Paul Bradford (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Developers do not see houses as places where people, families and communities live. Developers in this country see housing as nothing but a method of getting rich pretty quickly. If we want a proper housing policy, the central aspect must be to ensure that houses - be they individual houses, housing estates, or community or voluntary houses - are built around the concept of community and not around the concept of making people multimillionaires overnight.

Obviously, anybody living in a house today that is worth €250,000 or €300,000 would, in the short-term, like to see its value rising to €350,000 or €400,000. That is one's initial instinctive economic view. However, over the past decade we have seen the tragedy of grossly exaggerated house prices ruining families, communities, an entire economy and almost the whole of Irish society. Therefore, we must try to ensure this situation will never happen again. That is why I feel the argument must be led not by somebody who is beholden to a so-called wiser Minister for the environment but somebody who sits at the Cabinet table and makes the case for a new housing policy. I make the plea that a senior Cabinet place be set aside next week for a housing Minister.

I welcome the provisions announced, including HAP, and the Minister of State's comments on RAS, voluntary housing and the broad variety of housing. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem; we need a multitude of solutions. I do not want to see a housing list of between 30,000 and 50,000 people leading to a mad housing spree which would corral these people into what I call ghettos. We do not have to name names, and the Minister does not have to name names, but we all know the communities that have been ruined by such a housing policy.

I would say - and I am not saying this to my friends in the Labour Party - that it suits certain politicians and certain political classes to create areas of entire State dependency. I refer to cases in which a politician pretends to get a person a house and pretends to get him or her a weekly social welfare payment or medical card and thus ensures that the person remains dependent not on the State but on him or her. We should not fall for that political trap. Let us see housing in a broad holistic fashion. Let us see a mix of private and public. Let us see a mix of local authority housing, RAS-type housing and HAP-type housing. If a constituent of mine felt that his or her housing need was best suited to private rented accommodation which is paid for by the State, then that would be good enough for me. I do not want to lecture him or her by insisting that he or she live in a more traditional form of so-called council house.

I appeal to the Minister of State - I do not think she is far from my thinking on the matter - to see a broad mix as the best solution to housing. We have a long way to go but we must start with a fundamental statement of how important housing and housing policy is for this country, and that is led by a mindset in which houses are for families and communities, not something to fill a field for a developer. Let us not go down that tragic road again.

Ministers and people higher than Ministers like to be seen as wining and dining the developers. However, I want the Minister of State and her colleagues to set the housing policy. I appeal to the Taoiseach to ensure that the importance of housing is recognised next week, or whenever the reshuffle takes place. As I said, housing sets the agenda for a person's entire life. The reshuffle would be an opportunity, for the first time in the history of the State, to have a full Cabinet Minister for housing, a post which is quite common in many European countries. Housing is one of our great national problems at the moment. I do not want to dismiss the importance of any particular Department, but no Department, at the moment, would be more important than one dedicated to housing.