Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have engaged extensively with the Minister of State and the other Ministers in the Department on the detail of the issues involved. Unfortunately, a number of concerns we flagged when dealing with the legislation before the House prior to the summer recess still remain with regard to the Housing for All plan. I acknowledge there are positive components in the plan. I note the investment in the Housing First approach. That could be increased further. We know that approach has worked in other countries. I suggest it should be bolstered by an increase in the number of tenancy sustainment officers, of which there are ten currently. These officers play an important role in helping people, particularly vulnerable persons, to stay in housing. That is an important element in ensuring those who face the most difficulties are able to access housing and sustain it.

The core concern we had, namely, the reliance on, trust in and hope that the market will deliver and respond, remains with respect to Housing for All. The plan leads with the goal of home ownership, which should be a goal of course, but many of its measures around home ownership have been identified as inflating prices and contributing to the core problem, which is the property market. Rather than constraining the property market, we are simply helping people to get into it or to navigate it. That is the problem. Senator Moynihan put it very eloquently. The fact is the market and investment companies have a different set of priorities. Their priorities are the maximising of profit and return. That is their key concern and focus and that is what they will do. It is up to us not to appeal to them or play their game but to ask that they fit within our laws, which supersede them because they are the laws of the State based on the representation of the people.

The right balance and the strength we need to show are still not fully there. It is evident in the issues relating to the shared equity scheme. I do not need to rehash that. Even the Central Bank commented on it. We have been warned time and again that the scheme will have a potential inflationary impact. There are also questions about local authority loans. The rent pressure zone protections are in place but they are linked to the harmonised index of consumer prices. It comes back to the question of affordability, which we discussed at length when we dealt with the legislation. Affordability in the classic sense does not begin with the cost factor but with what people can afford as a starting point. We need to do better in that regard. I am concerned about that. There will be a review and we will consider it but we have seen rental prices increase.

In terms of rental protections, I am concerned that the private rental market will play such a key role. While we have a cost-rental model, the concern we highlighted is that the model of cost rental the State has chosen to introduce includes private actors who will make an equity return. We are adding an unnecessary cost to the costs of the cost-rental model. We are adding returns for shareholders into the rental prices. That is a concern as is the fact that the cost of financing is included in the cost. We know about private financing. There is a whole section in the plan on the private financing that investment companies get. This is different from the financing the State can draw on at European level. Ultimately, an additional cost that could have been avoided is being imposed on renters.

I welcome the move away from the leasing model but we are getting mixed signals on that. We have been told we are moving away from leasing by local authorities, a practice I have opposed for a long time, and giving them the capacity to build directly and so forth, which is welcome. However, we are still giving an exemption to investment funds that buy up properties when they lease to local authorities. We are creating a situation where local authorities that may wish to buy for direct build housing are competing with investment funds that may want to lease housing back to the local authorities.We are still creating a situation in which local authorities that might want to directly buy or build are competing with investment funds that may want to rent or lease back to them. We are creating an unnecessary distortion and an unnecessary property market speculative competition around something as basic as social housing provision, especially at a point when a huge amount of housing has to be provided in a short period. Many local authorities might not be in position not to take that kind of leasing arrangement, which is a concern.

I have highlighted that there is still a core gap. I will highlight one or two of the specific issues which have not been touched on as much today. I am sure we will be teasing out all of these issues over the period ahead. There is a small part in the plan on disability, but it is not really placed and given the focus it needs. There are more than 5,000 people with a disability on the housing list, many of them for five to ten years and a huge cohort of people with a disability who are considered housed, but are not appropriately housed in the manner of their choice. While there was a general decrease in housing lists from 9% last year, there was only a 4.9% decrease for those with a disability.

While there is a certain allocation of special funding for special housing, I was disappointed by Part M or universal design and that kind of bigger picture. If we are building a whole new set of standards or facilitating or funding others to build, let us raise the standards widely. The Minister will be aware I have put forward legislation on public procurement. One of the requirements I have is that where we are looking at major capital expenditure, and much of the provision in this plan will require significant capital procurement, we should be looking at 50% quality criteria, at least. I put this legislation forward in the last Government and have again put it forward in this Government. When we look at mica, pyrite and all of those issues, the importance of quality criteria, raising the standards and aiming high in building is so clear.

My final concern is about the urban development zones and the judicial review. Let us be clear on planning. More than half of the strategic housing developments which were given planning permission were not built. We need to knock on the head the idea that somehow objections or criticisms are delaying housing, which we were told was the problem local authorities had the last time. They got their fast track planning permission and then sat on those properties. Let us not have that happen again or have the urban development zones be misused, as the strategic development zones were, for a pile of empty commercial office blocks, when what we need is housing for communities in the inner cities.