Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will go with that. I thank the Chair. I came to the Seanad looking for solutions and positive contributions that might help in our ongoing work to fix the challenges we face in respect of our homelessness crisis and housing shortage. I thank all Members who provided positive contributions, suggestions or ideas for things that we could do.

Some Members focused on the fact that there have been several announcements regarding housing. There have been several announcements because this is a complex area. It requires a new finance bank for people who cannot get development finance from banks, affordable mortgages for those who cannot get them from banks, and changes in apartment building regulations to encourage build to rent. It requires affordable purchase schemes to help people buy their own home and new measures to ensure we are locking in a commitment to investment in social housing regardless of what is happening in the wider economy. We should be focusing on the policy and solutions that have been put in place.I have spoken to Senator Murnane O'Connor about this as she is on the committee. She has said house prices are unaffordable once again. That is exactly the point; we have been here before. We have not had a properly functioning housing market in this country, or a properly functioning housing system, for decades. I am part of a generation that has been stung twice. The problem for those in my generation, when they were coming out of college and starting work, was that they could not afford to buy homes, even though twice the amount of homes needed were being built. Those whom we thought were fortunate enough to buy a home at the time were, within one year, living in ghost estates and stranded with no facilities. There were no local schools and even roads in estates were not finished. The people in question were plunged into negative equity. Other problems then arose and people lost their jobs. That same generation finds itself starting families while stuck in apartments that are too small and paying rents that are too high. We have to make sure, through everything we are doing, that we are protecting the generation of children who were here earlier to watch our debate from the mistakes made by previous generations and Governments. While I know that people are frustrated that this is not happening quickly enough, if we were to do things such as zone more land, make VAT changes and promote the building of three-bedroom semi-detached homes, we would only be building in mistakes for the future. We have to rebuild the housing sector in a sustainable way, ensuring we will have sustainable jobs in trades and construction, in order that we will not build too much in one year and then have to cut back massively in the next. Where would all of those people go for work? All of these things have to be addressed. We have to meet challenges as they arise.

On the rent figures included in the data, the Residential Tenancies Board has the most comprehensive data set because it has the actual numbers of rent registrations and the rent prices paid. That is where we get our data from.

I understand the frustrations on social housing eligibility. An additional buffer of €5,000 was inserted on foot of the review carried out in 2011. A new review is happening and being conducted by the Housing Agency. It has been made more complex by the shortage of housing and the unaffordable rents in place and other points of inflation elsewhere in the economy. We hope the review will be concluded as quickly as possible in order that the new levels can be put in place.

There has been an increase in the number of mortgages under the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme, which I welcome. Home ownership is changing. People are renting more frequently, but that is a function not just of the affordability challenge but also of the fact that people are going to and staying in college for longer, meeting their partners later in life, moving jobs more frequently, moving in and out of the country and having children later in life. Many are choosing not to take on the liability of home ownership, as it can be, or a large debt because they want to retain a degree of flexibility into their later years. We are seeing more people move towards renting and subsequently there is less home ownership. We must, however, make sure the aspiration to own a home remains for anyone who wants to make that economic choice. We have to make sure they can make it economically, in a way where they will not be making sacrifices such as losing time with their families owing to lengthy commutes.

I am still on my first page and have already gone way over time.

Senator Boyhan is on the committee and has expertise that not everyone in the Oireachtas has, as is clear from the engagement he had with local authorities before he came here today. He asked about the different statistics we used. We have moved to using the CSO figures to ensure we have an accurate figures for the numbers of builds. That is important. None of the figures for the numbers of planning permissions and commencement notices are in dispute; they are compiled and distributed. It is important that we do so. One of the primary functions of the Land Development Agency is to find public land on which to build public housing. It takes State land for that purpose.

The Rebuilding Ireland housing map is operational. For anyone who has not used it, one can cross the country and click on the coloured icons to see what is happening with that land in the provision of housing, the acreage, the numbers of homes that can be built and other facts. The Land Development Agency is doing its own piece of work with State land and has already identified eight sites. It is also working with Project Ireland 2040. Places like Waterford and Cork have to double in size, which will involve not just the use of State land but also private land for appropriate uses in the public interest. The Land Development Agency is in place to do that and should have been in place for the past 20 years. It was not, but it is now in place and it is going to make very important inroads, not just in dealing with the current shortage we are facing but also in future-proofing the housing economy, especially in the provision of land. The Central Mental Hospital site is one of the priority sites on the list of eight identified.

Senator Boyhan asked about Thornton Hall. I do not think the Land Development Agency will be looking at it immediately for housing provision. I believe it might be better used for a land swap with another State agency which might move its functions to the site. The Land Development Agency might then take that agency's land, which might be closer to the city and have infrastructure built, meaning that it could be used for housing.

Senator Coffey mentioned skill shortages, a very important issue. We are moving towards prefabrication and that type of technology, which means that we do not necessarily need the numbers of labourers or skilled staff we used to have. However, the numbers taking up apprenticeships are rising. The Senator is absolutely right to say that has to be done in a sustainable way to ensure the people concerned will have job security into the future and not have to emigrate like so many others have had to do or retrain in the future, something they may not want to do. We have engaged with the Construction Industry Federation as part of Project Ireland 2040. There is a construction sector group to ensure we are managing all of the capital investments that have to be made, not just in housing but also to ensure we will have people with the skills required. It is also about trying to attract more women into apprenticeships, something I welcome.

The Senator asked a question about what was happening in Tramore. I will make an inquiry about the connections issue. The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, is independent of the Government, but if there is something we can do to make sure people are not being put at a disadvantage in connecting homes to the water network, we will do so. From my last engagement with Irish Water, I know that it is dealing with a possible 130,000 new household connections to the water network. That figure demonstrates the amount of work that is ongoing to drive supply.

To respond to the points made by Senator Conway-Walsh, it is important to recognise that Rebuilding Ireland is being implemented. The Land Development Agency flowed from the recommendations made by the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, as well as from recommendations made by others. We have listened where previous Governments did not . There is nothing light-touch about the €2.4 billion being spent in the economy by the Government. It is the highest amount ever spent on housing by a Government in a single year. There is nothing light-touch about the 50,000 new homes being added to the social housing stock over a five-year period. There is nothing light-touch about the fact that between one in four and one in five new homes built last year and this year is social housing. The State is directly involved, correctly, in providing housing for its citizens. However, we need to do more than focus solely on social housing because the majority of people are not eligible for it. The majority, when putting together a deposit, trying to take out a more affordable mortgage, or even buying a home, can make a little help go a long way. Of course, we have to ensure we focus on delivery, of which it is very important that social housing be a big component, but affordability has to be at the heart of everything we do.

We have doubled the vacant site levy which will come into operation over the course of 2019. In 2018 some €300 million worth of land was subject to the levy. Rent reform legislation is progressing through the Dáil. I will deal with it in committee next week when I will discuss amendments to see if we can improve it in working together.

It was agreed by this Oireachtas that the right to housing would be debated, with other socio-economic rights, to determine whether it should be inserted into the Constitution. That debate will happen before the relevant committee, which was the decision of the Oireachtas. It is worth pointing out that where other countries have included a right to housing, either in law or their constitutions, they still have a problem with homelessness which is a very complex challenge. My focus is on delivery, bit I am more than happy for that discussion to take place and I am approaching it with an open mind. However, as the Minister responsible, my focus is on ensuring we are actually delivering on the ground.

I believe I have addressed all of the issues raised by Senator Conway-Walsh. I am aware that she asked questions about money. We will have announcements on housing adaptation grants and new money for them soon. On the amount of money being spent under the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, we will begin to reduce the number of people being supported in the rental sector. In the final year of Rebuilding Ireland we will put more people into the new stock of social housing than into new HAP scheme tenancies. That is the rebalancing that is happening. We had to rely on the HAP scheme because social housing provision had been outsourced to the private sector and if we did not rely on it, the number of people in emergency accommodation would be stratospheric. In doing so we are giving people the support they need now, while recognising that in the longer term they will need social housing.