James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I also welcome the plan. As others have said, it shows real commitment by the Government and real leadership by the Minister in addressing this issue. It is an ambitious plan, with an annual level of residential construction of 25,000 homes and the delivery of 47,000 social housing units in the period to 2021 while, at the same time, making the best use of existing housing stock and laying the foundations for a more vibrant and responsive private rental sector.

Others have touched on the five key pillars of the plan. These include addressing the homelessness situation and providing early solutions to address the unacceptable level of families in emergency accommodation. I cannot overstate the importance of this. It has an impact on the young children who must live in hotels with no sense of normality and no cooking facilities. They move from hotel to hotel and do not know whether they will attend the same school. All of these are terrible stresses on young children. It is urgent and a priority that this be addressed.

There is also the situation of people having to sleep rough and the dangers involved in this. The State has a duty to keep people in their own homes. We want to accelerate the social housing stock, and this will be funded with €5.35 billion to deliver the 47,000 units. I welcome this serious commitment by the Government. There is also a commitment to build more homes, increasing the output of private housing to meet demand at affordable prices. There will also be an infrastructure fund of €200 million to open large sites in areas where people need homes. Fingal is such an area, with the highest population growth rate in the country at 8%. It will also improve the rental sector as others have outlined. There is much work to be done because there has been a haemorrhage of landlords from the area for a host of reasons. Many people who bought second homes did so to provide for their future and pensions. They were small investors providing for themselves in their old age. We need to address these issues. There is also the issue of utilising existing housing stock, which I welcome.

Another area I would like to mention, and I know the Minister may have heard me say this before, is encouraging downsizing by empty nesters to smaller homes, and giving them an incentive to do so if it is their desire. Nobody wants to move people from the house of their life if they want to stay there, but very often they would be comfortable if there was an incentive. We need to get rid of the blockages that exist at present locally and nationally. I will return to this point.

What people want to see from the plan is an increase in the delivery of housing. It will require the implementation of all of the actions outlined in the plan by the Minister. It will also require an overwhelming team effort by all stakeholders to achieve these targets. There will need to be a strong focus on behalf of all stakeholders to reduce any bureaucratic, or other, blockages to achieving this and the national targets included in the plan. There will be a need to treat the plan as an emergency response to a national crisis.

Irish people are of the land, as we know, and we place a high value on ownership of home and land. Ones house is one's home, one's sanctuary, one's place of safety and where families gather. When one does not have a house it goes to the heart of one's sense of well-being in a very negative way. We know there are blockages with regard to Part V and other issues to be addressed. The Minister has alluded to this in the plan. I suggest that if needs be, we look at suspending it for the duration of the crisis. The extent of departmental monitoring and the approval requirement of local authorities needs to be looked at and I know the Minister is doing this. I do not know how many different stages there are, but one must go back and double-check with the Department at every stage along the development. We need to address this.

There is also the issue of quick build housing. This has a bad reputation, but we know Germany has been doing this for years and has bespoke housing constructed offsite and built onsite in a matter of four to six weeks. This is being done in Ireland by a company which delivers four houses per week. These are of a high standard, higher than the regulations that apply and they are guaranteed for more than 70 years.

Some local authorities have struggled to meet targets, but Fingal County Council has managed to exceed them. It had a target of 1,376 for the period from 2015 to 2017 but in the period it expects to deliver 2,000 social houses. It has been buying houses and it has reduced the number of voids from more than 200 to 45, which is 1%.

I commend the Minister. This problem goes to the core of our democracy. We need to treat it as an emergency and priority and I am glad to see the Minister is doing so.