Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Bogfaidh muid ar aghaidh go dtí tairiscint maidir leis an ghéarchéim tithíochta in ainm na nDaonlathaithe Sóisialta. Is é an chéad duine atá ar an liosta agam anseo ná an Teachta Rory Hearne.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann: notes that:

- the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and former Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD, repeatedly promised to deliver 40,000 homes last year but spectacularly failed, with just 30,330 homes delivered;

- housing delivery is not just slowing down, it is reducing, with a drop in housing delivery of nearly 7 per cent between 2024 and 2023;

- members of the Government have briefed the media that without a dramatic reset of housing policy, there is virtually no chance of reaching their own housing targets;

- the Taoiseach has stated this reset will involve "very politically difficult decisions" and said the Government needs to "pivot more strongly to the private sector";

- in an interview on RTÉ radio on 9th February, 2025, the Taoiseach signalled the imminent end of Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), saying the Government could replace them at the end of this year;

- within 24 hours of these remarks being made, the share price of the State's largest private landlord, Irish Residential Real Estate Investment Trust (IRES REIT), soared to its highest level in eight months;

- rents are already at record highs, having more than doubled in a decade, and increased by 34 per cent in the lifetime of the last Government; and

- 83 per cent of private tenancies in the country are in RPZs;

acknowledges that:

- a report published last year by the Central Bank of Ireland entitled "Institutional Investment and Residential Rental Market Dynamics", found that 78 per cent of the homes owned by investment funds were bought as existing properties;

- the same report found that institutional landlords increase monthly rents by about 4.1 per cent more than other landlords;

- since 2021, when the previous Government introduced a 10 per cent stamp duty levy on the bulk purchase of homes, investors have bulk bought half a billion euros worth of residential property; and

- in Budget 2025, the Government increased the stamp duty levy, which does not apply to apartments, from 10 per cent to 15 per cent;

further notes that:

- in 2020, then Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe TD, said investment funds were engaging in "aggressive behaviour to avoid tax" and said the Revenue Commissioners were investigating and compiling a report;

- the report from the Revenue Commissioners was never published, with the Finance Minister claiming in the Dáil on 13th February, 2025, that "tax compliance issues" had been dealt with via legislation;

- however, since 2020, investment funds controlling more than €28 billion worth of Irish property have reduced their tax payments by half, from €74 million to €32 million;

- the proportion of new housing available for sale has nearly halved in the last six years;

- in Dublin city in 2023, 94 per cent of all new housing was apartments, 98 per cent of which was solely available to rent; and

- first time buyers bought just 75 new homes in Dublin City in that year; and

calls on Government to:

- close loopholes which allow investment funds aggressively avoid tax;

- increase the stamp duty levy on the bulk purchase of homes to 100 per cent, and extend it to apartments;

- instead of introducing further tax breaks for developers and vulture funds, access European Union streams of finance like InvestEU and the European Regional Development Fund;

- introduce a savings scheme like the French Livret A model, to leverage some of the €160 billion in Irish household savings, to invest in affordable housing;

- provide increased and early-stage finance to approved housing bodies and local authorities, so they can ramp up the delivery of genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy; and

- retain RPZs, until there is an alternate system ready to put in place which can protect renters.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. We are bringing forward this motion today because the housing crisis is a catastrophe and an emergency. The Government's plans are failing disastrously and we need a new approach. We are calling on the Government to be brave and ambitious and to take new emergency measures that can actually deliver affordable homes on the scale needed to solve the housing crisis, which is now corroding the very fabric and social cohesion of Irish society.

While I thank the one Member of the Government who is here, it is deeply frustrating that the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, is not here to engage with the Opposition and answer questions. It is an insult to the people of Ireland that the Minister for housing does not attend the Dáil for a debate on the issue for which he is directly responsible. The Government has been asking us to bring forward solutions and then when we do, the Minister responsible does not bother to turn up. Not being here to discuss the most pressing issue facing this country indicates a lack of openness to new ideas and a lack of seriousness.

Today, there are half a million adults stuck living in their childhood box rooms, infantilised and lacking hope of starting their own independent lives. Almost 1 million people are living in the private rental sector. They are struggling with rents and the fear of eviction, which has been worsened by the Government's statements that rent caps could be removed at the end of this year. Some 14,864 people are living a daily trauma of homelessness, of whom 4,510 are children who are suffering adverse childhood experiences with lifelong impacts from growing up in homelessness. There are also tens of thousands of people not counted, measured or considered by our State who are stuck in hidden homelessness. The Government's housing policies are causing a mental health crisis. We do not have enough public health nurses to provide developmental checks and the very construction workers we need are emigrating because they do not see a future in this country where they can have a home of their own.

I will give a few examples of the lived reality of this social catastrophe. A mother living in emergency accommodation in my constituency became homeless just before her baby was born. The baby is now a toddler. That baby was born into emergency homeless accommodation, which is a traumatising situation for her and her young son. What have we become as a country when we have normalised children being born into homelessness? I was contacted by a housing association in rural Ireland and told of a young couple, a secondary school teacher and a construction worker, who are living in a damp mobile home. They do not qualify for social housing and cannot afford to rent a place. A teacher in her early 30s shared her housing situation with me. She is still living at home after nearly seven years. She and her boyfriend were saving to buy for years but their relationship of more than ten years has broken down. She said that her chances of buying now as a single person are shattered from little to nothing. The housing crisis has had a truly devastating and harmful impact on her. It has deprived her of the opportunity of independence for years on end, which has made her depressed and constantly anxious about the future. She feels tired at the end of each day as they are understaffed and lonely at the weekend because her friends have migrated. It is soul-destroying for her to spend all of her 20s with her parents while working hard and paying tax to a Government which does not spend her money on affordable housing.

Beyond that, the Government's housing crisis is having profound social implications. Research published last week showed that 69% of 25- to 34-year-olds say the cost of owning a home is causing them to delay getting married or having children. It is utterly heartbreaking to hear these stories. When will we say that this is enough?

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy is dragging us back to the 19th century. The supposed parties of home ownership have brought about the largest collapse in home ownership levels among young people since the foundation of the State. They are turning our younger generations into long-term tenants of the big landlords once more, only this time it is the US, German and Irish wealthy funds. They have become the parties of the large landlords. Despite the stamp duty measures implemented, institutional investors have continued to buy up existing properties. The build-to-rent apartment developments were never included within the restrictions. Funds have had free reign to snap up tens of thousands of apartments being built across Dublin. In 2023, institutional funds bought 6,203 newly completed apartments, while ordinary home buyers bought just 846. The Government claims that rents rising further will incentivise a supply of expensive rental properties that will then lead at some point in the future to rents falling. Where is the evidence that an increase in supply of institutional investor funds build-to-rent housing leads to a fall in rents? A report of the Central Bank found that institutional landlords increase monthly rents 4.1% more than other landlords.

The Government's housing plans were sold to the electorate on the basis of a misleading claim that its policies were working. We hear today that it is saying to a generation stuck at home to try a cabin out the back. The Government is giving investor funds tax breaks and higher rents and sheds out the back for our locked-out generation. This is "let them eat cake" stuff, only for the Government it is "let them live in sheds". The Government has spent the past ten years incentivising the private market and investor funds through tax breaks, developer levy waivers and help-to-buy schemes, but they are not working. We need a new direction.

The Social Democrats is bringing this motion today because we have outlined serious solutions that could solve this housing crisis. First, we are calling on the Government to set up a State savings scheme that would leverage the €160 billion that is in private bank accounts to enable private investment, which is what it would be, in social and affordable housing, just like in France with the Livret A scheme. We are saying we do not have enough funds to finance housing, but that is €160 billion which could be leveraged.

We are also calling on the Government to allocate a significant proportion of the budget surplus this year, which will be approximately €9 billion, into directly delivering affordable housing via housing bodies and local authorities. Providing early-stage finance for housing bodies and local authorities means they can ramp up the delivery of genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy, rather than the affordable housing we have seen come out today in O'Devaney Gardens on public land where €400,000 for a two-bedroom apartment is to be considered an affordable home. On what planet is the Government living for that to be considered affordable? We have put forward a proposal for State funding of €2.3 billion per annum that would deliver an additional 10,000 affordable purchase and 5,000 cost-rental homes on top of current targets.

Finally, we call on the Government to retain the rent pressure zones until there is an alternative system in place that can protect renters. The Government should make a clear statement that rent pressure zone caps will not be lifted at the end of this year, given that rents are already unaffordable for renters and renters are experiencing huge anxiety at the suggestion that the rent caps could be ended this year.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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When will the penny finally drop? When will the Government get that its approach to the housing crisis not only means it is incapable of solving it, but is making it worse for tens of thousands of people across this country.

The numbers tell a grim story. A total of 15,000 people are living in homeless accommodation and 4,500 children are living in single rooms in bed and breakfast accommodation. These children are not just statistics. They are the faces of a growing crisis. In the past year alone, the number of children experiencing homelessness has increased by 12%. Child homelessness has been normalised by the Government. Let me be very clear. This is not normal. There is nothing normal about child homelessness. What could be normal about children who experience developmental delays because they are forced to live in overcrowded, cramped conditions? What is normal about children who cannot learn to crawl or walk properly because there simply is not enough space for them to do so? What is normal about children who cannot invite their friends over to play, not because they do not want to but because they do not have the space or are ashamed of their living conditions?

When the Minister of State sits down to devise housing policy, who comes to mind? Who does the Government think of? Is it the people struggling to make ends meet, who pay extortionate rents and live in constant fear of eviction? Is it the 60% of young couples delaying having children because they simply do not have the space or stability to raise a family because they cannot find or afford accommodation? Is it the 440,000 young adults who are still living with their parents, unable to afford their own homes? Or is it the young people the Minister of State's Government, through policy failures, are driving out of this country? In the past year alone, 69,000 people have left Ireland to go overseas for a better future. This is not because they cannot find jobs here - they have jobs - but because they cannot afford or find anywhere to live. When the Minister of State sits down to devise his housing plans, who does he think about? Who does he prioritise? Right now, it does not seem to be the vulnerable families and young people struggling to get by.

Let us take a step back and look at who is benefiting from this housing crisis. Where and what is the bigger picture here? It is clear it is the investment funds. They are raking in the profits while ordinary people are left behind. The Government allows these funds to avoid paying taxes and to bulk purchase homes that should be available for families to buy. The Government allows them to push up rents and monopolise the rental sector and provides them with tax break after tax break. Its solutions to the housing crisis always revert to type - subsidise the big players.

The housing crisis is not just an economic one, it is a moral one. It is a failure of leadership and a failure to protect those who need it most. The Government has failed to deliver real solutions and, until it realises that, the number of homeless children, families struggling to make ends meet and young people forced to leave this country will continue to rise. International investment funds, under the Minister of State's watch, will continue to find ways to drain the Irish coffers with the blessing of the Government. It is time for the Government to wake up, focus on real solutions and end this crisis that has gone on far too long and affected far too many of our people.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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Almost every single week, I have listened to the Taoiseach responding in a very tedious manner to legitimate questions from the Opposition, including ourselves in the Social Democrats. He asks where our solutions are and what we would do differently. I have a simple question now. Where is the housing Minister? It is becoming farcical at this point. Parliamentary debate means that we present in our time, which does not come for us regularly - it is about six opportunities a year - and we use it to discuss housing. We bring forward the solutions but this Government, which is now taking a hostile approach to parliamentary function and debate, decides the Minister will not be available and simply will not answer questions. We used to have ghost estates and now we have ghost Ministers.

Regardless of that, today we are once again bringing forward solutions, as we did throughout the last term and will continue to do through this term. This motion contains real practical measures that can be implemented now. These are measures to make home ownership more achievable, rebalance the housing market in favour of people rather than investors and ensure that rent does not swallow the entirety of a person's income. These are alternatives to the reality facing people today. What does the Government do? It will not only vote against it, it will not even debate it, but the Taoiseach will come into the Chamber later today and say we need to have a discussion on housing. The hypocrisy of it stinks. He will say he wants home ownership to be within reach, yet the Government will vote against motion after motion seeking to limit the bulk-buying of homes by investment funds. The Government will say it wants to stabilise the rental market yet it will vote against a motion that aims to strengthen protection for renters and curb excessive rent hikes, as is the norm in most European countries.

The Government says it wants affordability yet it continues to give tax breaks to institutional investors that do not build homes for ordinary families but instead hoard housing as an asset class. The same Government that says the Opposition has no idea will reject every opportunity to work constructively on solutions. The truth is that this is not because these proposals will not work; it is because they are politically inconvenient for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the class they represent. To adopt these policies would be to admit their approach to housing has failed and that their reliance on the private market to solve this crisis has not delivered. The Government's policies have locked an entire generation out of home ownership and forced people into precarious renting well into their 40s. Its policies have made housing the number one reason young people are once again leaving our country. The Government cannot face up to that failure, so we get platitudes. The Government resorts to excuses. It says now is not the time and that these measures would spook investors. It says it has a plan but it can never quite explain why it is not working. Most tedious of all, the Government will say parties such as the Social Democrats had the opportunity to go into government. Every single day, it proves why we were right to walk away from that opportunity, when this is the reality facing this country as a result of its continued and unwavering approach to failure. A Government that claps itself on the back for record housing supply is still failing to meet demand. The Government tells people they should be grateful for small improvements, as if stabilising a crisis of catastrophic levels is something to celebrate.

There is nothing in this motion that is radical or unreasonable. It is the bare minimum that a functioning and serious Government should already be implementing. Housing is not an abstract economic concept; it is the foundation of people's lives. It determines whether they can build a future, put down roots and plan for their families. This Government does not see housing that way, however. It sees it as an investment opportunity first and a human right second. When it sees a crisis, it reverts back to tax breaks. The Government will vote down this motion today, not because it is unworkable but because it is unwilling. It is unwilling to change, to improve or to be better for the collective rather than just for those in whose interests it seeks to legislate.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I wish to raise two points on the issue of housing - the housing disaster - and how it affects the education system. First, students who wish to attend third level courses in institutions of their choice are curtailed because affordable student accommodation is not possible. For the ordinary student, it is unaffordable. Therefore, they may choose a course that is not their top priority in order to allow them to commute because they need to live at home as they cannot afford to rent. They might decide not to go to third level education because they cannot afford to study and need to work to contribute to the family income because the cost of living is so high in this country.

In my own constituency of Dublin South-Central, particularly in Dublin 8, there has been a swell of student accommodation built in recent years. The area is very close to the city centre and has easy access to colleges and universities. It should be fantastic for students to live there, but the cost of this student accommodation is far beyond what an ordinary student can afford. Rents are approximately €1,250 per month for a one-bedroom student room with a shared kitchen. For a self-funded student this is completely unaffordable. Student accommodation is vitally important for students in our economy. It must be appropriate and affordable. Only today, I read about the international students who have been asked for sex for rent. That is an absolute horror and disgrace.

The second problem we have, particularly in urban areas, is the retention of education professionals due to high rents and unaffordability. Housing costs in Ireland are already among the highest in Europe. Rents have doubled in a decade and there is double-digit house price inflation. Newly qualified teaching staff, SNAs and other educational staff cannot afford to pay ridiculously high rents and certainly cannot afford to buy their own homes. They are locked out of the market yet are expected to turn up every day to teach, support and help our children and young people in schools and education services. In October, half of primary schools in the commuter belt, as it is called, could not find teachers to fill vacant positions. An INTO survey in the autumn found that these shortages in teaching staff have a profound impact on the quality of education in many schools. Schools are having to resort to unqualified teaching staff because they cannot afford to live here. I spoke in this House yesterday about the lack of school places for children with special needs. These vulnerable children are being failed by this country. Housing has a significant role to play in that failure.

The motion we are proposing has a vision and a pathway to ensure we start to get out of the housing disaster that is destroying this country on so many levels. I am speaking about it from the lens of the education system but there is no element of life that it does not affect.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"acknowledges that: — Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland, sets out an ambitious multi-annual programme that seeks to deliver more than 300,000 new homes between 2022 and 2030;

— since Housing for All was published in September 2021, almost 120,000 homes have been added to the National Housing Stock, with delivery of 92,500 new homes in the three years from 2022 to 2024, representing a considerable 49 per cent increase on the quantum delivered in the previous three-year period;

— while the policy aim is to reach, if not exceed, the target in each successive year, the primary goal is to maintain an upward trajectory in supply and in line with or ahead of the overall target over the longer-term;

— delivery of affordable housing supports will significantly exceed 2023 outturn, while the supply of new build social homes continues to be at a level higher than it has been for many years;

— the development finance required to deliver 50,000 homes per year is in the region of €20 billion annually, and capital is needed from a range of sources to ensure the provision of private, social, and affordable homes; and

— the Housing for All Action Plan Update, published in November 2022, included a commitment to 'Review the operation of the private rental sector and report on policy considerations', and the housing Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) have played a key role in protecting renters during a period of historic inflation, and that is why they are remaining in place during the review; further notes that: — the Irish Real Estate Fund (IREF) legislation was introduced in 2016, to address concerns regarding the use of collective investment vehicles by non-residents to invest in Irish property;

— on 22nd October, 2024, following Government approval, the then Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers TD, published the Funds Sector 2030: A Framework for Open, Resilient & Developing Markets', a wide-ranging review of the funds and asset management sector, and this review fulfilled a recommendation of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare 2022 report, which called for 'an examination of the regimes for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) the IREFs and their role in the property sector, including how they support housing policy objectives';

— European Union funding streams are already accessed in the context of housing delivery in Ireland, and in this regard, European multilateral banks, such as the European Investment Bank Group, and the Council of Europe Development Bank have already played a role in delivering affordable and social homes in Ireland, and provided financing to bodies such as the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and the Housing Finance Agency (HFA);

— under the term of the last Government, a number of measures were taken to restrict the bulk buying of homes by institutional investors, such as:

— a higher rate of Stamp Duty on the acquisition of houses situated in the State, where a person acquires at least 10 such houses during any 12-month period, was implemented in October 2024, and this rate was increased to 15 per cent from 2nd October, 2024;

— the Section 28 Guidelines for Planning Authorities ‘Regulation of Commercial Institutional Investment in Housing’, issued in May 2021, aimed to prevent multiple housing and duplex units being sold to a single buyer, providing an 'owner-occupier' guarantee, by ensuring that new 'own-door' houses and duplex units in lower-density housing developments can no longer be bulk-purchased by institutional investors in a manner that causes the displacement of individual purchasers or social and affordable housing, including cost-rental, and initial estimates for this period indicate that these Section 28 guidelines have continued to be impactful and have led to a further increase in home ownership through the use of planning conditions; and

— from May 2021 to November 2024, a combined total of 55,684 residential units were estimated to have received planning permission with conditions restricting the bulk buying or multiple sales to a single purchaser; and

— the Housing Agency is currently undertaking a review of RPZs and the expected timeline for a completed review is Q1 2025, and the review will consider whether RPZs should be continued as is, removed, modified, or replaced, and the extension to the Residential Tenancies Act in May last year, ensures predictability for tenants while this review takes place; recognises that: — the Housing Commission have advised that in order to create a housing system that functions across tenures and for all people, we need diverse and stable sources of financing;

— this capital is needed to ensure the provision of private, social, and affordable homes, homes of all tenures for families across the country at all price points;

— following on from a review of the rental market in July 2024, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, has requested the Housing Agency to undertake a review which will assess the operation of RPZs and it is expected that this review will be completed by end of Q1 2025, and any potential future policy options that arise from this review will be fully considered by the Government and implemented as required; and

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, is continuing to deliver accelerated funding schemes across the affordable and social programmes which have the potential to unlock delivery of schemes in good locations, while enabling additional supply, with over 60 per cent of active approved projects under the Cost Rental Equity Loan being accelerated projects scheduled for completion between 2025 – 2028; and affirms Government efforts to: — diversify sources of investment, noting the level of investment required in the long term cannot be solely the responsibility of the State, it will also require a very significant level of private investment, including appropriate institutional capital investment which is essential for the delivery of critically needed private rented stock;

— engage with domestic lenders to ensure that the banking sector is appropriately using its lending capacity to support the development of new housing nationwide;

— develop new financing sources, especially for brownfield sites and small builders, with support from Home Building Finance Ireland, the HFA and domestic banks, as well as State support of equity investment;

— enhance protections for tenants, while appropriately vindicating landlords' constitutionally protected property rights, through measures introduced by successive recent Governments via the Residential Tenancies Acts;

— build on the significant number of social and affordable homes provided in 2024, expanding State investment, with almost €5 billion available for the delivery of social, affordable and cost-rental homes in 2025, supplemented by Land Development Agency investment and HFA lending, which will bring the overall capital provision to over €6 billion; and

— deliver on the far-ranging commitments in the Programme for Government and informed by the Housing Commission's proposals for the long-term reform of the housing system, accepting this is an appropriate response to the current housing challenges which Ireland is now facing.".

It is a matter of public record that I am a landlord. I just wanted to put that on the record of the Dáil. I assure all Deputies that the Government is absolutely committed to building more homes and that we are working on all fronts to achieve that goal and to ensure the great needs within our society and our economy are met. I thank the Social Democrats for raising this issue as it is important that we have a full, informed and clear discussion on what we must do in terms of what are shared ambitions, namely, improving conditions for renters, increasing affordability of homes and, most important, increasing overall supply.

There are many times in the various debates when the Social Democrats will be represented by one or two Members in the Dáil. That does not mean the party is uninterested. I am here representing the Government and I can assure Members that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is aware of the debate that is ongoing today. What we can all agree on is that a substantial increase in the supply of new homes is the route to solving Ireland’s housing crisis. Where we might differ is that this Government understands that the State cannot act alone in achieving this. That is why we are opposing this motion.

This year, we are channelling a record €6.1 billion in capital expenditure into housing, a fact the Social Democrats failed to acknowledge. For context, this is a six-fold increase over the past decade. Although this is a significant level of funding, the estimated development finance required to deliver 50,000 homes is a substantial €20 billion every year. The Housing Commission and the Department of Finance have advised that in order to deliver homes across varied tenures and for all people, we need diverse and stable sources of financing, including private capital.

The motion calls for the Government to retain rent pressure zones until there is an alternative system put in place that can protect renters. What this motion fails to acknowledge is that this system is already in place. The Housing for All action plan update published in November 2022 includes a commitment to "review the operation of the private rental sector and report on policy considerations". In May 2024, we extended rent predictability measures to the end of this year through the amendment of the Residential Tenancies Act. In doing so, we ensured that the current system of rent controls would give tenants absolute certainty while that review took place. That review is currently under way under the aegis of the Housing Agency and the expected timeline for completion is quarter one of 2025. Under Housing for All, the Government is committed to increasing the supply of rental properties, protecting renters and encouraging sustainable investment. The review will examine the operations of rent pressure zones since their introduction, assess their impact on key stakeholders and consider whether rent pressure zones should be continued in their current form, removed, modified or replaced.

Let me be clear. Protecting renters and attracting finance for home delivery are not mutually exclusive. The Department of Finance estimates that large landlords delivered some 17,000 apartments in Ireland between 2017 and 2023, accounting for 46% of the 37,500 apartments built during that period. The importance of this type of investment underscores the importance of policy certainty for investment in this sector going forward. In doing so, we are acting to benefit both today’s renters and those wishing to avail of accommodation in future. One thing is certain - increased supply benefits all renters and that is why it is our key ambition.

Responding to concerns in 2021 that new housing was being acquired by investment funds for subsequent rental, the Government took a number of actions to ensure that homes are available for purchases by families and individuals. This included the introduction of a higher rate of stamp duty on the acquisition of houses situated in the State where a person acquires at least ten such houses during any 12-month period, with some exemptions and refund provisions applying. This rate was increased to 15% from October 2024. The proposal to extend 100% tax to apartment purchases would effectively end the forward-funding channel for apartment supply - worth approximately €4 billion in investment between 2019 and 2022. This is an example of the ill-thought-out aspects of this motion from the Social Democrats. While its intentions are no doubt well placed, the reality of its policy is fewer homes and higher rents.

The kind of investment Ireland needs to attract now and going forward requires a stable tax and policy framework within which those who are building more homes, be they social, private or cost-rental, can operate. Our focus is squarely on creating an environment that encourages the stable delivery of new homes. In that respect, the Government is putting record capital behind our local authorities and approved housing bodies to deliver. The State is doing more than it has ever done before. An unprecedented level of public resources are being directed at housing. For 2024, the delivery of affordable housing will significantly exceed the 2023 outturn, while the supply of new-build social homes continues to be at levels not seen since the 1970s. As stated previously, this Government is channelling a record €6.1 billion in capital expenditure into housing this year alone. This is into social and affordable housing. That is the right thing to do and the Government will continue to invest significantly in the supply of social and affordable housing.

Furthermore, the Government is committed to continuing to diversify sources of investment in order to increase the supply of homes. This will include engagement with domestic lenders to ensure that the banking sector is using its lending capacity to support the development of new housing nationwide. It will include developing new financing sources, especially for brownfield sites and small builders, with support from Home Building Finance Ireland, the Housing Finance Agency and domestic banks as well as State support of equity investment. As part of this effort to build more homes, we will not just welcome but compete for private and patient capital from long-term investors such as pension funds. We will attract and welcome inward investment for housing, as we have successfully done with investment in other sectors of our economy. That is a normal facet of housing investment across Europe and beyond and it is what is needed to keep delivering more homes across Ireland.

Further to this, EU funding streams are already being accessed in the context of housing delivery. In this regard, European multilateral banks such as the European Investment Bank Group and the Council of Europe Development Bank have already provided financing to bodies such as the NTMA and the Housing Finance Agency. I can assure the House that there is strong engagement between the Government and these banks with regard to identifying investment opportunities in line with our priorities in the programme for Government, including housing.

Overall, we need a broader consideration of how we as a country are going to approach private sector investment in housing.

In that process, we will continually review and improve the regulatory environment to create a functioning housing system that delivers across all tenure types, engaging diverse and stable sources of finance. We will, however, do that without undermining the stability and certainty needed for investors.

From a taxation perspective, we have many schemes in place that are working and playing a positive role, including help to buy and the zoned land tax. These are positive interventions that I believe will contribute to more homes being built. Put simply, we need more housing of every type, including social, affordable and private, and this can only be achieved through the public and private sectors working together and to their respective strengths. For that reason, the Government is opposing this motion.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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It is a new low that the explanation for the absence of the Minister for Housing is that he is aware the debate is going on.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Hear, hear.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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Is this what democracy in the Dáil is reduced to? The senior Minister responsible does not turn up but we are meant to be okay with him being aware the debate is taking place. Is that the situation with this Government? It has happened two weeks in a row for debates on housing motions that the senior Minister-----

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Deputy's party be present for every debate in the Dáil? Will the Deputy's party members take their seats for every debate in the Dáil?

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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The Minister should be here.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister should be here. This is unprecedented.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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We do participate in every debate in the Dáil. The Minister should be here.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Deputy's party be fully present for every debate?

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, we must have order-----

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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The senior Minister should be here.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I ask Deputy O'Callaghan to speak through the Chair.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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The Minister of State interrupted me. If the Cathaoirleach is going to intervene, it should not be biased against the Opposition.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy O'Callaghan, do not accuse me of bias. Before I corrected you, I corrected the Minister of State.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I will proceed. The Minister of State said in his response that the Government would not support the motion because the State alone cannot achieve what is needed in housing. We have never said that the State alone needs to achieve what needs to be done in housing.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It can.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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What we have said is that the private sector on its own is not delivering, that there is a large affordability gap and that there is a greater role for the State and the not-for-profit sectors. If it does not see that and thinks its housing policy is working, that shows how deluded the Government is.

It is disingenuous to say that 100% stamp duty on bulk purchase of homes would prevent forward funding. It does not. As the Minister of State must understand, stamp duty on bulk purchases is on purchase transactions. That does not prevent forward funding. It does prevent the buying up of existing homes. A report published last year by the Central Bank found that 78% of the homes bought by investment funds were existing properties. That is the problem we are seeking to address.

For example, 500 new homes are being built in my constituency. They are being financed through the State and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is one of the main sources of finance. Those homes, however, are going to be sold to an international fund instead of being made available to people at affordable prices. Why is public money being used to build homes to be sold to international funds? The idea that it is all being used for forward funding is simply incorrect.

The Minister of State said that EU funding streams are already being accessed. Whoever wrote his reply clearly has not read the report by Housing Europe, which was commissioned by a Fianna Fáil MEP. The report goes into great detail about the EU funding streams that could be accessed but are not being accessed by the Irish State. Those funding streams could be used to help to build affordable homes. The Taoiseach was clear last week that he has not read the report and it still has not been read.

There are solutions to the housing disaster. The Government could introduce affordable housing zoning to ensure that land is available for affordable homes at affordable prices. It could introduce savings schemes such as Livret A in France. That scheme has leveraged billions of euro of savings into affordable housing. The Government could also consider those proposals from Housing Europe. Instead, the response of this Government is to offer tax breaks to developers and garden sheds to everybody else. We need a more serious approach from the Government. The senior Minister should attend housing debates and engage constructively with us.

Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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As a new TD, I am truly stunned not only that the housing Minister is not here but that there is only one representative on the Government benches when in the media and in the Dáil Chamber, all we hear is that the Government wants solutions from the Opposition. When we offer concrete, well thought-out, researched, evidence-based solutions, this is the showing we get.

I come from the human rights sector where we talk about housing as one of the fundamental rights without which it is impossible to realise other rights. We have heard from my colleagues the stories of so many people in Irish society whose lives are simply on hold. Their careers, family plans and love lives cannot advance. I have spoken to people on the doors in my constituency and constantly receive emails from people who are frustrated at living at home with their parents way past an appropriate age because of the housing crisis. My constituency has some of the highest house prices in the country. The median house price last August was €635,000. We also have a proliferation of buy-to-let accommodation and very little affordable offering within the constituency.

Even though this crisis reaches into the pockets of every life in Irish society, it is important to remember those groups who are pushed to the fringes of society anyway and who are uniquely impacted by the crisis. I am talking, for example, about lone parents, who have to live in substandard accommodation because of the discrimination they face. I am talking about the overcrowding that migrants experience. I am talking about the fact that our Traveller heritage is being erased because there is no culturally appropriate accommodation available for them. Our Gaeltacht community is under threat because Gaeltacht communities can no longer stay together. We are at risk of losing some of the precious heritage that we all want to keep.

With this motion, we are offering public solutions to a chronic public problem that we in Irish society are facing. These solutions offer to control the market not to inflate it. I urge the Minister of State to listen to us and on behalf of his absent Government colleagues, to listen to what we are offering. We want to work with the Government to resolve this housing crisis on behalf of the people who voted for us, just as the Minister of State says he wishes to solve the housing crisis on behalf of the people who voted for him. I ask the Government to listen to us and work with us. I ask him please to take on board this motion and the solid solutions within it.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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The Social Democrats are introducing this motion on addressing the housing disaster at a time when the Government is clearly at an ideological loss. Its policies of incentives for developers and investments for vulture funds, and their inflationary demand-side measures, have failed to move the dial on the housing disaster. More people are homeless today than ever before and the Government is falling significantly short of its own housing targets, delivering fewer homes in 2024 than in the previous year. The private sector is not able to meet the targets set out in the Government's own strategies. Now it seems that the Government is going to double down on this failure with measures that will deepen the crisis further. We are now entering a phase in Irish society where spiralling homelessness is in danger of becoming normalised and the social divisions that spring from extreme inequality are becoming entrenched. We are also facing the appalling vista of adverse developmental and mental health outcomes for many of the people, particularly children, who are caught up in prolonged homelessness.

The Taoiseach is feeling emboldened by his majority in government to push ahead with policies that he would dare not mention in the lead-up to the general election. Once more, as with the Occupied Territories Bill, voters were misled. A strong Opposition pushback against this slide into gross inequality and corrosive social division is signalled by the Social Democrats' Private Members' motion today. We are calling on the Government to move away from introducing more tax breaks for developers and vulture funds, and towards accessing currently underutilised funding sources at the EU level, such as InvestEU and the European Regional Development Fund. We should be emulating good practice in other EU countries, such as Austria, which has achieved a fairer and more sustainable housing system. One of the measures we are proposing is the leveraging of Irish household savings to invest in affordable housing, similar to the French Livret A model. Under this model, households can put their money into a special State-backed savings account which offers a more attractive interest rate than other savings accounts. Those savings, in turn, are managed by a special State investment vehicle whose specific purpose is to finance infrastructure and social projects. The largest recipient of funding in France is the social housing sector. Households make a return on their savings and the social housing sector gains access to reliable capital at a reasonable rate.

We also need to provide increased and early-stage finance to approved housing bodies and local authorities.

Doing so will greatly increase the supply of actually affordable homes for rent and purchase. I call on the Government to reconsider its "Reeling in the Years" nostalgia trip into the Celtic tiger era and take on board the substantive proposals brought forward by the Social Democrats this morning.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this very important Private Members' motion. Sinn Féin is happy to support it. As is often the case in these debates, there are some policy details where we have differences of emphasis but we fully support its spirit, and on that basis we are opposing the Government's amendment.

This really is unprecedented. The line Minister was not available last week; he was at Cabinet. That is fair enough, but he did not have the courtesy to notify the sponsors of the Labour Party motion for the reasons for his absence. This week he is not here. We do not have any explanation and again no courtesy extended to the Social Democrats as to why he is not here. Worse than that, the Minister of State present is not even a Minister of State in housing. I cannot think of a time since I was elected to the Oireachtas that neither the Minister or a Minister of State from the Department was present to deal with a debate on housing. I would like the Minister of State present to give us an explanation as to why the Minister is not here. If he has some more important engagement, if he has some family business, that is entirely legitimate, but so far we have not heard and, on that basis, it is deeply disrespectful not only to the sponsors of the motion but also to the House.

There are two issues I want to raise. I wrote to the Minister this morning about the first of these and I was hoping to put these questions to him directly. Yesterday, the Cabinet agreed €450 million to deliver 3,000 social and affordable homes over the next three years. I am looking for some clarity on this. I want to know, for example, if this is money additional to the capital that has already been provided to the Department of housing for 2025 to 2027, inclusive, or if it is within the existing capital ceilings. If it is additional, how much for this year and when will the Supplementary Estimate come to committee so that we can have transparency on that? Is this, as I believe it is, funding for those approved housing body and social and affordable projects that have been stalled for six months waiting for approval in the Department of housing? If so, does that mean they are in the existing targets for 2025 to 2027, inclusive, rather than additional? Will the Minister provide a timeline for how many of these homes are due to be delivered this year, next year and the year after? There is a very dishonest attempt by the Government to present the money announced yesterday and the targets as additional and extra, when I do not believe they are. The Minister needs not only to come out of hiding but also to come clean on that.

A couple of weeks earlier, I wrote to the Minister about the tenant in situ scheme because the outgoing Government and Minister could not get it together to agree the targets. We now have a situation where local authorities cannot proceed with new tenant in situ applications. It is not just angering many of us in the Opposition but also many of the Government’s own backbenchers and maybe even the Minister of State. Worst of all, it is putting families, couples and single people at risk of homelessness. Why? Because they are getting their eviction notices, their landlords are inquiring about tenant in situ and they are being told they cannot proceed. I think it is now four weeks since I wrote to the Minister and he has not replied. I raised it with Micheál Martin last week and he said it would be addressed in a matter of weeks, but then last week he said there was a problem with the allocation. It is not large enough so there are currently discussions on how we can target this scheme for those most needy and particular areas where it makes absolute sense for people who would otherwise become homeless. This sounds like the Government is going to restrict the tenant in situ scheme further than the restrictions introduced last April as well as delays. Obviously, the Minister, Deputy Browne, is not going to do it today but whether in correspondence to me or to Deputies, he needs to come clean on yesterday’s announcement and on tenant in situ and, in future, when he is not able to attend a Private Members' motion or debates from the Opposition, he should have the courtesy to pick up the phone and notify us. That is what previous Ministers did. That is what I did with Deputy Hearne this morning when I was not able to attend due to a media engagement and that is what Ministers from this Government should do. The fact the Minister has not done so shows the height of disrespect for us, this House and the electorate. The Minister of State knows that despite his heckling of Deputy O'Callaghan earlier.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Ar an gcéad dul síos, gabhaim buíochas leis na Daonlathaithe Sóisialta as ucht an rún seo a ardú ar maidin. Tabharfaimid tacaíocht don rún agus táimid in éadan leasú an Rialtais.

I can just add to what Deputy Ó Broin has said and Deputy Hearne about the failure of the senior Minister to come to the House. It now seems he is hiding and that he is scared to actually talk about housing. It is ridiculous. There is no doubt the public was sold a pup in the last election. People were promised 40,000 new homes. The CSO made it clear for quite a while that the Government was not going to get close to 40,000 but it promised it again and again. People desperately wanted to believe it was true but it was all politics at its most cynical. However, the truth is out now. We know now that the Government came up 10,000 homes short, home building is declining and the housing crisis is deepening. All that is left in the public is an air of desperation as the Government tries to distract from the failures of the past. The Government has an army of media advisers spinning all types of nonsense, such as the idea that pandering to investment funds is some kind of new idea, that the only way to reduce rents is actually to increase rents and that we are doing renters a favour, if anyone wants to believe the Taoiseach, or that cowboy Celtic tiger policies are the answer.

The Government is trying to blame the private sector in all of this. The Taoiseach keeps telling us the State cannot do everything. This is pure and utter spin. Who is claiming the State should do everything?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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If we look at the targets, they are far too low, but it is the private sector which outperforms targets every year. It is the Government which misses its public housing targets every single year. It is the State and this Government that is not pulling its weight. There is a half a billion euro hole in the housing budget this year. This is a Government that failed to build enough houses last year and now plans to spend half a billion euro less this year than last year. Far from a fresh approach, the Government is doubling down on the failed policies of the past. The Taoiseach is going around threatening renters with stripping away the little protection they have, but Fianna Fáil does not stop there. That is not far enough for it. It is reaching deeper into the bag of old tricks and pulling out from that bag section 23 tax reliefs from the architects of the crash. Section 23 drove the reckless speculation that broke this economy, saw two thirds of construction workers unemployed and gave us 3,000 ghost estates, shuttered businesses and destroyed lives. That is Fianna Fáil’s solution to the housing crisis. That is its solution to the Government’s failures.

Resurrecting section 23 will be a disaster on the same level as when Fine Gael invited in the vulture funds, a strategy which has now been embraced by Fianna Fáil as if it was something new. Some €30 billion worth of homes are held by investment funds. Institutional landlords are extracting rents that are sky high and making a healthy return. They get a free pass on paying no tax whatever on their rental income. In excess of 1,000 homes were bulk purchased by investment funds over the past two years – 1,000 homes snapped up under the noses of first-time buyers since this Government said it would end that practice. Again, it misled the public every step of the way because it is in the pockets of those developers and vulture funds and that is why we have a housing crisis.

Now that the Government is through the election, it is time to be honest and come clean. Does it want rents to come down? It obviously does not because it is removing the protection. Does it want house prices to come down? It obviously does not. If he were here, I would ask the Minister for housing to state that he wants rents and house prices to come down. I believe he will not because all the Government’s policies show it will push them in the other direction.

What we need is a serious rethink and restep in relation to a change of direction on housing. That we see the number of people in homelessness increase month after month is absolutely scandalous. Do not, like the bluffer who sat where the Minister for housing should sit now, pretend there is nothing you can do. Of course there is: ban rent increases, ban no-fault evictions, scrap the sweetheart deals for the vulture funds, end the bulk purchasing of homes and build houses that ordinary people can afford to live in.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this motion on the housing crisis. What does a housing crisis look like? Take my clinic in this week alone. On Monday morning, I had a single man who is working. He is living with his family and has nowhere to live. A family which is 12 years on the list has received a notice to quit and will be homeless in months. A family which is five years on the list and has absolutely no chance of getting social housing has received a notice to quit and will be homeless by the summer. A family which is 11 years on the list has received a notice to quit. This is what it looks like. That is what a housing crisis looks like. That is just my office. I guarantee that right across every single constituency, probably even including the Minister of State’s, people are coming asking for help and asking what we can do. When will the Government ever accept that its housing strategy has failed? Until it accepts it, this is what will happen every day.

Families and individuals - human beings - will be forced into homelessness. What does that looks like in Dublin 15? There is one homeless hub in Dublin 15 that has only recently come on stream. Where else do they go? They go to Clondalkin. They go to town. They go to Swords, Santry and all over the city. Where do their children go to school? They are still in the same place and they are forced to come back into the area every day, hang around and then go back again. That is the failure. That is what failure looks like.

There was a scheme - Deputy Ó Broin brought this up - which is the tenant in situscheme. It is a good scheme and it has helped people to stay out of homelessness. What we are getting now into our offices and the local authorities are telling us for the past number of weeks is that they cannot progress any more in the tenant in situscheme because the Government has failed to give them the targets for 2025. That is the reason people are going into homelessness. It is because the Government has not given the local authorities the targets to be able to move forward with them.

The restrictions on the tenant in situscheme make it really difficult for local authorities to engage with people who are willing to sell. There are landlords out there who want to keep their tenants in their properties and they want to sell them to the local authorities but it is caught up in so much red tape and so many delays that it is extremely difficult for them to hold on so they are pulling out of the scheme and they are going onto the private market. That is on this Government's head. I urge the Government to get its act together, get the targets, give them to the local authorities and let them get on with the job of keeping people in their homes.

Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Rents in Galway have been far too high for many years and they are only continuing to rise. We see, in Galway city, that the average rent is now over €2,100. In Galway county, it is over €1,500. That is a 70% increase just in the past five years. This is when rent pressure zones were supposed to keep rents at an affordable level but like so many of the previous Government's housing policies, they have absolutely failed in meeting their goal. Now the new Government intends on continuing its failed policies and the Taoiseach is talking about scrapping rent pressure zones, one of the only measly protections renters have.

The reality is we need to ban rent increases completely. The reality is that, for people across Galway city, as rents increase, all it is doing is pushing ever more people into homelessness. That is something that Galway cannot continue to have and cannot take more of. The local authorities are working extremely hard to keep people out of homelessness but they are struggling because of this Government's failed policies.

Emergency accommodation in Galway is full. There is a waiting list. I am dealing with many families who are either couch surfing, living with family or living with friends, and that can be going on for years.

People in Galway can also access homeless HAP supports but these are meaningless because there are no rental properties in Galway that fall under HAP. What are people supposed to do? Last week I had somebody in with me who was trying to get HAP and is in homeless accommodation with two young children, and he needs to be near the hospital for medical purposes. He has to stay beside the hospital. What can he do? He cannot move somewhere extremely far away. Even the HAP place finders find it impossible to find places for people to rent. This is not what you call a functioning housing policy.

Even when a person through some kind of stroke of luck is able to find somewhere suitable to rent with HAP, it is barely enough support to keep the rent paid. Most people are paying a sizable top-up rent to their landlord every month in addition to the HAP contribution. I had one particular case, and I will detail it to the Minister of State here because it is one of those cases that really struck me. I had one woman who had left an abusive relationship and was temporarily staying in a refuge while she was looking for a place to rent. In County Galway, there was nothing affordable but she finally found a place in Mayo. At this point, she was desperate. It was time for her to move on from the refuge. She had seen other women in the refuge end up in emergency accommodation when they were not able to find anywhere to rent. She had also seen women return to the home where they had been suffering abuse because they could not get anywhere else to live. That is horrifying, especially when we have already seen women killed in 2025. She decided to agree to the tenancy in Mayo. Because of current HAP scheme rules, she would get the Mayo HAP rents but pay the Galway differential rate. That is a lower HAP rate and a higher differential payment in this case so she is squeezed in every way. To me, those are institutional barriers that we place in front of women who are trying to get away from abuse. At the time, I wrote to the Minister for housing and he, unfortunately, completely refused to engage on the issue. It is clear to me that we are continuing with these institutional barriers that mean that women cannot get away from domestic abuse and domestic violence. I have seen so much domestic abuse and domestic violence presenting in my office over the past number of months - far more than I have ever seen in the past ten years - and every time that abuse is disclosed to me, it is specifically linked to the housing crisis that they are in and the impact that that has on their ability to leave that domestic abuse situation. This is something that this Government needs to take seriously. We need to make sure that this Government's housing policies do everything possible to support women who need to leave domestic abuse situations.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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It seems that every time that housing is outsourced to the market, it causes problems. Whether that is for students, asylum seekers, people in nursing homes or people on local authority waiting lists, the answer from the Government always seems to be to outsource it again. Their idea is to build more units, not to focus on social and affordable housing.

The housing crisis is the biggest issue facing the State today and the failure to deliver sufficient supply, especially of affordable and social homes, has had devastating consequences for ordinary people. People are forced to live in old houses, in increasingly damp and hazardous conditions, posing serious threats to their health. Young people are emigrating at an alarming rate because they cannot afford extortionate rents.

The House has heard many examples from the Social Democrats - I thank them for bringing the motion today - of individual cases. In my own constituency, it is hard to find a family that has not been impacted by this crisis. This week alone, in my office I had a family of two adults and two children who have recently been told it would be 12 years before they would be considered for a house, and another couple is waiting for a house for 16 years. A 67-year-old man who is in hospital with pneumonia is living in or returning to a house that is nearly as old as himself. He suffers from COPD and arthritis, is recovering from pneumonia, as I said, and he is expected to go back to an old house in damp conditions. I also met a wheelchair user who has been waiting years for a ground floor apartment to no avail and another family with three children, one of whom has Down's syndrome, that needs more space for all the medical equipment they need in that house.

It is glaringly obvious to anybody who is paying attention that the solutions offered by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the past ten or 14 years have not worked. They have refused to change tack. The only changes that the Coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry group, which includes my constituency colleagues, junior Minister, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, and Government-supporting Deputy Danny Healy-Rae make will be at the expense of ordinary workers and families.

Unlike this Government, I do not believe that renters should be punished for Government failures. I certainly do not believe that it is acceptable to pull the wool over people's eyes, as the Government did recently when it claimed it would complete 40,000 homes by the end of 2024 during the general election campaign. They have missed their targets, year after year. In fact, 30,000 homes were completed, a far cry from the 60,000 that will be required over the next five years. Let me be clear. The housing plan of the Government is failing the people of Kerry and the people of the State.

During the previous Government, house prices and rents rose to historic highs. In Kerry, rents rose by between 6% and 8.5% last year and the average monthly payment is now in or around €1,400 per month, the 15th consecutive quarter in which rents have jumped in Kerry. Where is the change that is to happen? What is the Lowry group bringing to the table?

As if it could not get any worse, the latest move from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry Independents may cause rents to rise even further. If the Minister were here - it is ironic that someone who was calling out other people for hiding seems to have disappeared over the past few weeks - we would ask him about the tenant in situ scheme. In July, three or four years ago, when the scheme was announced initially with no targets and no scheme shown to the local authority in Kerry, the then Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, said it was a cop out by Kerry County Council to say it did not have the procedures in place, but the same thing is happening three years later.

Last weekend, the Minister's revelations put the fear of God into many renters. They were told to brace themselves for difficult decisions that lie ahead. Were things not bad enough without having to put the fear of God into renters?

The situation is similarly bleak for those looking to purchase homes. House prices are rising faster in Kerry than in many other areas. The national average is 9% but house prices in Kerry rose by 11.4%. The average price is now 41.6% above pre-Covid levels. Is it any wonder when housing supply in Kerry is down 17% on last year, one third of the average from 2015 to 2019.

People want to see this Government fix the crisis-----

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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-----I will finish on this - not give kickbacks to developers, stand up for ordinary workers and families who want to out a roof over their heads, build more social and affordable homes, ban rent increases and ban bulk buying.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is very disappointing, yet again, that we do not have even a Minister of State from the Department of housing. I tabled a housing motion in the Dáil last week with my Labour Party colleagues. The Minister for housing was, unfortunately, not available last week and did not even have the courtesy to contact me or my colleague, Deputy Bacik, to say he could not come to the House. I understand there was a convention before that when the line Minister was not available, the Minister would contact the sponsor of the motion. I am disappointed about that. We have not had an adequate explanation as to why the Minister is not here this morning either. Perhaps he has been locked in a box by lobbyists or investors.

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion, the essence of which the Labour Party supports. I have a strong sense of déjà vu. Here we are, another week, another motion that will invariably be voted down, an absent Minister, and a similar generic reply just restating what the Government has already said and offering very little in the way of meaningful change or engagement.

I represent the city of Limerick where the average price for a three-bedroom semi-detached house is now €320,000. It is a city where, on Monday, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors amended a very small Part 8 application for a development of housing for elderly people and people with disabilities to bring it down to three storeys, as a result of which the development is now unviable. We have a situation where, during the recent extreme weather, rough sleepers were turned away from emergency accommodation. There are now 456 people accessing emergency accommodation in Limerick. That is up from 149 in 2024. My inbox, WhatsApp and my clinics are inundated with people who come to me from situations of complete despair. It is very upsetting because in a lot of cases there is very little I can do for people.

With regard to the tenant in situ scheme, when will the unit allocation for 2025 be confirmed? We are nearly into March. I am dealing with numerous cases, as I am sure other Deputies across the House are, of people who cannot move forward with their applications because the local authority has not received the circular or the allocation. That means people are barrelling down towards their eviction date with absolutely nowhere to go.

When the Government spoke before the election about reaching its housing targets, to say the Government was economical with the truth is the understatement of the year. The Government knew it could not and would not reach the target of 40,000 despite its own repeated use of very selective data. The idea that the solution to this is to open the floodgates to tax cuts for developers and institutional investors is deeply misguided and flawed. We know construction costs have increased but we also know that more than 16% of the cost of construction is made up of the cost of land. Several independent reports flagged that the number of apartments being built in 2024 would fall by more than 50% as early as July and August of last year, so it is simply not credible for the Government to come along in the run up to the election and say it will definitely meet the 40,000 figure. This was caused by the Government's decision not to clamp down on institutional investors bulk buying apartments and the reliance of Housing for All on these investors to deliver apartments in Dublin. These institutional investors do not only elbow out buyers, they also artificially inflate market rents. We see this time and again with some of the large apartment developments in Dublin city, where management companies offer rent-free months to prospective tenants to keep overall rents high and to work around the cap on rent increases.

We know the housing market in this country is rigged. It is rigged against renters, against first-time buyers and against young people. It is rigged in favour of the vested interests - landlords, property speculators and institutional investors - which this Government, like the previous one, seems intent on bending the knee to. It is very clear this Government is already out of ideas. The Fianna Fáil side of the Government wants to re-erect the Galway tent while the Fine Gael side is determined to plod on in the same manner as before with sweetheart deals for vulture and cuckoo funds. We have had the absurd scenes where the Taoiseach last week and the housing Minister yesterday on the "News at One" said nothing is off the table as far as tax cuts are concerned. The Minister for Finance, on the other hand, is saying clearly that Celtic tiger tax cuts should not and cannot return. The idea that the solution to this crisis is to dust off the best of the Celtic tiger with the bill put on the country's credit card is insane. We know where these policies got us and it is primarily people my age who have had, and are continuing, to foot the bill.

The Taoiseach spoke about difficulties activating brownfield sites. That is specifically why we in the Labour Party want to see a land management and land activation unit in each local authority and why we seek to scale up the LDA to meet this challenge. We also need a stick, and that is why we need to see the vacant homes tax at least tripled. The Government talks about cutting the cost of building homes yet refuses to even consider implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report to cap the cost of land, something that would actually reduce the cost of housing. Instead, the Government wants a direct transfer of wealth to property developers and institutional investors without any guarantee this saving will be passed on to putative homeowners. The Taoiseach himself called for the implementation of the Kenny report in 2018. He said he thought implementing Kenny was the morally right thing to do. The Labour Party introduced a Bill in 2021 to implement the provisions of the Kenny report, and much like our motion was last week and like this motion will be, it was voted down by Government.

I welcome the fact the motion calls on the Government to make use of EU funding streams. The European Union can and should play a greater role in solving this crisis. My colleague, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP, as head of the Irish delegation in the influential S&D group, successfully helped negotiate the appointment of a housing commissioner . I would urge the Minister if he were here - he is not - to invite Commissioner Dan Jørgensen to visit Ireland as soon as practically possible. The Government must make better use of existing EU funding streams. I know my colleague Aodhán will be pushing hard for more EU investment and for changes to state aid rules in favour of investment in social and affordable housing. Member states should be allowed to double policy investment in affordable housing, but the Government also needs to play its part and bring forward a working definition of what actually constitutes affordable housing. It is anticipated the EU may revise state aid rules as soon as next year to enable housing support measures and the Government must be ready to pull every lever at its disposal.

The Labour Party believes the State must give builders alternatives to expensive private equity funding. That is why we want to see a State investment and development bank that will provide finance to private housing development using a portion of the €8.4 billion placed in the Future Ireland Fund.

We also want to develop a new, long-term financing product for approved housing bodies, underwritten by the State, to provide financing at 3% or less over 50 and 60 years. We would unlock private savings by developing a housing solidarity bond via State savings, with an attractive interest rate to redirect private investment from vulture funds towards housing development and provide further opportunities for credit unions to underwrite mortgages and invest in housing using surplus savings.

I reiterate what I said last week, that we must also retain rent pressure zones at least until a viable alternative becomes available because although rent pressure zones are a blunt instrument, they have slowed the runaway train that is the private rental sector. I would challenge anyone to come into this House and defend the conduct of some of the big landlords and institutional investors in this country, the same landlords and institutional investors that Government rigged the housing market in favour of.

The fact is that we have half a million young people living at home and 1 million people stuck in the private rental trap. These people are mostly my age. I am in my early 30s. They are usually young, hard-working professionals who will never be able to have a secure home of their own and now, if you are to believe what is being floated in the media this morning, the Government effectively wants to evict them from the box bedroom and to move them into the garden shed. This sounds like another of Government's famous quick fixes, after co-living, build-to-rent and strategic housing developments. We need serious long-term solutions and not beds in sheds. We have a horrific housing crisis with record rents. People cannot get mortgage approval. The fact that the solution to this is to shove your fully grown adult child into what I would describe as a glorified wooden coffin at the end of the garden will not cut it.

Irish parents have had a clear goal for many years, my own parents included. It is simply summed up as being to get the children out of the house. This policy further seeks to undermine that. The fact that the Government wants to move people out of their houses and into log cabins is farcical and ridiculous. Is this really the best the Government can offer? It is saying it cannot house people properly but will move them into the shed.

As I sum up, I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. I am disappointed that we do not have more people here on the Government benches, because the same tumbleweed that blew across the House last week is blowing here yet again. We are clear about what we believe in setting our vision for a State-led approach and greater State investment in housing. We will make no apologies for that, despite the heckling yesterday of my party leader at Leaders' Questions. We are clear about why we decided not to go into government. We knew Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would not and could not offer the change that people need regarding housing and were not meaningfully willing to engage with us about our housing policies. The Taoiseach, frankly, is going to have to come up with a better answer than turning to us and saying that we did not want to sit with the Government.

I am disappointed by the lack of any semblance of meaningful engagement. The Opposition comes here week after week and brings forward constructive solutions. We in the Labour Party have brought forward many constructive solutions and we get the same generic response from the Government. It is disappointing and disrespectful that the Minister for housing, for the second week in a row, has not bothered to come to the House to account for the Government's failing housing policies.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister does not bother his backside to turn up for two housing debates in a row and the Government refuses to discuss for nine months the Housing Commission report which provided a damning indictment of the failures of Government housing policy. Why? It is because the Government does not want to solve the housing crisis. It does not care about the people who have been on housing lists for a decade or more or families and children in emergency accommodation, people who are quaking with fear because they are threatened with eviction. The Government does not care about them. The people it cares about are the corporate landlords, vulture funds and property investors. It is dancing to their tune and they do not want to solve the housing crisis because they make money from the housing crisis.

The sooner the people in this country who care about it and are affected by it realise that that is why we have had over a decade of a housing crisis and, before that, a property crash, the better. The emphasis is on "property", which has dominated this country, because the rich in Ireland and now their friends, international investors, make money from it. Why on earth would corporate landlords which can charge €2,500 a month want to see rental property which is charged at an affordable level for the average worker of €1,000 a month? It is self-evident that they would not want that to happen. They could not make profits if they did. Why would a property investor which is selling houses in my area on what used to be NAMA land for €600,000 want to sell them for €200,000, which would be affordable for an ordinary worker? They have no interest in that happening. They have an interest in making sure it does not happen. That is the problem.

It is summed up for me by a number of developments in my area. Niche Living is a co-living development on Eblana Avenue in Dún Laoghaire. We campaigned for social and affordable housing. We got a co-living development. It is now being advertised on booking.com for €1,000 a week for tourists. St. Helen's Court is an apartment block across from my office. Most of it has been empty for seven or eight years. They have evicted all the tenants and it is owned by vulture funds. They sit on it, waiting to evict the tenants, ramp up the value of the asset and then flip it on. That is who the Government is representing. It is not representing ordinary people. We need a revolution in this country on the issue of housing because you lot do not care.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Half a million young people are living with their parents, including two thirds of under-35s. The Government has said today that people can go from the back bedroom to the back garden or alternatively to Boston, Berlin or wherever. Young people in my constituency told me when we were out canvassing that we would not see anyone over 23 in the area and that young Blanchardstown is in Australia. I will be parliamentary here. This Government has just given a massive "F you" to young people on housing. The Government has the brass neck to not have the Minister here and then to send the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, somebody who had to admit that he did not declare his own property interests, is a major landlord and has profited off the housing misery and housing crisis by selling homes to local authorities and not declaring them. It is an absolute insult.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can we stick to the motion?

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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With respect to the Social Democrats, they should not have started the debate with the likes of that.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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What has been stated here today is factually incorrect. It is factually incorrect and I ask Deputy Coppinger to withdraw that remark.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Deputy Troy can answer after my time.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Stick to the motion, please, Deputy Coppinger.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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People who are profiting from the housing crisis are coming in to answer about it. It is unbelievable. Not everyone had a chance to buy a gaff when they were 20, like the Minister of State. He said he was not a person of privilege, but he is. I want to go back to the Government itself. It wants to pivot to the private sector. IRES REIT profits have increased 3% since the statement by the Taoiseach on Monday. Landlords got tax breaks of €160 million. The Government is feeding the beast and landlords are not interested until rents go up even more.

I want to finish by speaking about the public sector. It has been said it cannot resolve the housing crisis but of course it can resolve the housing crisis. It has done it before. Please do not kowtow to the idea that the private sector has an interest. We have a major land bank in Dublin West where the council has told us it could build 7,000 homes with schools, facilities and parks. It is sitting idle. What is this Government going to do about other local authorities with similar land banks included in their long-term strategy?

Is it going to leave the councils off the hook, or is it going to push them and fund them to see those homes get built? What it has done today is an absolute insult to young people in the private rented sector and to anybody like teachers, nurses and therapists who we cannot get. The whole crisis is affecting every single thing seeping into society and they do not care.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion. There are six basic asks in their motion. They are pretty basic when we have a housing crisis with just under 15,000 people homeless. Homeless accommodation in Galway is at capacity and people are waiting between 15 and 20 years. People are living in tents. People are living in cars. People are sleeping on couches. I have talked more on this subject than any other subject since I came in here in 2016. This Government and previous governments have absolutely created this crisis with their policies. One of the worst was the HAP, and the legislation for it, which twisted language on its head and called the housing assistance payment - money straight into the landlord's pocket - social housing. Another was our utter failure to build public housing on public land. Even now when we talk about that, it is a sleight of hand with regard to social housing. HAP is not social housing. Social and public housing is local authorities, which should be properly funded, building public housing on public land.

I read the Simon report every quarter, which tells us there are no properties available in Galway under any HAP scheme. I am here as somebody from Galway where people daily come into my office begging me to do something as a TD. We have a tenant in situ scheme. I have often described the Government's policy and previous policies as a jigsaw with no overall picture. It relies on the market. When the market fails to provide, it bolsters the market with a jigsaw of schemes. One of them is the tenant in situ scheme, and then like that it just stops it. The Government encourages the councils, like the city council in Galway, to buy houses to protect the tenant when the house is being sold and then with a phone call, it says it is suspended. I have desperately tried both Ministers of State. I have asked the Taoiseach. I have used every parliamentary method to try to get an answer - parliamentary questions, standing up under promised legislation, a Topical Issue last night and again now. Is the tenant in situ scheme suspended or not, pending the new scheme? Will the Ministers of State answer that to make language mean something?

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this motion, which I support. I am disappointed that like the Labour Party motion last week, there is no mention of the defective concrete crisis in this motion. This is a crisis that impacts tens of thousands of people in County Donegal and 16 other counties. It is a crisis that every single party needs to address. Every day we discover more problems with the Government's defective concrete blocks scheme. We discovered this week that homeowners are being unfairly penalised by delays due to a lack of contractors and Donegal County Council. In many cases contractors are forced to take on other jobs due to cash flow issues because of the council's processing delays. Builders are understandably abandoning these sites due to unpredictable payments and families are being left in a difficult situation. These delays are completely out of control. Homeowners yet again are the ones expected to carry the financial burden. It is clear that application progress is completely inefficient and chronically slow. Excessive paperwork, portal outages, slow claim approvals, repeat submissions and an overwhelming amount of further information requests are slowing down this progress. The portal system lacks basic reminders for key deadlines, leaving homeowners vulnerable to missing extensions. We know now that the 65-week timescale is unrealistic for people on this scheme to complete their builds. We have seen how the Government's own construction projects, particularly the hospital, are taking a very long time.

We have thousands of homes in Donegal under construction, and a severe lack of contractors. Of course there will be delays. Instead of the council unnecessarily contributing to these delays it should be addressing the minor discrepancies and the final claim rather than delaying the whole process mid claim. I ask the Government to work with Donegal County Council to provide an extended timeline and ensure a swift process turnaround. We must do all we can to ensure that these people, who are traumatised and are victims, are not subject to more unnecessary hardship. I ask the Minister to show a bit of compassion for these impacted families.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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The devastating housing crisis is undermining the social fabric of Irish society. This housing disaster was created by the Bertie Ahern Government, which privatised social, affordable and public housing, and handed over the housing market to the profit motive of the private market and stopped local authorities building houses for 20 years. The result is the disaster we now have, and that disaster now looks like 15,000 families homeless including almost 5,000 children. There are 120,000 families on local authority waiting lists and HAP schemes. There are skyrocketing rents and almost half a million young people in their 30s and 40s living in their childhood bedrooms. It means thousands of families locked out of home ownership, either slightly over the local authority limit for the waiting list and not able to afford or to get a mortgage or condemned to pay huge rents and to poverty into the future. It means forced emigration with young people forced to emigrate to Australia, Canada and the United States of America.

It is shocking to see that the current Government is again placing housing at the mercy of the private market. That decision can only create additional misery into the future. The housing crisis is an emergency and needs to be dealt with as an emergency. As I have said before and will continue to say, we need a declaration of a housing emergency in law. What would that housing emergency do? It would oblige the State, in law, to deal with housing as the overriding priority, and it would oblige each Government Department, in law, to housing proof its policies and actions. It would freeze and reduce rents. It would allow local authorities to purchase vacant properties by agreement or compulsory purchase and refurbish those for people on the housing waiting list. It would require the sale of houses to provide for tenants in situ to remain as tenants and stop the drift into homelessness. It would stop the block purchase of houses and apartments by wealthy individuals, vulture funds and developers on a buy-to-let basis. This would stop these individuals and organisations competing with first-time buyers. This is generally thought of as a city problem, but I have lately come across it in the constituency in my own town of Cahir, where a small development has been purchased by an investor even though local families had already paid a deposit. An emergency would provide emergency funding for a massive programme of social and affordable housing by local authorities on public land.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I welcome this motion on housing, particularly in light of what we learned yesterday about County Mayo being the biggest county for derelict properties. Some 14% of the country's derelict properties are in Mayo. It is also the second highest in terms of vacancy, at almost 11%. Yet so little is being done - it is important the Minister hears this - to assist local authority housing staff in turning over those properties. It is not just on the private side. Local authorities right across this country are responsible for hoarding, and I believe the State is the biggest hoarder of vacant properties with 4,000 social and local authority homes across the country vacant.

It takes an average of eight months to turn around these properties between lettings while it takes an average of less than a month in the private sector. It is really important that urgency is shown in that situation to turn those properties around quickly. We should look at directly employing tradesmen who will work with the local authorities on a full-time basis to ensure that those small issues are dealt with as quickly as possible.

On vacancy, I welcome the vacant property grant but, when it was initially introduced, you essentially had to be a homeless homeowner to qualify. I recently came across a homeless homeowner. He had a derelict property and came into my constituency office seeking assistance. I sought out every scheme the Government has to offer and found that we could not help him. We cannot help him because he cannot draw down funds in advance or in stage payments. This man is a pensioner and is unable to draw down any finance from the banking sector. This man will remain homeless because he is unable to access support through the vacant property grant. Will the Minister consider that situation? Will he consider introducing a scheme that would allow payments to be drawn down to help homeowners who are struggling to come up with the finance, if possible?

On construction costs, I would like the Minister to seriously consider reducing the cost of construction by removing VAT from construction materials. The State takes the lion's share of building costs in this country. As I have mentioned before, this Government is great on rhetoric, PR and schemes but it is very poor on delivery. I will give another example. The affordable housing scheme is essentially still a pipe dream in Mayo. Five units have been promised but they are yet to come on stream. We hope they will come on stream soon. The entire part of Mayo I am from, the Claremorris municipal district, an area in south and east Mayo, will not even be considered for affordable housing. There is an absence of any real scheme. On the tenant in situscheme, a constituent called me last week who has been waiting longer than a year to sell a property to the local authority and who cannot do so. In the absence of these schemes, will the Minister consider reducing the cost of construction by removing VAT from construction material? It would make a very great difference in reducing the cost of construction.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)
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I wish the Ministers well in their new positions. I have been in construction all of my life. Part of the Government's plan is now to allow buildings at the back of other properties. I do not have an issue with that once they are proper buildings that can be built. What I do have an issue with are the planning guidelines as they apply in County Limerick. For a number of years, we have been told that we cannot built to the back, side or front of any place because there is no infrastructure to allow for it. People now have their children, their children's partners or wives or their grandchildren living with them. We now have ten living in my own house. I am in the construction business so you would imagine that I could help with the cost of building but, when they try to save for a mortgage, it is shoved another step away from them. They are saving hard but, when they try to build a house or get planning permission for one, it is pushed away from them as a result of cost inflation. Every week, I get a letter telling me that the price of concrete products or anything oil-based has gone up another 10%. Over the last two years, there have been 11 increases in the cost of building materials across the board. The people who are living at home have no choice because they cannot afford a house. They now need something they can place within the area of their own house. I do not have a problem with that but people in the countryside should also be allowed to build on a half-acre site to allow their parents to step to one side and have their own private unit. This would allow the next generation to go into the parents' house but the laws do not allow for it. If we are to allow something to be placed behind the house, we must also allow building on a site that is capable of taking a second house. In a city, you can build 20 houses on half an acre but in the county you are only allowed one. We have to make sure that the next generation, both in urban and rural areas, are allowed to build for the future.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I wish the three Ministers well in their new portfolios. I welcome this morning's announcement on modular homes and log cabins but there is one thing I cannot fathom. I hear it is 40 sq. m. The modular homes being built at the moment are 600 sq. ft, which is 60 sq. m. I do not know why it is 20 sq. m less but I still welcome it because it is going to help people. Let us give praise when praise is due.

The planning situation needs to be tackled. An emergency should be called because objections are holding up many planning permissions. I ask the Minister to look at that. I also ask him to look at one-off housing because councils are so inconsistent. I was talking to a person in Sligo this morning and apparently Sligo is nearly a no-go area. I have also been talking to people in Leitrim and other counties. I welcome the Croí Cónaithe scheme. It is helping a lot of people. However, there are inconsistencies between councils. I will give an example. I know a person whose chimney was cracked in their old two-storey house. They took it down and put up slates. They then could not get an exemption because they had taken down the chimney. What madness is going on in the planning sections of councils? I ask the Ministers to address that. As the Ministers know well, in building houses, sewage and water are ferociously important.

I will ask the Ministers to do one thing. I have brought this up a number of times. If a builder is building 100 houses in the private sector but has not done a State job in the last three years, they cannot tender. That is total madness within the Department from whoever wrote that rule. You could be building 100 private houses but still cannot tender for a public job. I ask the Ministers to look at that.

There is another thing that needs to be looked at within the Department. People give out about the councils. Yes, they can be slow at times. If someone dies and the house is being done up, there is damn all funding from the Department. If you are to bring the house up to the specifications introduced by the former Minister, Eamon Ryan, it will cost €60,000 to €80,000. What does the Department provide? It is €25,000 to €30,000. Do councils have money? No. Everyone is wondering why there are 3,000 to 4,000 houses that are lying idle and have not been done up, as was said earlier. It is because councils do not have the funding.

There is another thing the Ministers can do. The Department brought out a good scheme under Deputy Darragh O'Brien. The scheme was for sewage schemes in areas where there was no Irish Water infrastructure. Not one has been done in three years. Why is that? It is because it must be done to Irish Water specifications and you have to go back to the councils. It goes over and back. The Ministers' Department gave a budget for works throughout the country but not one red cent has been spent within those towns that need sewage schemes to help in providing water.

I ask the Ministers to look at those few fundamental things. On top of that, an emergency should be called with regard to social and affordable housing. As has been said earlier, there are many councils that do not even know about the affordable housing schemes. They need to be brought in for a day to be told how they operate. If that does not happen, it will not be done. This is not about criticising but about throwing in ideas and trying to work together. We can come in here and argue every day but what we need to do is to try to put in ideas that will work to solve this problem. I ask the Ministers to listen to the ideas I have given them and to take them on board.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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It is good to have the opportunity to speak on housing again so soon. I welcome the motion from my Social Democrats colleagues. Looking at the Government amendment, I would vote against it but I will put on the record that I am participating in a pairing arrangement today and so will not be voting. However, I will speak in support of the motion. It is very important to emphasise a couple of things. The Government statement says that some of the investment has to come from the private sector and that there is not an over-reliance on it.

It seems that going forward there will be an increasing reliance on the private sector. The so-called vulture funds and investment funds that are coming in are obviously there to make a profit. There is no way in the world the price of any housing for sale, if they sell it, will be cheaper. The rents will not be cheaper either.

I will give the local example of Lucan swimming pool. For some reason, South Dublin County Council decided to tender out the management of this pool, which was won by a private company. As a result, there are higher costs for using the Lucan pool. For example, it is €6 for a swim in the Clondalkin pool operated by the council but it is €10 for a swim at Lucan. I can only quantify that in housing terms by saying if people are in it to make their profit and margin, and to give their investors a return, it will always be more expensive. If we are talking about giving breaks, we should be giving breaks to small landlords, those who own one property and have been keeping people on reduced rents for years but are being squeezed out of the market, or the single property investor. I agree with rent pressure zones and keeping rents down, but if there are people operating in rent pressure zones whose tenant leaves of his or her own volition, they should be able to put it in for a market rent. Other than that, we need to keep prices down. We need to give tax incentives to assist the smaller landlords.

The State should be the biggest developer in the country. I do not mean the State should don all the shovels and do everything. It should work with the private sector but as the lead partner. There are ideas. In County Louth, for example, there is a housing development that will be produced in a new and innovative manner through 3-D printing. Although modular housing has been overblown in some areas, in other cases it is being delivered more cheaply than traditional bricks and mortar.

I would like more time to speak, but I welcome something I raised a while back at the council regarding people being able to build in back gardens. As long as it is not being rented out to the private sector and is for family use, it is a brilliant idea. Let us keep moving with it as quickly as possible.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I will share my time with the Minister. I again thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. It is important that we discuss this important topic. It is also fair to say, despite what was said, that we all want the same thing. There is a shared ambition in the House for increased home ownership, increased housing delivery, decreased rents and ending homelessness. Despite that, it is a mischaracterisation to say that our interests are developer-led. They are not. We are interested in helping the same people that the people on the other side of the House are interested in helping.

It is clear that, despite the progress we have made under Housing for All, we need to increase supply. We need to get to approximately 50,000 houses per year. To do that will cost around €20 billion per annum. The State's contribution at the moment is in or around €6 billion. Whether or not that increases - everything is on the table and it may well increase - the fact of the matter is there still remains a deficit of approximately €14 billion. The State cannot do that on its own. We cannot fill that gap on our own. It is, therefore, important that we have input from private investors. However, as soon as we suggest that it is completely mischaracterised. We hear accusations that we are only out there for the developers and that the Celtic tiger is back. That is simply not true and is a mischaracterisation of the truth.

We constantly hear the Housing Commission being referenced in these debates. We are putting on the table and suggesting solutions that have been put forward by that commission. One solution is that we have a diverse and stable source of funding, which includes funding and sources of investment from private investors. I have also constantly heard during today's debate that the RPZs are gone and we are getting rid of rent caps. Nothing of that sort is being suggested. A review is going on. It is only right that we review and look over what we have done so far. To say that we are ending rent caps or that RPZs are gone is, again, a mischaracterisation.

Deputy Hearne mentioned a mother living in emergency accommodation and a baby being born there. Of course, that is unacceptable. That is something we all want to see an end to. Deputy Catherine Connolly referenced people living in tents. These are situations that are unacceptable that we want to see an end to. The Deputies are right to bring these up and this is their opportunity to raise those issues, but what we never hear from the Opposition is how Housing for All has helped people and where it has been a success, which it has. In my constituency, I have seen hundreds of people get secure tenure from social housing under Housing for All. That is something we never hear about. I know these people. They have keys to their houses and are very glad of interventions from Housing for All. We never hear of those people who availed of the help-to-buy scheme and simply would not have a house without that scheme. We never hear of those people who have availed of the vacant property scheme. Housing for All has helped. It is not perfect but it has helped, although of course we need to do more. We also hear about emigration and people going to Australia quite often in this debate, but we never hear about those who are coming back, which they are. They are coming back in their droves. I know them. They are friends and people my age, and both younger and older, who are coming back. That is something we do not hear about.

We need to have a mature debate on this. I welcome the debate but there has to be room for the private sector to fill that gap. That is quite clear.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. We all have a shared ambition of solving the housing crisis. We may come at it from different angles but keeping the debate going is very important.

I will address the comment Deputy Bacik made yesterday on me not being present for Private Members' business last week. The Cabinet was sitting at the time. That is where I was, but two Ministers of State for housing were present. In relation to-----

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Where were you this morning?

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, it is the Minister's turn now.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am here.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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No, you were not here for the debate.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am here.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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You came in at the very end.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Hearne had his speaking time.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, there is no talking across the Chamber. The Minister to speak, please.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everybody who has contributed to this very important debate. As my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, stated at the outset, this Government is absolutely committed to building more homes in Ireland. We are working continuously to meet the challenge to design and implement policies that shift the dial on delivery and to review and improve our approach where we identify obstacles to meet our targets. In that regard, we want to work collectively with Deputies throughout the House to bring forward solutions to the challenges that we face. This requires addressing the many challenges around housing delivery to achieve that shared goal rather than creating further obstacles or difficulties.

Addressing Ireland's housing shortage requires a substantial increase in the supply of new homes for purchase and rent. In that respect, simplifications are not constructive. They do not build homes and they set public opinion against channels that do. We must be clear on our purpose in attracting private capital; it is to increase the supply of housing. While we hear a lot of high-level remarks in here and a lot of ideology, we do not hear how we will increase that supply of housing and how we will get to those houses that we need delivered.

While Housing for All is backed by unprecedented State investment of more than €6 billion per annum, developing homes will require a significant amount of investment capital. The Government cannot deliver on this programme alone. Through the updated modelling undertaken by the Department of Finance, it is estimated that €20 billion of development funding per annum, comprising both debt and equity, will be required to develop the 50,000 homes per year that we need. While a portion of this will come from our domestic banks, the majority of private development finance will be acquired from international sources. Institutional investment, such as investment by Irish and European pension funds, is critically important in generating the additional supply of homes we need. Without this investment, activity in the housing market would be much reduced and would increase the significant pressure already facing renters and prospective homeowners.

Capital from well-established investors, including pension and insurance funds, is a normal facet of housing systems in many of our European neighbours and beyond. External sources of finance will be needed to bridge the gap between the overall funding requirements to build 50,000 homes each year and that provided via direct Exchequer funding, State borrowing, HBFI and the domestic banking sector. Apartment development in particular is capital-intensive. The forward investment provided by institutional finance has been a key enabler by unlocking the development capital required, enabling construction to proceed and to deliver much-needed supply. Many of these homes would not be available today without that investment. Since 2019, apartments as a proportion of overall completions have risen from 16% to 33%. This would not have happened in the absence of non-bank funding.

Overall, it is clear that in order to continue to make progress we need investment from multiple sources both private and public. Our mix of policies must reflect that. The State is doing more than it ever has before. An unprecedented level of public resources is being directed at housing. That is the right thing to do and the Government will continue to do it.

However, we cannot do it alone. We need more housing of every type – social, affordable and private. This can be achieved only through the public and private sectors working together and their respective strengths. The Government is firmly focused on the delivery of more homes for families, individuals, those who need support from the State, private owners, renters and right-sizers. Housing needs are varied and we have a multifaceted response to them. We have seen much progress in the delivery of homes; however, we know we need to do much more and we are committed to doing what is needed.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister for his comments. What is happening is deeply frustrating. Government policy should not rely on luck. Indeed, the people of Ireland should not have to rely on luck when it comes to housing, but it is too often the case. I believe the Minister will agree with me because we are now starting to see the unravelling of the housing policies of successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments. What has come to pass is that the relationships between the parties are coming apart. We are seeing discontent, tension and thinking-out-loud policy. We are now asking young people to sleep in sheds and we are talking about the eradication of rent pressure zones and tax cuts for developers. I am starting to wonder whether we are talking to the same people in Ireland. When it comes to housing, is the Government hearing from the same people we are hearing from, the people who cannot cope anymore with the precarity of their living situation? They are either homeless or facing the threat of homelessness. They may be ten years or more on a social housing list. Children and families are in family hubs, which were meant to be temporary solutions, despite it being years on. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, said this morning it is unacceptable, but these policies are accepting it. Not only are the policies accepting the situation, they are also doubling down on it. It is worsening around us, not improving, so it is very disingenuous for the Government to say it is committed to improvement and seeing effects. It is not committed to these because the policy is not changing. The precarity of so many people's living circumstances will continue to worsen. That is a fact because we rely on the private market to meet a public need. That is on the Government.

We are here and we are ready. The Taoiseach said yesterday he is open to and wants a debate on housing. Where are we? What are we doing? It is so disingenuous to think this is a debate on housing. We are not talking about policy here. The Minister arrived in for the end of the debate. I believe things can be better. We and others in this Chamber are here to work constructively on solutions, but it has to start with an acknowledgment that where things are right now with housing policy is very concerning and does not seem to be getting any better.

Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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I find it really hard to listen to the Government's rhetoric on housing. The Minister comes in here and talks about the progress the Government has made but homelessness has hit an all-time high. How is that in any sense progress? Rents and house prices are soaring, and schemes such as the help-to-buy scheme are just driving up house prices. The Government is failing people in this country every single day, yet its members come into the Dáil and state they are doing more than ever before. It is clearly not working.

Like my colleague, I wonder whether the Government members are meeting the same people I meet. Are they meeting the multigenerational families who are crammed into small houses? Not only are people stuck in childhood bedrooms but there are parents, children and grandchildren living together not out of choice but out of necessity. There are people sleeping in doorways and tents. There are people existing in emergency accommodation. I say “existing” because it is hard to have a life when you are stuck in homelessness. There are older people being given notices to quit and they have nowhere to go. There are people waiting for over a decade for social housing in Cork city, and young people emigrating because they have lost hope of ever owning a home in this country. These are the people I see and meet and who need solutions, not spin from the Government.

It is really frustrating that when we highlight these issues, we are told we do not have solutions. When we set out our solutions, the Government refuses to listen. Its members turns up late. Fine Gael members seem not to have turned up at all. Despite the Taoiseach having said yesterday he wants a debate on housing policy, the Government does not engage in it. All we get are spin and bluster.

We have set out in detail, in numerous documents, our solutions. I encourage the Minister to read them. We have detailed housing policies and he can have a read of them. We have also set out in detail, in this motion, some of the solutions. They include closing the loopholes that allow investor funds to avoid tax, increasing the stamp duty on bulk purchasing, accessing EU funding, providing early-stage finance to approved housing bodies and local authorities, and protecting renters by not removing rent pressure zones until there is an alternative in place. I believe these are the solutions. The solution is not more beds in sheds.

The key issue is really around affordability. Over the past five years, the Government has really failed to provide affordable housing. The few houses that were built under the Affordable Housing Act stretched the definition of affordability to breaking point. In my constituency, Cork South-Central, some of the houses cost over €400,000. On what planet is a house that costs over €400,000 affordable?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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Branding the houses as affordable increases the level of hopelessness among young people. They feel the houses are just more out of reach for them. I believe we should rename the Act the Unaffordable Housing Act because unaffordable housing is genuinely what it is delivering.

We need a radical reset of housing policy. The answers to this crisis are not found in the failed policies of the past. We need the State to be more involved in the direct delivery of affordable homes, and we need the Government to start listening to first-time buyers, renters and those in homelessness instead of those with vested interests because, until it does, nothing is going to change.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I appreciate the Minister coming in for the last ten minutes of the debate. I look forward to hearing from him the reason he was not here earlier. I believe, in all fairness, that it is disrespectful for the Minister to claim he was present for a debate when he arrived in at the very end. It is indicative of a Government that is unwilling to listen to new ideas.

When this country was dirt poor, the State built houses. It built the estates of Marino, Crumlin and Ballymun. In towns and cities across the country, councils built housing for our people. Now, however, with unprecedented wealth, we say we cannot do it. We have to bring in global vulture funds and hand our young people over to them to become income streams for them in perpetuity, to become permanent renters in poverty. We do not agree with this and believe there is an alternative way. The Minister claims the State is doing all it can. That is misleading. It is not doing all it can. In this regard, consider the delays affecting the tenant in situ scheme and the failure to protect tenants from eviction. Just 2,000 homes were liable for the vacant property tax last year when there are at least 88,000 vacant homes. The Minister talks about the private sector. A significant proportion of the overall housing budget is going directly to the private sector not to build homes but as an income stream, through the rental accommodation scheme, the housing assistance payment and social housing leasing. Every year, some €1.5 billion goes to the private sector. It does not deliver homes but takes money out of the public budget.

We have put forward very clear solutions today. One is to develop a new State savings scheme that would provide additional finance – we have €160 billion in deposits – to build social and affordable housing. We have heard in the debate from people across this country who are very clear that the councils, our local authorities, are not funded sufficiently to develop on land banks, tackle vacancy and tackle dereliction. They do not have the capacity to deliver the affordable and social homes that are needed, so we still need to see the radical reset of housing policy. We have suggested that the Government put an additional €2.5 billion into local authorities and not-for-profit housing bodies to deliver the housing.

The question is not where we will get the private finance from but why we are not using the public funds available to deliver social and affordable housing through our local authorities and our not-for-profit housing bodies.

In our health system, we do not say to people that we are restricting the funding and restricting their access to accident and emergency or to maternity care because the State has decided the private sector has to deliver them and if the private sector does not deliver the accident and emergency wards or the GPs, they will not get access to healthcare. In housing, the State has to guarantee and deliver the homes people need. That is the Government's responsibility, it is the State's responsibility, and it is time we got the policy changed to do that.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The division is deferred until the weekly division time this evening.