Paul Bradford (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. While she does not have full control over the Department's housing policy, her role as Minister of State with responsibility for rural development means the issue is very much on her agenda. We all agree there is a very serious housing problem in Dublin, which is having a knock-on effect throughout the country. While my question relates to a story which emanated in the media at the weekend as to how many units of housing it will be possible to build in the very near future in our capital city and a dispute between the Department and media outlets, I am asking the Minister of State to acknowledge that this is a crisis which requires a solution. I have repeatedly expressed the view in recent years that we do not have a housing policy in this country. We clearly have a policy for the construction industry and a policy to regenerate the role of developers. Some of those developers have been tripping in to meet the Minister for Finance in recent times, which reminds one of the politics of the Celtic tiger era. However, we do not have a clear, distinct set of proposals to house the more than 100,000 people throughout the country who are in urgent need of new accommodation.

The story in the Sunday Independentat the weekend was disturbing. It referred to an e-mail from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to the Department of Finance which contained an admission that there was a deliberate attempt being made to spin the numbers. The e-mail stated: "We have been spinning that there is sufficient land with planning permission/zoned for housing circa 46,000 housing units across four Dublin LAs but the reality is that this figure includes land not yet zoned for housing." We need clarity as to exactly how much land is available in the short term for housing units in Dublin. In addition, we need clarity as to how the Government intends not just to get the land zoned and obtain planning permission but how the houses are to be built.

The mortgage and debt crisis in this country is very profound and it feeds into the housing crisis. The latter represents the greatest crisis facing the country, with more than 100,000 families seeking housing. It is greatly remiss of us politically not to respond to it more robustly. The nation continues to face economic difficulties and will do for some time. I first entered local government politics in the mid-1980s when the country was in the midst of a profound economic depression.I can only speak for Cork County Council at the time, as can the Leas-Chathaoirleach, where hundreds of local authority houses were being built per annum and, presumably, thousands across the country, because it was part of then Government's housing strategy. We need such a strategy again. One of the aspects I want the Minister to reflect on, which my colleagues and I in the new political movement Renua have been talking about, is that as of today more than €100 billion in Irish pension funds is invested abroad. Can we attempt to devise a scheme to bring some of this money back into our country to provide housing for the people? That is an issue on which we need to reflect. We certainly need new thinking, new solutions and new ways of investing to deal with the housing crisis, as we cannot wait five, ten or 15 years to provide housing for these families. We all know the social knock-on effects arising from inadequate housing.

The Minister of State will be aware from her constituency work that rent allowance in all its formats and mortgage subsidies are still being paid, so taxpayers' money is being spent, but it is not being well spent. We need a new attempt to define a national housing strategy. I have sought this debate in the House in the past six months and I hope we can have it in the near future. However, today I am asking for clarity. When one Department official is telling another that deliberate spinning is taking place, that is not a positive starting point. Let us get a true picture of how bad the situation is, and let us plan to make it better. I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's observations. I acknowledge that she cannot make up policy on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly. I watched the Minister on television last night, but he did not reveal any new information. We have to take this problem seriously because it is ruining lives, livelihoods, families and communities across the country.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this very serious matter. I would point out, as he has done, that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, is directly responsible for the social housing strategy. This gives me an opportunity to congratulate the Minister, with whom I work closely, on the determination with which he is pursuing the social housing strategy.

As the Senator is aware, housing supply, public and private, is one of the most significant challenges and priorities currently faced by the Government. In this regard, the Government has set out a range of actions in the Construction 2020 strategy to support expanded housing supply and, in the social housing strategy, has set aside some €4 billion to deal with social housing provision in the period to 2020. The lack of supply of private housing is particularly acute in the Dublin area, where demand well outstrips supply, with consequential effects on house prices and also rents.

To put the issue in context, at the peak of construction activity in 2006, more than 93,000 houses were built nationally, of which just under 20,000 were built in Dublin. Further to the economic and banking crisis, activity declined very sharply. Only around 11,000 housing units were completed nationally in 2014, of which 3,268 were in the Dublin area. There is undoubtedly an urgent need to increase the level of housing supply, particularly in Dublin, in order to return to a market equilibrium whereby supply equals demand, having regard to the increasing population and changing household formation trends.

To help address these issues, and further to the publication of the Government's Construction 2020 strategy for a renewed construction sector, the Dublin housing supply co-ordination task force was established last year with a particular focus on addressing supply-related issues in Dublin. This includes the monitoring of trends in new housing developments, as well as the identification of any obstacles - including the provision of key infrastructure - to the bringing on stream of viable and market-ready developments. One of the first actions of the task force was to analyse the stock of planning permissions and zoned land for housing developments in Dublin.The first report of the task force, which is available on my Department's website, concluded that across the four Dublin local authorities, approximately 21,000 housing units already had planning permission, equating to three years' supply, which permissions do not have any infrastructural constraints. The task force further reported that an additional 25,000 new homes are considered permissible on existing lands which are zoned for housing, and which do not have any infrastructural constraints. Both of these figures are subject to change as planning permissions are lodged and granted. Given a predicted housing requirement of approximately 7,500 new homes per annum over the coming years, as identified by the Housing Agency, the position is that there is sufficient land with planning permissions, and-or zoned for housing, to meet the predicted requirements for the next six years in the Dublin area.

The data on Dublin housing supply as published by the Dublin housing supply co-ordination task force is the most recent and up-to-date information available. A further analysis of zoned lands with infrastructural constraints has been undertaken by the task force with a view to ensuring that further supply comes on-stream during that follow-on period. The task force has recently submitted a second report to my Department focusing on this issue and the Minister will give due consideration to its conclusions in consultation with his Government colleagues.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

That is a very comprehensive response.

Paul Bradford (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is comprehensive in reiterating the position that is known to us already-----

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will allow the Senator to ask a supplementary question.

Paul Bradford (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Will the Minister of State take back to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, my profound concern that we are failing to acknowledge the fact that tens of thousands of people are awaiting social housing and private housing and that simultaneously, there are thousands of vacant accommodation units across the country? There appears to be no joined-up thinking on finding a solution to these problems. We do not have the investment capacity to build, in the short term, the number of social and affordable houses required. I referred earlier to the local authority politics in which both I and the Leas-Chathaoirleach were involved in the 1980s. It was a long time ago in one sense, yet at that time councils availed of schemes such as housing finance agency loans, share ownership loans and local authority loans and were exceptionally proactive in providing social housing. There is a profound lack of imagination, new thinking and new ideas on how to solve this housing crisis. We can argue about the statistics, whether 30,000 or 46,000 units are ready to go, but the problem is that nothing is happening and houses are not being built in the volumes required. A new national plan is needed. I repeat my request for a serious, in-depth debate on a national housing crisis here in Seanad Éireann, where at least some degree of serious reflection is allowed, in the near future. Let us all work together to bring an end to the misery of the people who are waiting in endless queues for housing and who are living in substandard rented accommodation. We are all paying a high social price for that.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I do not think that needs a response. Both the Minister of State and Senator Bradford have put their cases well. The Senator has asked the Minister of State to bring the issue back to the Minister, as I am sure she will.