Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister well with the action plan. I hope the passion he has shown today in his opening contribution can be sustained over the period needed to see this plan implemented. He is going to meet a great deal of opposition and difficulties. I wish him well.

By way of being helpful, I want to ask whether the Minister will take on board a number of issues my party sought to address in a Bill on social and affordable housing that we published this week. The first of these is the recommendations from the long-discussed Kenny report. In the Minister's action plan, he said that lands are currently zoned to satisfy a population of 6 million but there is no breakdown of these lands. The Minister knows - given that he alluded to it and answered a question on it yesterday - that one of the big problems is that financial investment funds are buying up land and storing it in order to make a killing. By not implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report, how does the Minister believe we will prevent this from happening and how is land going to be freed up? How much land is owned by the State that is specifically for the building of houses and how much is private land? The Minister might tell me the mix of both, if he has that figure.

I want to express my disappointment that NAMA has not been broadened out, as recommended in our Bill, to make it into a housing development and finance agency. NAMA had a specific role and it is fulfilling that, but it now needs to move on to the next phase. I would like the Minister to comment.

I am also disappointed that the whole matter of private rent increases has not been dealt with in the action plan. The Minister said there will be provision for landlords who own in excess of 20 units. However, the reality is there are many accidental landlords in this country who own two or three units and who are mortgaged up to the hilt. These people are trying to extract the maximum rent from tenants in to pay their own bills. The Minister needs to look at the smaller landlord.

Senator Mulherin spoke in regard to village and town centre renewal, which I support. We had a plan many years ago to provide funding for landlords to upgrade accommodation above their shops but it never took off. We need to revisit this because rural Ireland needs this type of upgrading.

In regard to the planning process, much has been made of sending planning applications for developments of more than 100 units straight to An Bord Pleanála. I put it to the Minister that he is actually taking away the local democratic input of councillors and local authorities in respect of planning. In many cases, councillors representing the people bring to the table a lot of local issues that would not be known by local officials and, in some cases, by the developers, which would actually assist the process. Moreover, An Bord Pleanála is a finite resource in terms of staffing. If all of these proposals are going to An Bord Pleanála, will the Minister provide extra staff for it and how many will he provide?

With regard to student accommodation, it is like the saying, "Live horse and you will eat grass", in that the Minister is pushing it out to another strategy in 2017. With respect, I know the Minister brought this plan forward in 100 days but there is plenty of evidence and information that would have allowed him to bring forward specific proposals on student accommodation rather than saying he is going to prepare a strategy in 2017. It has come to my attention that 2,000 units of commercial accommodation have just fallen of the map in Dublin city in recent months. Will the Minister comment on where they have gone? Have they gone to Airbnb or have they disappeared? One building in the city centre was removed as a commercial property and put into Airbnb, and it took in €79,000 in income in 2015. There are a lot of things going on which the Minister might say fall outside of the remit of his Department but there is no regulation of Airbnb in this country. It is, however, regulated in other jurisdictions. Many students will get sucked into this because there is no other avenue for them to get accommodation, particularly in this city and to a lesser extent in the other cities. I would like the Minister to comment on this issue.

I wish the Minister well with the action plan. Like Senator Coffey, I could talk for another 20 minutes but I do not have the time. The Minister might address my questions when he responds.