Introduction
A Cheann Comhairle,
The access to affordable, safe and secure housing is an issue that has shaped Irish politics from even before our State was founded.
There are few issues that are as fundamental to the social and economic well being of a nation than housing and the security it brings.
There is nothing more mentally and financially destructive than the loss of one’s home and no fear so paralysing than the potential loss of the roof over your family’s head.
It is for all those people that I, and the previous Government, have worked to fix our broken economy and housing sector.
Each Government has had its own approach to development and housing policies but the problems have persisted across the decades.
When I became Taoiseach, the country had just suffered from the worst housing crash the country had ever faced.
In 2006, over 93,000 new houses were built. By 2012 this figure had fallen to just over 8,000.
The property bubble had trapped over 315,000 people in negative equity, mortgage arrears was climbing sharply and ghost estates littered the countryside.
The collapse of the construction industry was swift and brutal. House prices collapsed. Workers emigrated en mass to work on sites in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Since 2014, the speed of the economic recovery and the growth of employment and of household formation has dramatically over-taken the capacity of a damaged and over-borrowed house-building sector to respond.
But Cheann Comhairle it is easy for anyone to stand here in the Dáil chamber today and list out these well known problems.
What I would like to see today is how we plan a way forward, how we build on recent initiatives to improve the supply of housing, how we can ensure that everyone (first time buyers, renters, social housing tenants, and families) can live their lives without the constant threat of housing insecurity hanging over their heads.
Construction 2020
The previous Government’s first major intervention came in May 2014 with our Construction 2020 strategy. The main features of the strategy were enacted in the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act which introduced a vacant site levy on developers hoarding land in high demand areas, reduced development charges on new construction and other changes to improve the economic viability of new housing construction.
In its Budget announced in October 2014, the Government subsequently set aside almost €4 billion to build 35,000 new social homes and to expand the use of the Housing Assistance Payment and Rental Accommodation Scheme to help 75,000 other households meet their housing needs.
These were all significant interventions but it is clear that they are taking longer than expected to have an impact on the availability of new housing.
Cheann Comhairle, all the heart-rending stories of homelessness, rising financial pressures on families and young people being locked out of home ownership by rising prices and minimum deposits stem primarily from one single inescapable fact – there are not enough homes being supplied to meet the rising demand from a growing workforce and population.
Unless we address the barriers to housing supply, we are simply displacing one family in distress by another.
November 2015 Housing Package
Our most recent intervention came in November last where the Government decided on a targeted development contribution rebate initiative in Dublin and Cork for housing delivered at certain price points. This will enhance the housing supply at prices people can afford in these areas where the demand is most acute.
In addition, a number of other measures to stimulate the provision of housing supply were adopted such as changes to planning guidelines on apartment standards which set a consistent national approach.
New measures to maximise the potential of Strategic Development Zones were also introduced.
Taken together, these provisions are designed to speed up the delivery of housing supply.
New Government Housing Initiative
However, it is clear that the scale of the property collapse and the subsequent dysfunction of the residential housing sector is so great that more Government intervention is required to kick start house building.
It is imperative that a new Government takes immediate action on housing.
Cheann Comhairle, it is my ambition that after forming a stable Government that it would introduce a new ‘Housing Initiative’ within four weeks.
Similar to the ‘Jobs Initiative’ the previous Government introduced within 100 days of taking Office to deal with the major unemployment crisis, this new Housing Initiative will be designed to tackle this crisis.
It would also be my intention to appoint a new Cabinet Level Minister for Housing to take the lead on the development of the Initiative.
The nature of the crisis will require a collective approach and I would hope that the design of this new initiative will be informed by input from all Oireachtas members and other stakeholders interested in working for solutions.
I see the debate today as the first step in this process.
Once approved by Government and the Oireachtas it will form the start of a new annual ‘Action Plan on Housing’, and similar to the current Action Plan for Jobs, responsibility for implementation will be across Government and overseen directly by the Department of the Taoiseach.
There is no shortage of development land but many urban sites remain stranded by a lack of local infrastructure. I believe that one measure that should be considered for the new Housing Initiative is a new Local Authority Residential Infrastructure Fund so that local authorities can bid for extra capital funding to unlock residential development sites in high demand areas.
The time has come for the State to invest in this necessary local infrastructure to facilitate the development of affordable family housing in high demand areas.
Building on the already-legislated for Vacant Site Levy, which will apply from 2018, I also believe we should look again at tax and regulatory measures to incentivise the speedy development of zoned and serviced land banks in high demand areas.
Conclusion
Cheann Comhairle,
There are many frightened people listening to this debate today. Frightened about the next rent review, the next mortgage payment, their prospects of ever owning their own home.
It is our duty as national legislators to propose and debate a constructive way forward - to alleviate their fear, not trade off it.
That is what the people watching us today on their televisions or listening to us on their radios want.
Thanks to their hard work and determination the Irish economy is now recovering. We need to ensure that the recovery is sustained and felt inside the home of every Irish family.
That is the mission of the 32nd Dail and the next Government.
And the first item of that agenda will be a cross Party effort on housing.
Thank You.
ENDS