Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by starting the context in my area of Dublin, Dublin south-central, where housing is the top issue. I was thinking about the representations that come to me. At least 75% relate to housing. It includes people struggling in the private rental sector to those living on the streets and everything between. I looked for some statistics. The area has a population of around 100,000. There are 5,339 people waiting to be housed, a figure which does not include people registered as homeless or in receipt of HAP. Some 588 people have been on the transfer list for over ten years, 982 people have been on the waiting list for over ten years and there are 335 people who are homeless.

We are in a situation where these figures seem as though they are only numbers not people. We are becoming used to discussing it. There is no longer any awe or any shock factor to it. What progress that has been made in Rebuilding Ireland is only a drop in the ocean, at least for people living in my area.

The figures are unacceptable. As a public representative, I have met many of these people on their journey. I have watched families disintegrate. I have seen parents and children who are visibly anxious and have low mood, and children who have been born into homelessness. I have seen them sometimes on severe psychiatric medication. The only thing they can think about is finding a home for themselves and their children. It is not working. Homelessness, which is at catastrophic levels, is our society's great shame.

The housing crisis is not only a question of homelessness. In Dublin there are over 2,000 people accessing the HAP scheme. This is over-reliance on the scheme. While it assists some people in the short term, it is not making progress in tackling the housing crisis in the long term, in Dublin at least. HAP is often not competitive with the private rental market.

I welcome the 29 rapid-build developments in Drimnagh, although it is obviously not enough to address the figures I mentioned. There are several projects running far behind in the south-west inner city, such as St. Theresa's Gardens. People who were moved into emergency accommodation some years ago have not seen a shovel hit the soil. I was with the previous Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government when it was demolished to great jubilation last summer but progress for these people has stalled. The Dolphin House developments are to be welcomed but we will rapidly move on to phase 2. I have been inside the units and they look really well. They look smart and are large enough to accommodate families. However, there are many people who cannot wait.

Thousands of people in my area and around the country are caught in an affordability trap. They have incomes above the eligibility thresholds for social housing or social housing support, but they struggle to rent or buy. They often live in over-priced rental accommodation, or in many cases live with parents while saving for a deposit or struggling to raise finance. These problems are caused by inaction. Last week's affordable housing proposals are disappointing.

Fianna Fáil's silence regarding solutions to the housing crisis is deafening. Its alternative budget was a blank page. It should not escape blame when we discuss this issue.

The council loan scheme that was announced is a rehash of the existing scheme. The 2% fixed interest rate will benefit some people but the scheme itself requires considerable tweaking. It allows first-time buyers to breach the Central Bank lending rules in order to buy over-priced homes. The existing council loan scheme has a very poor uptake and a large level of significant mortgage arrears. We have genuine concerns that the revised scheme will lead to the same results.

The affordable housing scheme, which grants the local authority an equity stake in the home is cumbersome. We are concerned that public funds will be used to facilitate the purchase of over-priced homes.There is no real detail regarding the affordable rental scheme. Since 2014, there has been a Government commitment to introduce such a scheme. In that context, there may be a pilot scheme at some undefined point in the future.

Sinn Féin has a fully-costed, comprehensive plan to address the housing crisis that does not rely on loans from parents, when the majority of those parents are struggling with their own bills. Our sons and daughters, if granted mortgages, are signing up to terms of 40 years in some cases. For the majority of children, owning their own homes is completely out of reach and they are, unfortunately, resigned to this. We need affordable homes built on public land. Our plan would lead to the delivery of 4,500 affordable homes in the first year and 9,000 affordable homes in the second, with an appropriate mix of rental and purchase homes determined by local housing needs. These homes would be delivered as part of mixed-tenure and mixed-income estates on public land.

There is also a need to restore funding for Traveller accommodation programmes to 2008 levels. This is a vitally important consideration as Traveller accommodation is often completely forgotten when we talk about housing. For many Travellers, the current conditions are absolutely deplorable. It is no wonder that mental health issues are at the highest rates among this ethnic group in Ireland.

People are competing to buy homes in Dublin, but I am not sure of the situation in the rest of the State. In Dublin everybody is trying to buy a home. There are queues out the door. For those who are trying to rent the queues are even bigger. Anyone who tries to rent with the housing assistance payment will face discrimination, even though legislation states that this should not be the case. Landlords will say "No, it is okay, we have given it to somebody else." This is happening in many instances. We cannot close our eyes to the issue. I urge the Minister of State to look at Sinn Féin's suggestions to address the housing crisis and to take them seriously. They may help in the long term.