Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The first thing to say is that it is disgraceful that it has been 14 years since community employment supervisors and all those working in section 56 and section 39 organisations have had a proper pay increase. It behoves the Government to act urgently to address this long-running sore for those who are providing vital services in our communities. We all speak at length about how important these services are but these people do not feel respected or appreciated because of the many years since they last saw a pay increase. I support Senator Gavan's comments in this regard.

I welcome the comments made last Saturday by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, on reviewing and dramatically reforming the build-to-rent planning conditions that exist in this country. This is a long overdue announcement. It is something for which we have been calling for a long period of time. While it may not have huge relevance outside the main urban centres, here in Dublin it is massive. The only show in town with regard to building anything at present, particularly in the centre of Dublin, is building to rent. This excludes anybody who wants to buy a home from ever being able to do so. We have 5,000 build-to-rent units under construction, approved or going through the planning system at this point in time in the small area comprising Dublin 1, Dublin 7 and Dublin 3.

My main call this morning is to ask that the Minister come to the House sooner rather than later to set out to us very clearly what he intends to do to bring to an end build-to-rent and to set out the timing. In September 2020 a report landed on the Minister's desk on bringing to an end the co-living model that was introduced in 2018 under the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy. It took the Minister until days before Christmas to eventually sign the order. This gave well over three or four months of a long lead-in time for anybody to rush in a planning application. In the area I live in, planning applications for co-living that were rushed in during that period have yet to be built. We cannot have a situation where we have a long lead-in time on making an announcement to reform build-to-rent and then leaving it for many months before it is put into action. I want the Minister to come to the House.