Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the comments of the previous speaker, who was objective and fair in acknowledging the current state of the housing market and the challenges that remain. In doing so, I acknowledge the commitment of the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, the Minister of State, Deputy English, and the officials in the Department, all of whom are committed to delivering sustainable housing solutions across society while working with the various partners and agencies in doing so. We must recognise that.

While I listened carefully to Senator Murnane O'Connor, I will not get into a blame game or a tit-for-tat discussion. We must always remember, however, the context and reason we ended up where we are today. If we do not learn from the mistakes of the past, the solutions we bring forward will not be sustainable. The policies of the past brought about the boom–bust cycles. That is something that Fianna Fáil will not be allowed to forget. It will not be allowed to wash its hands of it because we must learn from the mistakes. That is being fair. I am only engaging in constructive criticism. We were left with a dysfunctional housing market, a broken housing supply, builders gone bust, no access to credit for builders to start building again, and a skills shortage because people emigrated owing to the bust. If we do not acknowledge that, we will certainly go down the wrong road again and repeat the mistakes.

What should we do differently this time? This time we have plans, which I acknowledge. I heard the criticism of the plans but without a strategic plan, we will not make the solid, consistent progress that is now being made despite that criticism. I have no issue with the Opposition criticism as long as it is constructive and we are all objective and fair in expressing our views. I acknowledge the determination of the Ministers in setting out the plan Rebuilding Ireland, securing substantial funding to put behind that plan, and working diligently with all the stakeholders to deliver on it. That is the only show in town.If we can all work towards that, we can deliver more quickly and resolve the frustration regarding homelessness and the lack of access to sustainable affordable housing. This is something of which we, as former local authority members, have experience.

As a former Minister of State with responsibility for housing, I saw it first hand with my former Government colleague, Deputy Kelly. When we first entered the Department, there was no funding. The Minister of State alluded to this earlier. I am not blaming anybody for that; it was the reality. Local authorities did not have funding. We had to rebuild the infrastructure, staffing and resources of local authorities. Unfortunately, that took time. They are now back up and running, however, and we are beginning to see the gears click into action as funding trickles down. That is showing in the delivery of housing units, whether social or private, throughout the country. I agree that there is never enough housing but we certainly have to stick to the plan in order to achieve progress. I welcome that the Minister of State has made provision in the plan for measuring, monitoring and evaluating progress. This is critical if we are to achieve our target of 10,000 social housing solutions in 2019, a substantial increase on the number completed when there was no funding available.

I commend the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government and the various spokespersons on identifying solutions and bringing them forward. It is important to do that. Nobody has a monopoly on solutions. The Minister recognises that as well. He has operated an open-door policy in terms of encouraging anyone with solutions to bring them forward. Those solutions will be analysed and if they are sustainable, they will be brought forward and supported. It is all about delivery now.

I worked in the construction sector for 20 years. I was on the front line in planning ESB networks. We were monitoring where new housing developments were happening. It takes times to deliver housing of scale. Planning and design need to happen and infrastructure and services have to be put in place. What we do not see, namely, underground drainage and water supply works, costs money and must also be put in place. That is what this Government is doing in pressure zones throughout the country. Then we have to build the developments. There are still pressures in the building sector whereby there is a shortage of apprentices. I welcome the additional funding in the budget for the education programme for enhanced apprenticeship schemes in order that young people leaving school or college will be confident of a viable and sustainable future in the construction sector, a matter to which the Minister of State referred. As a former apprentice, I have always believed that. If we are honest about it, when the bust happened, parents were frightened to allow their children to go into engineering, architecture, quantity surveying or anything of that nature. That was a big mistake because there are now skills deficits in all of those areas. We must learn from those mistakes. We must show that we have a sustainable construction sector in order that young people can enter that sphere of professional expertise confident that they will have careers at the end of their training.

To mention the partners, it is important that we engage consistently with local authorities, voluntary housing bodies, NGOs, builders, developers and communities. I was frustrated lately to see opposition to an ambitious housing project in Dublin at local authority level. We either want sustainable housing in our communities or we do not. Looking for vexatious or facetious reasons for opposing these developments is wrong. Some political parties are doing it for populist reasons. I do not know why. If we are serious about delivering housing, we need to get behind these projects and support them and get them built as soon as possible.

I acknowledge the progress that was made with unfinished estates. The Minister of State finished off some work I did previously in that area. We had over 3,000 unfinished estates around the country. People were calling them ghost estates. All of them have now been brought down to single figures. They were resolved and people were moved into those estates. A great deal of progress was made in that regard.

The HAP scheme receives a lot of criticism. If HAP were suddenly removed, how many more people would be homeless? The answer is thousands. As a result of the shortages of both skills and builders and in the absence of HAP, we would not be able to deliver the number of social housing solutions required. This is just one solution but it can deliver quickly for families that need homes. The latter are supported by the State and rightly so. They still have a long-term housing need and they remain on the housing list. HAP is an interim solution that must be supported. I encourage it while we get the building programmes up and running.

The Minister of State should stick to the plan. It is working. The commencements, planning applications and builds are showing strong progress. We will get there. I urge all stakeholders, including policymakers - I have no difficulty with objective criticism - to support the positive progress that is being made. In budget 2019, increased funding represented an increase of over €470 million or 26% on the 2018 figure. That is real commitment in terms of funding. We now need to see the delivery in terms of the projects and I want to work with the Minister of State to support him in doing that.