Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The Bill is fairly straightforward and I thank the Department for the helpful briefing note that was provided to everybody. The financing of houses, social housing in particular, via the local authorities and the funding of approved housing bodies, AHBs, is most definitely of huge importance. There is a dire need for people on housing lists to be homed more quickly, for people who are working to be able to get a mortgage before they are too old to qualify for one and for more affordable rental units to be available for younger workers and families before we end up losing thousands more to emigration. As of June 2024, 103,080 people who were born in Ireland were living in Australia. For the first time since the 19th century that figure has exceeded 100,000. Emigrants are telling us before they go that they are leaving because of the housing crisis. They just cannot afford to live here.

The biggest problem for many young workers is that the Government's vision for affordable housing is not actually affordable. Rents in many cost-rental developments still exclude those who earn too much to qualify for social housing but not enough to afford to rent in the private sector. They are excluded from the cost-rental market because rents are too high and they fail the affordability test. A sense of urgency on the part of the Government to tackle the housing crisis just seems to be missing. While we have seen more housing delivered in recent years, the housing disaster still continues because the Government is lacking in ambition. The problem lies with the targets, which are too low. The Government can keep throwing money at the problem - and Sinn Féin completely agrees with increasing the borrowing limit, as set out in the Bill - but unless the Government increases its targets, it is going to keep failing. Of the 10,000 new-build social homes that were promised for this year, just 1,804 were completed in the first six months. Of the 2,350 cost-rental homes to be delivered this year by the local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency, only 640 were built in the first six months, and of the 2,100 affordable purchase homes that are targeted for delivery this year, only 358 were completed by June 2025. I know June is only halfway through the year and while those numbers do tend to increase in the second half of the year, it does seem like we are going to miss the targets again this year. People have been screaming for years that there is too much red tape, duplication and delay in the process of delivering social and affordable homes through the local authorities and approved housing bodies.

The Government can keep throwing money at the problem but it must also look at the infrastructure underpinning housing. I am blue in the face talking about County Limerick and Newcastle West, where we have a water treatment plant that cannot take any more houses on board until 2031. That is six more years of no housing in the only tier 2 county town in County Limerick. We must look at this in the round but, as it stands, Sinn Féin agrees with increasing the budget on this. That said, the Government will have to look at all sides of this problem. Affordable houses are not currently affordable, the infrastructure needed to build more houses is not in place and the targets need to be increased.