Seanad debates

Friday, 18 June 2021

Affordable Housing Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages

 

9:30 am

Photo of Victor BoyhanVictor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Although I am speaking to amendments Nos. 8 and 9, I will concentrate on the latter, having heard what Senator Higgins said. The Minister might say that of course I would say so, given that I am proposing it, but it is one of the most important amendments to the Bill.It is not something I dreamed up. It came out of a lot of discussion and engagement with a lot of housing advocacy groups, from listening as a member of the housing committee, and from rereading, rechecking and cross-referencing with people who made presentations to the committee and following up with them. This seemed to be the big issue and it sort of makes sense. This is the Affordable Housing Bill but nowhere do we define "affordable housing". The Minister of State made a very good argument on this the other day but it is very simple. We have to keep the language terribly simple. This is the Affordable Housing Bill 2021 yet nowhere in the legislation is there a definition of "affordable housing". I acknowledge the amount of work done on this by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service and the work of those who engage with the committee on this.

This is a vital amendment to the Bill. The committee had a lot of discussion on it. It struck me as odd that the Affordable Housing Bill could not provide a definition of affordability, as I see it and as people outside the Houses see it. Section 5 of the Bill merely speaks about ways in which homes can be made available. It mentions a dwelling made available by a housing authority under section 6, a dwelling to which a Part V agreement applies being made available for sale, and an open market dwelling. The Minister touched on his understanding of an open market dwelling. The Bill states any home made available through these avenues is an affordable dwelling. What use is the term "affordable dwelling" if it bears no meaningful legal resemblance to what those words are commonly understood to mean? Just because a home is made available to a person in a particular manner it does not make it truly affordable. The Minister cannot change this simply by introducing the Bill, passing it through the Houses and calling it affordable.

This amendment is proposed to section 10, which relates to the assessment of eligibility for affordable dwellings and purchase arrangements. It proposes a 35% cap on what can be charged for affordable housing with regard to an applicant's net income. The reality is that something is only affordable based on net income. I know there is the issue of seven bands and that some people are speaking about affordable housing in Dublin at €450,000.

I will wait for the Minister's attention.

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