Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We can have Government radicalism and rethinking about housing. I set out some of my ideas in an article I wrote that was published by the Institute of housing last year. I will leave a copy for the Minister of State. We urgently need an activist and interventionist Government like we had before. We also need Government to make the right interventions. There were some €400 million in transfers to landlords in 2017 via RAS and HAP. The latter is dead money. We need to invest that €400 million - and billions more - differently. We need to build more homes. We built public housing in Ireland in the 1930s, when we had no money. Governments in other jurisdictions, such as Singapore - which is not bastion of trendy, leftist socialism but which is, rather, a bastion of capitalism - have solved their housing problems. We could use compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, in respect of land. Local authorities already know where homes can be built. We could zone land for housing, only once it is in State control. We could use CPOs for the disgraceful 200,000 vacant and derelict sites that still blight our towns and villages. We use CPOs all the time for infrastructure like roads and railways so why not for housing? Surely housing infrastructure is one of the most fundamental for our health, well-being and prosperity in the State. As well as building houses, we could extend a Government-backed mortgage scheme to all.

I ask that the Minister of State will listen to concerns of people talking about housing concerns, including NGOs. I am glad he will not gag them. Will he accept that the housing system is broken and that this is threatening the hard-won jobs recovery and prosperity for which we all fought? Is the Minister of State open to accepting radical thinking and ideas in respect of this matter such as those put into practice in Singapore and elsewhere?