Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire agus leis an Rialtas as ucht an Bille seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála. Aontaím agus aontaíonn Páirtí an Lucht Oibre leis an mBille seo.

This is not a complicated Bill. It makes a simple change to ensure that the Housing Finance Agency can continue to fulfil its mandate in the months ahead. This is something that we in Labour are broadly supportive of. We all know the importance that the Housing Finance Agency plays as a pillar of Ireland's housing policy. By raising the agency's statutory borrowing limit, as this Bill does, we can ensure that it continues to play that role and continues to issue new lending approvals with the headroom it needs to up to the middle of next year. However, I would question why this step is being taken on an interim, piecemeal basis. We all know that bold change is needed to tackle the housing crisis. My own party has repeatedly put forward the bold steps that we believe the Government needs to take. Today we are devoting significant time to a change that, while undoubtedly necessary, will simply paper over one crack in one agency for less than a year. This interim change to the agency's statutory borrowing limit will mean that further legislative change will no doubt be needed in the coming months and years. In a crowded legislative calendar, we might well ask whether devoting repeated primary legislative slots to updating the HFA's statutory borrowing limit will crowd out other important debate. Why is this change being made in this fashion, rather than taking a more bold step to ensure that the HFA is put on the sustainable footing it needs to deliver for years rather than months into the future?

We have all watched on in dismay as the Government has repeatedly failed to deliver on housing over recent years. Its record on housing over the last decade is one of repeated failure. The previous increase to the Housing Finance Agency's statutory borrowing limit came in early 2024 and was a commitment under Housing for All. The fact that less than two years later we are taking the same step again is perhaps yet another small illustration of the failure of the plan and of the Government's wider piecemeal approach. The Government's lack of ambition and its failure to even begin to get to grips with the crisis at hand goes much deeper, of course, but at its heart is the same absence of long-term, joined-up thinking. Now, here we are two years later, again raising the limit once more. This time we are asked to do so in the absence of a plan. The Government's new national housing plan was due for publication in July. It was delayed. Four weeks ago, the Taoiseach said it would be ready in the next month, but we have still not seen sign of it. I expect we will not before the presidential election.

This Bill makes only a small change, but nonetheless, it is incredible that we are being asked to pass primary legislation on housing policy without the Government having spelled out its broader plan. How can we scrutinise the Government's approach, either on the specifics or in the broader sense, without sight of what will be in its new flagship housing plan? The Housing Finance Agency says that this change could facilitate the building of over 5,600 units. That underlines why we need to pass this Bill, piecemeal as it may be. We should be clear: the Government's record on delivering its own unambitious housing targets gives real cause for concern. Its new-build social housing target was missed by more than 1,400 units last year. That number has fallen short by an average of 15% every year since Housing for All was published. Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Government put forward figures that could charitably be described as "misleading" to try to give the impression that it had delivered on its affordable housing targets for 2024. By lumping in vacant property grants and approvals that had yet to be completed, the Government attempted to massage the figures and pull the wool over our eyes. In that context, while Labour supports today's Bill and its aim of resourcing the Housing Finance Agency to better support social and affordable housing delivery, it is difficult to be optimistic when we see this Government's record.

As we consider the sustainability of one pillar of housing policy, I would like to go back again to what I raised with the Minister last week in relation to the LDA and its sustainability and impact. The Department of Finance's recent report made clear that under its current mandate, the LDA will not be able to make a meaningful contribution toward solving the housing crisis that it should be making and that it was set up to do. We know that there is enough public land in the State to go a long way toward building the homes we need, but a lack of vision from this Government has seen the LDA become nothing but a lame duck agency, sitting on lands without powers or the capitalisation to deliver and using turnkey to reach its targets. The Government must fully capitalise the LDA and give it the power it needs to acquire, activate and develop public land. We in Labour have spelled out our plan to transform the LDA so it can finally deliver the radical, State-led solutions we need, but in the interim we simply must ensure that it is able to do the job it needs to do. That is another task that the Government has not done. We are today looking at a change which is one small lever in housing delivery. It is a change that we in Labour will support, but without looking more broadly at the housing landscape and finally delivering the radical change that we have been crying out for for years now, it will be a mere drop in the ocean.

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