Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I speak in support of Senator Moynihan and our Labour Party amendment. As the Senator said, the amendment goes to the heart of this Bill and the conception of how we provide affordable housing.

Senator Moynihan has very eloquently, over some period, spoken about the need to link the conception of affordability with income rather than with market value. For us, this goes beyond just a practical change. It is a hugely important shift because it requires us to start to see housing not as a commodity but rather as a public good and not as a private asset but something that is of benefit to all our citizens, and that it is a necessity for all of us to ensure there is an adequate supply of housing. I spoke about the concerns of residents in Ringsend and Irishtown, who have watched for the last four years as nothing happened on the Irish Glass Bottle Company site where we were supposed to see a significant supply of social and affordable housing made available.

I hear from people, as I know we all do, across different communities. In Portobello and Ranelagh, I heard from young people, some of whom are my former students, who are on really good incomes by any standard and yet still cannot afford to buy within reasonable distance of where they work and wish to live. That is the difficulty that we are seeing. Across all communities there is a problem with a lack of supply of affordable housing be it apartments or houses. That is why we need to look again and review our conception of affordability.