Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This debate is welcome. As a former member of the housing committee, we have debated the issues in the Housing Commission report and have had lengthy debates on proposals to amend the Constitution. It was clear to me at the committee that, while an amendment to the Constitution would strengthen the State’s ability to regulate and provide more public housing, the idea that it would be simple to pass a housing amendment, particularly given the experience of the referendums last year, is something we would have to give great consideration to. If we put a referendum on the right to housing before the Irish people and it was rejected, we would find ourselves in a very difficult place in terms of housing policy. It is something to flag. There was significant discussion at the previous housing committee and I look forward to discussing it again should I be a member of the new one.

The Housing Commission report is welcome. A significant part of it talks about a policy shift. Let us be clear, in that, five years ago, there was no affordable housing scheme and no cost rental scheme. The only option a local authority had if it had a piece of land was to build an estate that was 100% low-income housing. We know from the past that, when one builds concentrated low-income housing, it can present significant challenges. Alternatively, the local authority sold the site off to a developer, who then built for-profit housing. Under a new Government five years ago, though, there was a fundamental shift in policy in terms of the cost rental scheme, the affordable purchase scheme and the State’s ability to use the Land Development Agency to deliver housing. Local authorities have had the power in the past four years, or perhaps a little less, given that the legislation needed to be passed, to develop mixed-income and mixed-tenure estates on sites they own.

Where that is complex, the Land Development Agency is able to assist them with that.

One area of frustration relates to the speed of delivery by both AHBs and local authorities on some of those sites. I am a great proponent and supporter of the public housing model and believe public housing should be a big player in the market, but that will become more and more difficult to sell if the people responsible for delivering it are not doing so. I am proud to have many public housing sites in my constituency, which I have listed on the floor of this House many times and will do so again. Oscar Traynor Road is a very significant site and there are also ones in Kildonan, Balcurris and Balbutcher. Many of these sites are being developed by the council but it is taking too long. I would focus on those recommendations in the housing report to support local authorities to deliver, but I would go further. We should ensure local authorities deliver, and I would use both the carrot and the stick in that regard. In some cases, they are too slow. In the case of the Ballymun shopping centre site in my constituency, there is currently no proposal to build housing on the site, which is right in the middle of Ballymun, yet it is an ideal site on which a body such as the Land Development Agency could provide the mixed commercial and residential accommodation that is needed for the people of Ballymun.

The reason public housing is so important in my area is that there is almost no private development in Dublin North-West. It is starting to happen but there is almost none, certainly in comparison with other parts of the country, where my colleagues are talking about development happening all over the place. Inside the M50 core, the challenges of delivering and the viability issues are very significant, so we end up with almost no private development. The Taoiseach is right to ask what we are going to do about the element of supply that will not be public. The answer cannot be that there will be no private delivery, because the private sector has to have some role. At a meeting of the public accounts committee, representatives of the Department and various agencies said in response to me that we will not be able to build homes inside the M50 without a significant subsidy for sale.

That is a shift in the reality of where we are. The cost of building now means a subsidy will be needed to deliver a for-purchase property, so that will involve the State giving subsidies. As for how the State can do that, we can make direct transfers to the local authority, prepare the services and the site, provide it by way of tax changes or make changes to levies and charges we impose. Nothing should be off the table to encourage both public and private supply. We need both the carrot and stick. We need to keep doing what we have done for the past five years and building homes, and we have done that despite what the Opposition has said. I encourage the Government to double down its policies, that is, not so-called policies for developers, which they are not, but on the policies in Housing for All that are delivering and will deliver numbers in both public and private.

See this speech in context