Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I commend him, the Government and everybody who is involved in delivering Housing for All and making it a reality. It is great to see the Minister come here today and report real progress in every element of housing. When the Government was formed and the housing challenge was to be addressed, the Minister stood up and took on the job. He is to be commended on that and the energy that he and his team put into championing a solution to our housing crisis. The housing crisis being experienced in Ireland is not unique to Ireland but what is unique is the energy, innovation and ambition that is being applied here to actually resolving this housing crisis. There was a decade of under-supply, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, supply side shortages, construction inflation - the list goes on. The challenges are endless. The easy thing to do would be to stand back from all that and point at all the deficiencies. The much harder job, the job of Government and those who support Government, is to take on the challenge and try to innovate and create. That is exactly what Housing for All is doing. It is a €20 billion plan to deliver 300,000 homes. It is backed by legislation and all the resources of the State, not just the Minister's good self and his offices but all of the resources available to the State including the land and the human resources that are being applied to it. It is right that this House should recognise the success to date, the record number of homes that have been built since Housing for All has been introduced. It is absolutely noteworthy that by the end of this year and in the short period of this Government and of Housing for All, there will be a record 100,000 new homes built.That is a large figure by any standards. It is an ambitious achievement. When we debated Housing for All, the Affordable Housing Bill, or any of the housing initiatives brought forward, there were those who thought there would never be 100,000 homes built by 2030, never mind by the end of 2023. I commend everybody involved in it - not just those in this House, but everybody on every building site who gets up early every morning to go to work to build homes for us.

There are still significant constraints, and the crisis is defined as one of affordability and supply. Housing for All seeks to address, and actively addresses, both of those elements. On affordability, any independent observer of the housing crisis will recognise that construction inflation, supply-side shortages, and all of those elements have added to the cost of a new home. It is always the biggest financial investment most of us will make. However, Housing for All does not just address the supply by direct capital investment. The Minister has said that more than €5.1 billion is to be invested in increasing housing supply in 2024. There are also direct, immediate supports to address the affordability challenge for people who want to be first-time buyers and buy their own home. For the first time in a generation, the State is supporting people to own their own homes. The help-to-buy scheme is to be supported. People who tell me they cannot save for a deposit because they are paying rent are given €30,000 of their taxes back. The local authority home loan amendments made to the first home scheme and the vacant and derelict grants are all to be commended. There are supports for students, with investment for the first time ever in affordable student accommodation. There are supports for renters with the rent tax credit. The tenant in situscheme is providing permanent homes to people faced with notices to quit. All of these initiatives are to be commended, as is the €242 million that is there every year to ensure there is an emergency response and preventative measures.

I could go on at length about all of the achievements to date, and eaten bread is soon forgotten. We need to look to what is coming in the next few years. The Minister has mentioned the review of Housing for All and the review of the targets. He has made commitments to modern methods of construction, reducing construction costs and increasing supply. I ask for three additional things. I have already raised this in the House as an issue. The Minister knows that I am a former Dublin city councillor. Since I was first elected in 2004, Dublin City Council has been talking about regeneration projects.