Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Civil Engagement Group usually brings forward legislation and not motions. We chose to bring a motion forward because we realised we were coming again and again to the issue of housing through many different pieces of legislation and policy debates. It has been a core concern for everyone in Ireland and for our group, particularly those who are most marginalised within the discussions on housing.

Our very first Private Members' motion in 2016, in the previous Oireachtas, was on housing and disability. Again, it is unfortunate that we still have not delivered what we need, even though Ireland has now ratified the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. In the years since then, the urgency in that motion, which got cross-party support at the time, has increased and is all the more now.

In 2017, we introduced the Derelict and Vacant Sites Bill 2017 with former Senator Grace O'Sullivan. Again, in that Bill, we were told that strategies were in place and not to worry yet we know and see that derelict and vacant sites have become an ever-hotter and more urgent issue. I welcome that Government legislation has now been proposed by some of the Government Members but it needs to be moved forward. We put those ideas on the table back in 2017. Much has been lost in the interim; time has been lost.

When strategic housing developments and fast-tracked planning was proposed in 2017, we looked for use-it-or-lose-it clauses because developers said they would treat this as speculation and not build unless they were required to, and that is what has happened. At that same time, we looked for better protection from evictions. We have since seen waves of evictions. I say that not to say we said all this but to point out that these dots and issues have existed for a while. They were in the previous Oireachtas and they are in this one . We need to join them together into a bigger picture of change.

Reports on lone parents, which we had in the previous Oireachtas, set shocking alarm bells ringing on deprivation levels for lone-parent families in Ireland. It is not surprising we see now that is matching on to 53% of homeless families being headed by lone parents. There is almost a cognitive dissonance between a certain image of what Ireland's incomes are and what the incomes of most people actually are in Ireland. The fact that we have huge income inequality is really important. It is unfortunate, and this is a deep debate we have had in this Oireachtas, that affordability has been attached to a market indicator rather than to what people can actually afford.

All these issues come together, which is why we wanted this motion. It is to recognise that we had debates and, indeed, support. We went back and forth with people on these issues and they called for a bigger picture. They picture they called for, which is really important and about which Senator Moynihan spoke, is not just about doing a bit more but about doing things differently. It is not about making progress or starting from where we were.It is because we must acknowledge and recognise that we have not necessarily always been doing things the right way. One of the key areas, which it was important to address in the motion, relates to the financialisation of housing. We know that leasing is bad value for the State and creates perverse incentives. It is disappointing that even in Housing for All we still see a reliance on securing more than 2,600 houses through lease. People know what the problems are with leasing. It is disappointing that we see new contracts being signed again this week with hotels in respect of direct provision. I understand that these are the emergency measures being used, the fig leaves, but they have been used for a long time. If we are to address this, what we need to understand is that the market's goals and the State's goals are not necessarily aligned.

The most important line in the motion is an optimistic one, but it is also a challenging one. It reads: "it is within the capacity and means of the State to solve the housing crisis." It is within the capacity and the means of the State, because we do have access to finance. With the fiscal rules currently suspended, we have access in a very different way than we ever had before. It must not be the State encouraging solutions to solve the housing crisis or incentivising actors within a property market in the hope that secure housing somehow falls out of that. It must be the State taking the lead and recognising that, in fact, there are times when the interests of property speculation, such as with REITs, vulture funds and the commercial rental sector, are not aligned with, and may be at odds with, the needs of the public and the common good. We must be willing when it comes to those tension points to choose the common good and to have rent go down, not to be capped, and to accept and even seek a deflation in the property market rather than propping it up indefinitely.

The motion we heard today, the statement from a future Minister, or from any Minister for housing, was a statement about taking responsibility and putting on the record that we know the picture of what is happening in Ireland and that we take responsibility. We do not want to be in a position of taking responsibility and making further apologies in the future; we must take responsibility right now as elected decision makers and say that we will use every year, week and month of the time we have in office, and that the Minister of State has in government, to try to progress it. That is the more positive, optimistic way to take responsibility. We must place the State centre stage in that. We cannot abdicate that responsibility in any way. I hope the Minister of State can take ideas from the motion, accept the recommendations, bring them forward and level up our ambition as a State on these issues.