Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Craughwell for his kind remarks on my views on Airbnb. Addressing this issue will not solve the housing crisis but at least if the proposal is implemented, it will result in approximately 5,000 new homes in the Dublin area. This is much more than what the Minister has achieved in his term of office.

There is genuine concern about evidence-based policy on housing across the country. Senator Craughwell was correct to comment on the number of cranes on the skyline. Most of the developments in question have traffic management plans. One has to submit a traffic management plan for a major development but an accommodation plan is not needed. The Taoiseach's Department is heading up a project for an innovation centre in the south inner city that will employ approximately 10,000 people. Of those, 7,000, will come from abroad and will need accommodation. Is there an accommodation plan? No, there is not.

The Minister stated this morning the issue is one of supply. I fully agree with him but the problem is that his policies are worsening the supply problem because he calls for review after review. There is a review of apartment sizes, a review of car parking spaces, and a review of the height strategy. Let us examine what these reviews have meant. They have meant withdrawals of planning applications from An Bord Pleanála and the city council to increase the numbers of units on sites and produce new applications.That was fine. The target is to increase the density, but then he changed the height strategy and we had a further withdrawal of planning applications and no build starts. We then had a review whereby planning applications could be made directly to An Bord Pleanála if they were for more than 100 units. We had another withdrawal of planning applications but the outcome was that nothing was built.

An example of that is the strategic development zones, SDZs, three of which are in the Dublin area. Pressure was put on Dublin City Council and the Department, which was well covered by The Sunday Business Post, by a certain developer and now we have an announcement of a review of the North Lotts strategic development zone. We have sterilised the planning applications for accommodation there because they will wait for the review in respect of the height. We could probably survive one strategic development zone review but we may be led now into reviews of three strategic development zones, which is the North Lotts, the South Lotts and Poolbeg West. Poolbeg West could probably provide 3,500 homes. An Bord Pleanála has not made a decision yet on whether it will give it the go-ahead but I bet the Minister €1 to €100 that when that decision is made it will seek another review because of the Department's change to the height guidelines. The end result of all of that is that nothing has been built. It is review after review. That is not good policy.

I want to be associated with the remarks about Donal Hickey. I will conclude on this point. The National Transport Authority, NTA, announced the MetroLink but there is a marked difference in the way various groups were dealt with regarding the review of the NTA's proposal on MetroLink. That is down to political pressure. I hate to say it but I believe that because residents in the south inner city are probably socially disadvantaged, they did not have a proper input into the alignment of MetroLink. I fully accept that we need a station in the city centre. Proposals were put forward on that and I believe they were ignored because members from the south inner city did not have the same access to senior Ministers and the Taoiseach. It is the case that because of their social and economic backgrounds they have been very much ignored in the entire process.