Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is very disappointing, yet again, that we do not have even a Minister of State from the Department of housing. I tabled a housing motion in the Dáil last week with my Labour Party colleagues. The Minister for housing was, unfortunately, not available last week and did not even have the courtesy to contact me or my colleague, Deputy Bacik, to say he could not come to the House. I understand there was a convention before that when the line Minister was not available, the Minister would contact the sponsor of the motion. I am disappointed about that. We have not had an adequate explanation as to why the Minister is not here this morning either. Perhaps he has been locked in a box by lobbyists or investors.

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion, the essence of which the Labour Party supports. I have a strong sense of déjà vu. Here we are, another week, another motion that will invariably be voted down, an absent Minister, and a similar generic reply just restating what the Government has already said and offering very little in the way of meaningful change or engagement.

I represent the city of Limerick where the average price for a three-bedroom semi-detached house is now €320,000. It is a city where, on Monday, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors amended a very small Part 8 application for a development of housing for elderly people and people with disabilities to bring it down to three storeys, as a result of which the development is now unviable. We have a situation where, during the recent extreme weather, rough sleepers were turned away from emergency accommodation. There are now 456 people accessing emergency accommodation in Limerick. That is up from 149 in 2024. My inbox, WhatsApp and my clinics are inundated with people who come to me from situations of complete despair. It is very upsetting because in a lot of cases there is very little I can do for people.

With regard to the tenant in situ scheme, when will the unit allocation for 2025 be confirmed? We are nearly into March. I am dealing with numerous cases, as I am sure other Deputies across the House are, of people who cannot move forward with their applications because the local authority has not received the circular or the allocation. That means people are barrelling down towards their eviction date with absolutely nowhere to go.

When the Government spoke before the election about reaching its housing targets, to say the Government was economical with the truth is the understatement of the year. The Government knew it could not and would not reach the target of 40,000 despite its own repeated use of very selective data. The idea that the solution to this is to open the floodgates to tax cuts for developers and institutional investors is deeply misguided and flawed. We know construction costs have increased but we also know that more than 16% of the cost of construction is made up of the cost of land. Several independent reports flagged that the number of apartments being built in 2024 would fall by more than 50% as early as July and August of last year, so it is simply not credible for the Government to come along in the run up to the election and say it will definitely meet the 40,000 figure. This was caused by the Government's decision not to clamp down on institutional investors bulk buying apartments and the reliance of Housing for All on these investors to deliver apartments in Dublin. These institutional investors do not only elbow out buyers, they also artificially inflate market rents. We see this time and again with some of the large apartment developments in Dublin city, where management companies offer rent-free months to prospective tenants to keep overall rents high and to work around the cap on rent increases.

We know the housing market in this country is rigged. It is rigged against renters, against first-time buyers and against young people. It is rigged in favour of the vested interests - landlords, property speculators and institutional investors - which this Government, like the previous one, seems intent on bending the knee to. It is very clear this Government is already out of ideas. The Fianna Fáil side of the Government wants to re-erect the Galway tent while the Fine Gael side is determined to plod on in the same manner as before with sweetheart deals for vulture and cuckoo funds. We have had the absurd scenes where the Taoiseach last week and the housing Minister yesterday on the "News at One" said nothing is off the table as far as tax cuts are concerned. The Minister for Finance, on the other hand, is saying clearly that Celtic tiger tax cuts should not and cannot return. The idea that the solution to this crisis is to dust off the best of the Celtic tiger with the bill put on the country's credit card is insane. We know where these policies got us and it is primarily people my age who have had, and are continuing, to foot the bill.

The Taoiseach spoke about difficulties activating brownfield sites. That is specifically why we in the Labour Party want to see a land management and land activation unit in each local authority and why we seek to scale up the LDA to meet this challenge. We also need a stick, and that is why we need to see the vacant homes tax at least tripled. The Government talks about cutting the cost of building homes yet refuses to even consider implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report to cap the cost of land, something that would actually reduce the cost of housing. Instead, the Government wants a direct transfer of wealth to property developers and institutional investors without any guarantee this saving will be passed on to putative homeowners. The Taoiseach himself called for the implementation of the Kenny report in 2018. He said he thought implementing Kenny was the morally right thing to do. The Labour Party introduced a Bill in 2021 to implement the provisions of the Kenny report, and much like our motion was last week and like this motion will be, it was voted down by Government.

I welcome the fact the motion calls on the Government to make use of EU funding streams. The European Union can and should play a greater role in solving this crisis. My colleague, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP, as head of the Irish delegation in the influential S&D group, successfully helped negotiate the appointment of a housing commissioner . I would urge the Minister if he were here - he is not - to invite Commissioner Dan Jørgensen to visit Ireland as soon as practically possible. The Government must make better use of existing EU funding streams. I know my colleague Aodhán will be pushing hard for more EU investment and for changes to state aid rules in favour of investment in social and affordable housing. Member states should be allowed to double policy investment in affordable housing, but the Government also needs to play its part and bring forward a working definition of what actually constitutes affordable housing. It is anticipated the EU may revise state aid rules as soon as next year to enable housing support measures and the Government must be ready to pull every lever at its disposal.

The Labour Party believes the State must give builders alternatives to expensive private equity funding. That is why we want to see a State investment and development bank that will provide finance to private housing development using a portion of the €8.4 billion placed in the Future Ireland Fund.

We also want to develop a new, long-term financing product for approved housing bodies, underwritten by the State, to provide financing at 3% or less over 50 and 60 years. We would unlock private savings by developing a housing solidarity bond via State savings, with an attractive interest rate to redirect private investment from vulture funds towards housing development and provide further opportunities for credit unions to underwrite mortgages and invest in housing using surplus savings.

I reiterate what I said last week, that we must also retain rent pressure zones at least until a viable alternative becomes available because although rent pressure zones are a blunt instrument, they have slowed the runaway train that is the private rental sector. I would challenge anyone to come into this House and defend the conduct of some of the big landlords and institutional investors in this country, the same landlords and institutional investors that Government rigged the housing market in favour of.

The fact is that we have half a million young people living at home and 1 million people stuck in the private rental trap. These people are mostly my age. I am in my early 30s. They are usually young, hard-working professionals who will never be able to have a secure home of their own and now, if you are to believe what is being floated in the media this morning, the Government effectively wants to evict them from the box bedroom and to move them into the garden shed. This sounds like another of Government's famous quick fixes, after co-living, build-to-rent and strategic housing developments. We need serious long-term solutions and not beds in sheds. We have a horrific housing crisis with record rents. People cannot get mortgage approval. The fact that the solution to this is to shove your fully grown adult child into what I would describe as a glorified wooden coffin at the end of the garden will not cut it.

Irish parents have had a clear goal for many years, my own parents included. It is simply summed up as being to get the children out of the house. This policy further seeks to undermine that. The fact that the Government wants to move people out of their houses and into log cabins is farcical and ridiculous. Is this really the best the Government can offer? It is saying it cannot house people properly but will move them into the shed.

As I sum up, I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. I am disappointed that we do not have more people here on the Government benches, because the same tumbleweed that blew across the House last week is blowing here yet again. We are clear about what we believe in setting our vision for a State-led approach and greater State investment in housing. We will make no apologies for that, despite the heckling yesterday of my party leader at Leaders' Questions. We are clear about why we decided not to go into government. We knew Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would not and could not offer the change that people need regarding housing and were not meaningfully willing to engage with us about our housing policies. The Taoiseach, frankly, is going to have to come up with a better answer than turning to us and saying that we did not want to sit with the Government.

I am disappointed by the lack of any semblance of meaningful engagement. The Opposition comes here week after week and brings forward constructive solutions. We in the Labour Party have brought forward many constructive solutions and we get the same generic response from the Government. It is disappointing and disrespectful that the Minister for housing, for the second week in a row, has not bothered to come to the House to account for the Government's failing housing policies.

See this speech in context