Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It is great we have the Bill coming to the House and have an opportunity to talk about the transformative impact the Department and the Minister are having on housing policy in the country. The Bill and the Land Development Agency Bill are two landmark Bills that will make a real difference to many citizens across the country in delivering real homes, real houses and keys in people's hands, which is what it is all about.

We have had a decade of difficulty in housing and it has built up to boiling point. However, it is a credit to the Minister and his team that, even in the midst of a global pandemic, when the vast majority of construction has been shut down for the past year, they still managed to deliver almost 450 cost rental units and they have got this legislation through the House despite all of the chaos that has been happening in the world around us.

For the first time in almost a decade, we will have affordable homes, led by the State and built by the State on State land. That is something that has been demanded for many years; it is happening now and it is being delivered. We will also have a cost rental scheme, something that has not happened previously, and that is being delivered as well. We have a shared equity scheme so that people who are out of that bracket of affordability can afford a home and will be helped by the State, which will take an equity share in the house to ensure they can afford a home and put a roof over their heads. That is being delivered now.

All of this, and the Minister is only in the brief for ten months. That should be commended across the House. However, there are a small few in the Oireachtas who do not want to see the Minister deliver in his brief and who do not want homes built because that means it is a win for the Government, but it is not seen as a win for the Irish people, or a win for the thousands of young people across the country, the first-time buyers, individuals, single people, couples and families who cannot get a home currently because of the broken system we are trying to repair. I implore those who seek to undermine really positive changes in housing policy to get on board the train because it is leaving the station and most of us are already on it.

With regard to the stamp duty issue that arose in recent weeks, to take a positive perspective, we need some private investment and Senator Kyne rightly pointed out that when REITs were introduced in 2013, they were needed to stimulate development. Two years later, the Labour leader stood on his feet in the Dáil and said it was a good thing and that we needed it. With any policy in an area that is as fast moving as housing, we have to be in a position to review those policies as we move along and things change, because things do change. It is a credit to the Government that when a specific issue arose in Kildare that really blew up and caught people's imagination, within a number of weeks the issue was addressed and dealt with by Government, and that has been delivered.

The Government is reacting, responding and listening to people. I know there were some concerns regarding apartments not being included but there is a reason for not including them, which is that we do not want to impact supply. Again, we have to react in the right way. It is about maintaining private investment in a targeted way so we can still maintain the supply we are getting but also increase that supply, because, at the end of the day, it is all about supply and getting more houses built.

I want to raise a particular concern regarding the cost of building. We know costs are increasing. Some of that is down to the Brexit impact, which we have not had much time to discuss this past year, and some of it is down to the pandemic that has impacted the supply chains. Overall, the cost of building is creeping up and up. When we remove those two big issues that are obviously causing problems in supply, we need to keep an eye on this issue and make sure the cost of building is where it should be and that people can still afford to build.

My next point is around the importance of getting housing policy right because if we do not, social cohesion will break down. Every member of our community and our society needs to feel that they have skin in the game. Part of that is owning their own home because it is then in their interest to keep a stable Government, to maintain cohesion in the country and to maintain cohesion in communities. When people feel they have been left behind and that the current policies are not working for them, they start to break away, and that is when social cohesion breaks down. That is bad for everybody. That is why it is very important that we fix this problem. The Taoiseach has said on a number of occasions that housing is the issue of our generation, and it is. If we do not get this right, thousands of couples, individuals and an entire generation will be left behind, and will be in a poorer position than their parents were before them.

There are concerns around too many people being stuck in rental units who do not want to be there. I caveat that by saying many people want to rent, and that is okay too. We should not prescribe to people how they should live or what kind of housing they should demand. There is no one silver bullet that will fix this. We need to provide apartments, houses, rental accommodation and owner-occupied accommodation. People have to have choice, and that is why this Bill is providing that choice. The Minister has rectified the issue around the percentage of each development that goes to social and affordable housing and he has doubled that from 10% to 20%. Again, that is going to have a direct impact on every single development in the country, and will provide apartments and houses to people and give them the choice they so need.

I wish the Minister well in his brief. He has a tough job ahead but he has a good team in government behind him. I have no doubt the vast majority of Members of this House will be with him and supporting him in the job he has ahead.