Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 15:

In page 8, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following:

“(6) In performing its functions under subsections (1)and(5), a housing authority shall—

(a) prepare and publish plans relating to periods of three, five and ten years (in this section referred to as a “housing authority affordable housing plan”) which shall specify measures the housing authority shall undertake—

(i) to make dwellings available for the purpose of sale to eligible applicants under affordable dwelling purchase arrangements, and

(ii) to make dwellings available for designation as cost rental dwellings in accordance with section 31,

(b) prepare and publish the first housing authority affordable housing plan within six months of the coming into operation of this section, and

(c) conduct and publish a review by 15 September in each year of the progress made during the immediately preceding year in respect of the housing authority affordable housing plan.”.

This amendment seeks to empower our local authorities and their members to task all the resources available to them to deliver on this legislation. As we have discussed, this is groundbreaking legislation that will see the State lead in the provision of affordable homes for purchase and for rent. We all subscribe to this aspiration and we have amended and enhanced this legislation through addressing the values involved and the tools and mechanisms we want to use. We want all available State lands and resources used. This is a practical amendment, which speaks to the mechanics of how the legislation will deliver affordable homes in each local authority area. It calls specifically on each of the local authorities to prepare and publish plans for three, five and ten years to outline what quantum of affordable homes they will deliver for purchase or rent. We hope that this will be an empowering amendment not just for the legislation but for the local authority members and the people they serve.

If accepted, this amendment would require that an affordable housing plan would have to be published each year. The targets would be three, five and ten years initially. Plans would have to state the type of dwellings that will be made available and address how those homes will be made available for purchase and for rent. Most critically, however, we are coming to this issue with a real sense of urgency and we want the first of those plans to be published within six months of this legislation coming into operation. All of us in government want to see significant delivery of affordable homes for purchase and for rent. We want our local authorities to take the lead in the provision of homes. We accept that we will need the assistance of other organisations, such as NGOs, not-for-profits and private operators, to achieve the ambitious targets we want to set.

However, we also want to empower our elected representatives in each of the local authorities. We want to not only pass this legislation to give them these powers, but also to require the executives in each local authority to work with its members to set affordable housing plans. I reiterate that we want the first of those plans to be published within six months of the legislation coming into operation. We recognise though that this is not a static situation and that it will evolve and change. Our ambition is to ensure that not only are the targets ambitious in the first instance but that they remain so in future. That is why the proposal in this amendment is for these affordable housing plans to be reviewed by 15 September each year.

This is a practical amendment and we think it is really important that it be included because it is a groundbreaking Bill. It aims to try to create a strategic change in respect of the State's role in this area. For the first time in the history of the State, this legislation is introducing the affordable cost-rental model, which can deliver security of tenure, affordable long-term rents, diverse and intergenerational communities and facilitate the Vienna model referred to by Senator Boyhan.However, we not only need the legislation to be good, we need it to be a practical tool for all of our local authority members who are elected by their local communities to deliver affordable homes and to do so on an ongoing basis and not in a static way. The members of the Fianna Fáil Party, myself included, and others who come from a local authority background come at this legislation with great ambition and enthusiasm. However, we also come at it with the legacy of much frustration, having been local authority members, having wanted to use the local authority lands to deliver affordable homes and having been prevented from doing so until now.

If the Minister of State can, we would appreciate him accepting this amendment. It is practical and pragmatic, but more than anything, not only will it help his legislation, it will help our local authority members and everybody who desperately needs an affordable home in all of our communities around the country.