Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome the funding that has been provided for the Cork area over recent months. I make no apologies for putting pressure on both the city council and the Department in that respect. The Minister came to this House to announce a €39 million budget for seven projects. We will have 134 houses built by the city council. The Boyce's Street project, which has just been approved, will have 51 houses. Those developments have been in the past three months alone and are welcome. Contracts for 50-odd houses in Carrigaline were signed yesterday. I welcome the progress that has been made. We face major challenges in housing. We will be rolling out the national development plan. One of the problems in this country is we are building small pieces of the jigsaw at a time when we should be building all the pieces. I live within ten minutes' walking distance of UCC. Development is very welcome, but an adequate supply of housing is not being built in the areas around UCC and CIT. I was at a meeting last night in my own area where a four-storey building that will be used as student accommodation is going up alongside bungalows in the middle of a residential area. This is what I am talking about. There is inappropriate planning when we are trying to put the jigsaw together and it is far more difficult.

The situation is similar with building hospitals. We always have young staff in training and students who will be in and out during their time in training and we do not build accommodation for them. In the UK there is accommodation for nursing staff and junior doctors on the hospital grounds. We are not doing that. In the area around UCC, there are an awful lot of houses that were built for families but are being occupied by students. We need to have more joined-up thinking about when we grant planning for development, whether for a hospital or academic development. We should also make sure that we have land set aside for the building of accommodation.

One of the other problems I have is there is a whole cohort of people who, no matter what we do, will not be accommodated because of the way the cost of housing has developed. Someone gave me the breakdown of the €39 million for the 134 units which will be built by Cork City Council. My understanding is each housing unit will cost €291,000 on land the city council already owns. I am concerned that the cost of housing seems to be far higher than any other European country. I accept we have increased the standard of regulation and everything else, which is very welcome. There is a cohort of people who will qualify for local authority housing but we have to deliver it in a timely manner. There is another cohort who will qualify to borrow from the financial sector, from banks or building societies, and will be able to buy. There is also a big group of people in between who are working extremely hard and renting but have no security of tenure where they are.I have raised the need to introduce long-term leasing like there is in other European countries. The sooner we start doing that, the better. I can rent a premises for commercial use with a 20-year lease and five-year rent reviews. I have security of tenure, knowing full well that the landlord cannot put me out on the street. This is a matter we need to look into in the private rental sector. There is nothing worse than a young family, with four young children going to the local primary school, being told by their landlord to move out because the lease may be up or the property is being sold or refurbished. The family then must find accommodation reasonably close to their children’s primary school but cannot do so. That insecurity needs to be dealt with. We should now look seriously at long-term leasing and do much more for residential accommodation.

I spoke to a developer recently who bought nine apartments in Germany for €450,000. He does not have to furnish them as it is the tenants who must do so. The developer in question is getting 8% return on his investment with rent at €6,500 per annum per apartment. Accordingly, the tenants have to borrow far less but have security of tenure. While they may have to borrow to furnish the properties, at least it is manageable. We need to examine continental-style letting. No matter how much money we make available, there will be a cohort which will not fall into any category regarding access to finance. We need to give security of tenure to people. We must ensure young families are not forced to move and, therefore, cannot get anywhere to live within a ten-mile radius of where their children attend school. It is a serious major challenge with which we have to deal.