Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move recommendation No. 1:

““Report on Help to Buy scheme 6. The Minister shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas on—

(a) the impact of the Help to Buy scheme on prices and affordability in the housing market, and

(b) potential alternative policy options which would increase housing affordability by reducing prices, rather than increasing available credit.”.

The Minister will be aware of the shocking figures in the increases in the cost of housing over the last number of years. House prices have doubled since 2012. There was an increase of 12% this year. There are significant projected increases in house prices if we continue according to the model we have.

We will come to the many commercial investments shortly. We have been told the solutions to the housing crisis lie with commercial investments. In fact, it has been found that, as I think might have been predicted, the priorities of the speculative market are not necessarily aligned with the priorities of the provision of housing. This is because the goal of a market is to exert every pressure it can in order to maximise the return for its shareholders, in investment funds and so forth. We have constantly seen a flip whereby affordability has moved away from what we might expect from the houses that are purchased. Instead, affordability is now about how we bridge the gap between house prices and affordability. I have spoken about this to the Minister for Housing, Government and Local Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the idea that we must bridge this ever-widening gap in the cost of housing. This allows and supports the inflation of housing prices, through all of our various investment incentives, mechanisms, measurements and our de-risking of the sector. Then, we try to bridge that gap by making people pay those higher prices. While we provide some bridging for them to pay those higher prices, we do not address the core problem, which is the inflation of housing prices.

This recommendation proposes a report on the help-to-buy scheme. The Minister will be aware that his own officials, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and many other bodies all signalled the concern that the help-to-buy scheme would effectively contribute to the kinds of increases in prices, such as those we are seeing. While I know that the help-to-buy scheme is not doing this on its own, the scheme simply allows for the bar to keep rising. It puts yet another measure in place to try to bridge that gap as house prices go up. Again, the help-to-buy scheme was signalled as having a potential further additional inflationary impact.

I would like if the Minister would be minded to produce a report on the impact of the help-to-buy scheme on the prices and affordability within the housing market. He might perhaps set out alternative policy options because, having tried multiple versions of the same thing over a decade, it is probably time to consider how we can prioritise housing provision in a way that is not dependent on rooting through a market that seeks to constantly raise and increase its returns. This could include housing affordability by reducing prices and introducing measures to deflate the cost and prices of houses. The Minister might outline those, rather than simply increasing credit and indeed increasing debt for our citizens.