Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome this debate, which is long overdue. I also welcome the Deputy Browne to his new role as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I wish him well. We should have had this debate months ago, before the election.

The Housing Commission's report is as clear as it is stark in relation to the Government's failure on housing. It is abundantly clear that we do need a period of accelerated delivery to eliminate the deficit of up to 256,000 home and that a specialist entity is needed to drive, direct and oversee a programme to accelerate supply. I very much thank the members of the Housing Commission for all their work over the last two and a bit years. I welcome the fact that the Minister met with them recently.

We in the Labour Party believe that the State must play a more significant role in driving the accelerated delivery. In particular, we believe that this can and should be done by using the LDA as the primary vehicle. For example, in my city of Limerick, the LDA has six strategic sites and all of them bar one are category 3, which is long-term development viability. Nothing will be built on them for the better part of a decade. That is despite the fact that rents in the city have gone up by 19%, higher than in any other part of the country and that Limerick's house price inflation is the highest nationally.

The report is very detailed and deserves serious treatment from the Government. The Labour Party support a number of key proposals in the report, especially the one to establish a housing delivery oversight executive. This must have real legislative powers to tackle the barriers to housing supply and to clear the blockages that prevent the delivery of new homes. I welcome the fact that the Minister and the Government have moved to establish a strategic housing activation office, but this must be independent of the Government. It cannot simply be another body where, essentially, Ministers can mark their own homework. Currently, it takes many years from a plan being lodged to the completion date. There are significant blockages in planning, approval, finances and infrastructure. I welcome more detailed engagement with the Minister on the strategic housing activation office, hopefully at committee, on how it will work, how it will be staffed, etc.

I am a strong believer in the recommendation to enhance and resource local authorities properly, in particular to develop land activation units to deliver housing. I am a former councillor and, far too often, as part of the local government system I felt more like a policy-taker as opposed to a policymaker. Local authorities are not trusted enough by the Custom House to deliver the homes we need.

In our general election manifesto, unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, our policies were underpinned by the recommendations of the Housing Commission. They were also premised on the creation of an overall housing delivery oversight executive. That is why I gave a cautious welcome to the Minister's plan for a strategic housing activation office. My concern about the Government is that there is a habit of Ministers, and in particular the Taoiseach, floating half-baked policy changes in the media to see which way the political winds are blowing. They then respond rather hysterically when they are legitimately called out on this by the Opposition. We must activate vacant planning permissions, many of which relate to apartments, particularly in cities, including those outside Dublin.

The Croí Cónaithe scheme is not working. The State must find a better way of bridging the viability gap, because as it stands the scheme favours those with deep pockets, which prevents young people in particular from getting on the property ladder.

I now turn to the section on affordability in the Housing Commission report. This is something that disproportionately affects both younger people and renters. In the past decade, we have had the largest increase in young people living at home in Europe. My concern is also referenced in the report, which states: "the current lower rate of home ownership by younger cohorts will present significant affordability challenges when entering retirement." What will happen to the thousands of people my age who are stuck in the private rental market when they invariably retire, or even the minority of those availing of cost rental, or as I call it "market discount" rents. What measures will be put in place so they can live securely into old age? The current system is unsustainable, with large levels of current expenditure being directed towards demand-side measures rather than on capital expenditure, to fund additional social and cost-rental housing delivery.

I am pleased that the commission report refers to phasing out the help-to-buy scheme, because that is an inflationary measure that is driving up the price of housing. I have heard a reference before, including from the Minister, to the point made in the commission's report about empowering local authorities. The Minister claims that he has consolidated the four-stage approval process into a single stage, which we all know is completely gumming up the system, yet that is really only true if we exclude Part V, turnkey and design and build.

This again goes back to the targets. The best and most overarching way to deal with the crisis is to dramatically increase supply. The most effective way to do that is through capital investment in cost rental and social housing, not through demand-side measures such as the help-to-buy scheme and the first home scheme.

Instead, the response of the Government, which I am really concerned about, is to seek to expand these schemes to second-hand homes to stimulate more demand in an already overheating market.

I want to turn to the rental sector and the need for reform. The private rental market does not work, neither for renters nor landlords. There has have been a smorgasbord of policy changes. They say investors need certainty but there have been no less than a dozen sets of policy changes relating to the regulation of the rental market. The claim bandied around about landlords fleeing the market does not add up, and CSO data back that up. What we need is a step change and a fundamental change in the balance of power, away from landlords towards renters. We have some of the weakest renters’ rights in Europe. Our rental market is not the norm; it is an anomaly. While rent pressure zones are not perfect, they have served as a stabiliser and have slowed rent increases. They have been a sticking plaster but the idea that they can be removed, which would expose a gaping wound, is completely misguided.

I have an open mind on the proposal of the commission to introduce a system of reference rents but this is contingent on a functioning rental market with adequate supply, which we do not have. This is why the Labour Party believes we need a rent freeze for at least three years until supply improves. Once supply improves and the market stabilises, reference rents could and should be considered.

We also need to see a properly resourced RTB with real teeth. It is very clear from the report that one of the reasons for the failure of RPZs is the toothlessness of the RTB. Since Housing for All was launched in 2021, house prices have gone up by 40% and the Government has repeatedly missed its targets for social and affordable housing delivery. If we consider the great interest in the Bolands Mills quarter development at Grand Canal Dock, we note it encapsulates this really well. There have been more than 2,300 applications for 46 apartments, and those have been made a week and a half before the closing date.

I welcome the call from the commission for social housing Act to prevent the creeping privatisation of social housing. I really urge the Minister to act on this. The commission report confirms what we have been saying in the Labour Party for some time, namely that the targets related to social and cost-rental housing, which the Government has yet to exceed, are far too low and need to be revised upwards. We need at least 67,000 social homes and to grow the sector to 20% of all housing stock.

We also need to see new targets before 2027. Housing is the biggest civil rights issue of an entire generation. It is younger people, in particular, who are paying the price. I hope the Minister will engage constructively with the Opposition, as I will with him, to implement some of the recommendations.

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