Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 8, line 24, after “deficiencies” to insert “and speculation”.

Mindful of the fact that we have a great deal to get through I will be as brief as I can. This is the core of it and it is not a question of not liking it because I am very happy for a private market to exist and for the State to engage in the use of private land. I discussed that with Senator Casey on the Affordable Housing Bill. The key concern is the use of market dynamics and these amendments amend that section in the Bill which talks about "deficiencies in the housing market and to alleviate the shortage of land available for housing in circumstances where that market is experiencing a systemic housing shortage". We need to be clear that this is allowing the market to lead, where it has, in fact, already led much of this and where there has been an over-reliance on the market. That is why my amendments say that if we want to be real about addressing and delivering housing, we need to identify two of the problems and name them.

Two of the problems I suggest we name are speculation and exploitation of scarcity. The core dynamic of speculation and of large-scale investor, commercial, property investment is the logic whereby scarcity creates demand. The fact is that again and again this and the previous Government have constantly tried to encourage the role of speculative property investors to engage and these Governments have tried to think of what they need to do to persuade them where we have in fact ended up creating endless perverse incentives. We have strategic housing developments, the majority of which have not been started even though they got fast track planning permission. We also have a lowering of standards, which we have read of in the reports, leading many of those who are shovel-ready to go back to the planning process again because they know that their political pressure will allow the standards to be lowered so that they can fit more units in. These are the facts.

We know on leasing and can see that dynamic whereby we have created competition. It is not a matter of local authorities having to make that hard choice in these matters. We know that there are situations where local authorities are competing with investment firms for housing in this State. Those are the market dynamics because the market will be given what we have heard about which is risk-free leasing with guaranteed returns over long periods of time, an asset at the end, with the mortgage having been paid. I am saying this to simply point to the fact that we need to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes again. We do not need to but if we frame this approach as simply as being shortages that have just magically happened to the market rather than the fact that we know that there are tens of thousands of planning permissions that are not being used because the land value is going up all of the time. That is a market dynamic that needs to be addressed.

That is also why in amendment No. 14, I specifically suggest that the agency, among its many functions - a great deal of which are very laudable ones - should not permit private investment funds to purchase lands, developments or housing for private profit. If it is going to be public land for public good then let all of it be public land for the public good. I am suggesting that there be an explicit exclusion here which would send a signal that this is not business as usual, that this is not simply a scaling up of business as usual and that there is no danger of us transferring further resources. People have seen that they bailed out the banks and developers, that they are transferring money in a large-scale way through leases, and are worried now that public land is going to end up being transferred again to benefit a cohort of people. That is a very real concern based upon a real record of matters, as we know what drove the property crash in 2008. That is the context of my amendments. I will not have many more such amendments on the Bill which will talk about this point as the rest of them are very technical. If we set this in a wrong way at the very beginning under the purposes of this Act, how we frame the Act and as to the problem, then we will not arrive at the solution that we need. The fact is that property speculation is not part of the solution but is a large part of the problem.