Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The housing targets were missed last year by a country mile. The leaders of the Government promised before the election that up to 40,000 units would be delivered, but when we got through the election, we discovered that we just about built 30,000. The signs this year for social housing in particular, and indeed for housing delivery overall, are not very promising. Two areas that are really being left behind are cost rental and affordable-to-buy housing. The affordable housing scheme, as currently designed, is not working and it will not work in most parts of the country. The Minister does not have to take my word for it. If he speaks to local authority managers and housing officials around the country, they will tell him it is not working. Workers and families who are just above the limit for social housing but who do not have a hope of getting a mortgage or a loan for a house are losing out. They are stuck in private rented accommodation, paying skyrocketing rents with no security of tenure for themselves or their families. They are locked in and those who are over 40 or 45 have no hope whatsoever. We need to start providing affordable and social housing for them, including in small towns like Mountrath, as well as in larger towns like Mountmellick, Portarlington, Portlaoise, Graiguecullen, Rathdowney, Abbeyleix and similar towns. We need affordable housing to buy and rent in those towns. We need cost rentals for workers and families.

I know that we cannot pull rabbits out of hats but I would make two points to the Minister. The Housing Commission report tells us, at #61. c. that there is an urgency around "enforcing vacant building and vacant site taxation". If one looks closely at the report, one sees that the residential zoned land tax, at 3%, is not enough. I do not want that tax levied on active farmland but it needs to be levied on land that is not active farmland and it needs to be stepped up a gear if we want it to work. Only 16 local authorities have actually levied the vacant sites levy, on 186 sites in total in the country. There is a whole string of local authorities that have not even designated one site as subject to the vacant site levy. That is really unusual. We have to free up the land and reduce the costs. These are two things that can be done and the Housing Commission report tells us that they need to be done.

To conclude, we need to mass-produce housing. I have raised this previously with various Ministers. We need six to ten house designs for different needs, for disabled people, single people, families with children, both larger and smaller houses. We need possibly up to ten designs and then we need to use those designs. That will cut out the architectural costs, which are adding 10% to 14% to the cost of building and slowing the process down. Papers go back and forward between Departments. We need to cut this out and use the same designs and plans.

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