Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If we look at the targets, they are far too low, but it is the private sector which outperforms targets every year. It is the Government which misses its public housing targets every single year. It is the State and this Government that is not pulling its weight. There is a half a billion euro hole in the housing budget this year. This is a Government that failed to build enough houses last year and now plans to spend half a billion euro less this year than last year. Far from a fresh approach, the Government is doubling down on the failed policies of the past. The Taoiseach is going around threatening renters with stripping away the little protection they have, but Fianna Fáil does not stop there. That is not far enough for it. It is reaching deeper into the bag of old tricks and pulling out from that bag section 23 tax reliefs from the architects of the crash. Section 23 drove the reckless speculation that broke this economy, saw two thirds of construction workers unemployed and gave us 3,000 ghost estates, shuttered businesses and destroyed lives. That is Fianna Fáil’s solution to the housing crisis. That is its solution to the Government’s failures.

Resurrecting section 23 will be a disaster on the same level as when Fine Gael invited in the vulture funds, a strategy which has now been embraced by Fianna Fáil as if it was something new. Some €30 billion worth of homes are held by investment funds. Institutional landlords are extracting rents that are sky high and making a healthy return. They get a free pass on paying no tax whatever on their rental income. In excess of 1,000 homes were bulk purchased by investment funds over the past two years – 1,000 homes snapped up under the noses of first-time buyers since this Government said it would end that practice. Again, it misled the public every step of the way because it is in the pockets of those developers and vulture funds and that is why we have a housing crisis.

Now that the Government is through the election, it is time to be honest and come clean. Does it want rents to come down? It obviously does not because it is removing the protection. Does it want house prices to come down? It obviously does not. If he were here, I would ask the Minister for housing to state that he wants rents and house prices to come down. I believe he will not because all the Government’s policies show it will push them in the other direction.

What we need is a serious rethink and restep in relation to a change of direction on housing. That we see the number of people in homelessness increase month after month is absolutely scandalous. Do not, like the bluffer who sat where the Minister for housing should sit now, pretend there is nothing you can do. Of course there is: ban rent increases, ban no-fault evictions, scrap the sweetheart deals for the vulture funds, end the bulk purchasing of homes and build houses that ordinary people can afford to live in.

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