Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be able to speak on this extremely important topic. It has been the major national issue for a number of years. As a county councillor in Kildare, I saw that at first hand. I saw it from the point of view of the person who could not get a house, obtain zoning for land or build a house. We have seen planning permissions come in. In some locations, the people have been against them and in others people have been for them, so delivering houses, as we know, is very complex. A commission report like this tries to deal with the larger issues and to cut across the issue. We know it is an impossible task just to try to crystallise what is happening in housing development and the construction industry more widely, but the commission report has succeeded in some elements, and we should welcome such a report. Many people with a lot of knowledge across a really wide spectrum have delivered it and, in fairness, it is a huge document covering a range of areas.

I will focus on three areas because we could discuss the whole issue in general and go on for a while, but it is important to focus on the report, not just to have a discussion on housing and pick different topics. We should try to parse the report down to individual areas. Today, I will just try to focus on infrastructure, affordable housing and creating sustainable communities.

Infrastructure delivery, as well as having affordable housing realistically in nice, good and sustainable communities, will be key for the people who will live in our areas. In Kildare North, we have a huge number of houses being delivered. I see my colleague Aidan Farrelly sitting across the way. In Leixlip today, there are houses being built. If we go to Celbridge, there are houses being built. In Kilcock, there are houses being built. In Clane, there are houses being built. Everywhere you turn, including Naas and Sallins, there are houses being built. However, we need to deliver those houses properly and put them in good community space, ensuring that people can move around and that we have the bridges, the schools, the crèches and the water infrastructure to go with the housing. At the weekend, people were talking about St. Patrick's Day and getting ready to celebrate. In Leixlip, there was a burst water pipe on Saturday afternoon. This meant that 7,700 homes were left without water for more than 24 hours. Meanwhile, over in Celbridge and Hazelhatch, there is another pipe that is 6.5 km long and 80 years old. It was put in place in 1945. That pipe is at such risk of bursting that the water pressure has to be run really low. What I am highlighting is the need for basic infrastructure in north Kildare to deliver this housing.

As regards the commission report, while there is a point about infrastructure - I think it is in section 7 of chapter 3 - there is probably not enough focus on it. Infrastructure could have taken up a larger section of the commission's report. As many of us have seen, if the infrastructure is not delivered, it will be impossible to deliver houses. In that context, there is one bridge in Celbridge. It was there 200 years or 150 years ago, when the population might have been 300 to 500. The population of Celbridge, which Mark Ward and Eoin Ó Broin know because they live right across from it, is 23,000. The town still has only one bridge. Does that make for sustainable communities? It does not. Sustainable communities are dealt with in one of the final chapters of the report. Critical infrastructure must be provided to enable us to deliver housing.

I am thrilled and honoured to have been elected to the Dáil, but I want to continue to work on the projects on which I worked as a councillor. As part of the local area plan in Celbridge, we put in a submission for a second bridge. We know that it had to come with zoning of land. Until a second bridge is provided, we cannot open land up for development in Celbridge. There is a perfect example of where if we get a bridge built, zoning can be opened up and we can deliver over 2,000 houses. That is where there has to be a key combination. That is where the commission report could have gone into greater detail and provided really specific examples. I did not really see that in the report.

I have expressed these sentiments since I got elected and came here, and that is what I have been pushing through from a Government perspective. I know I am sitting here on the Government benches but I am trying to give solutions to individual issues and to show, as councillors, and now as TDs, where we can deliver not just housing but sustainable housing. In towns like Lucan, close to me, and we see it even in Clane, where a bridge is built and houses come and traffic is at a gridlock, we know it is not sustainable. In Adamstown, a link road has been built in through Celbridge. That link road has come in many years after those houses have been built. We know it has been needed but it should have been put in much earlier. That is where the tie-in with the councils and the Government, specifically the Department of Transport, needs to be.

The other area on which I will focus is affordable housing, which is key in an area like mine, in north Kildare. It is key across the country so I will not say it is just in my area but I will use the example of where we had an affordable housing scheme in Leixlip, close to where I live, in an estate where we rezoned the land under the most recent local area plan. As all Members know, the market value of the property has to be under €360,000 to avail of affordable housing, but we cannot get the home loans for the same amount. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect in what is available for the public. Gardaí, nurses and people who might be in marriages now need second houses. We need to make sure there is affordable housing available for those people, and that has not been the case.

In north Kildare, we can see there has been movement. I see it locally, in my home area, and where I have been a councillor, where Clúid have been involved and where we have other housing agencies. The council has done well and worked with local builders to get extra housing, but then what we see is that the other housing in the same areas is there for €500,000 or €600,000. Many people in normal, good, strong jobs and couples cannot get the mortgages to buy those houses. We need to extend and make larger the affordable housing schemes. While they are welcome, they need to be rolled out, and there needs to be stronger Government support. I know that Kieran O'Donnell, when he was a Minister of State in the area, would have had the same opinion, would have pushed for it and would have strongly focused on the delivery and roll-out of more affordable housing. It is a key issue. The average cost of a home, as I said, is over €450,000, and that is all across the north east of the county. The local authority home loan is a bit of a help but it will not get you to that point. Looking at housing in north Kildare in particular, we have Maynooth University, which is expanding, but if we are restricted as to what housing we can put in the likes of Maynooth, all we are doing is making it harder and harder for us to be able to have enough housing for the area.

On the wider point, many of us have families. Even if we do not, we have our elderly, so we need parks and community spaces. This is something else in the report that we really need to focus on. It was probably not in the report to the degree I would have liked, but, again, it is something I am heavily emphasising in my role. We could say it is up to the councils to deliver these elements, but it is really national funding that needs to come in behind local community groups and councils, which actually deliver things like swimming pools. There was maybe one in Lucan, but we can see there were difficulties getting that out there. There is no swimming pool in north Kildare at all. There is one in Naas, but there is no such facility in the whole of north Kildare. Where are the football pitches going to be to serve all the new houses in the likes of Maynooth, Celbridge and those places? These are all key issues that also need to be behind a wider commission report and structure like this. If we just put up houses and more houses in certain areas, we will not necessarily have the community supports behind them. Ultimately, steps need to be taken. Sometimes, however, steps taken in haste can be taken incorrectly. We have seen this in the past. We know we need to deliver on the 256,000 homes deficit from when the report was initiated. We know the deficit will continue if we do not succeed in driving increased housing provision every year. It is in the programme for Government and is the key focus.

While the Minister is here, I ask him to keep a focus on the requirement for the delivery of the key infrastructure for north Kildare, including the delivery of affordable housing and to ensure that the people in new affordable homes serviced by proper infrastructure will live in sustainable communities. I am thankful and delighted to have had the opportunity to speak in front of the Minister today.

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