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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Sep 2017

Vol. 959 No. 5

Housing: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

The following motion was moved by Deputy Eoin Ó Broin on Wednesday, 27 September 2017:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— the social and affordable housing crisis has now reached the level of an emergency;
— growing numbers of people do not have access to affordable, secure and safe homes;
— 8,000 people, including 3,000 children, are being forced to live in emergency accommodation;
— 90,000 households are on council waiting lists, many waiting for more than ten years for an allocation;
— thousands of people are struggling with high rents, insecurity of tenure and poor standards in the private rental sector;
— thousands more are locked out of the private purchase market by high prices driven up by land speculation;
— the failure to resolve the mortgage distress crisis and keep people in their family home or private rented accommodation continues to push more people into homelessness;
— Rebuilding Ireland does not provide for an adequate level of investment in social or affordable housing;
— Rebuilding Ireland continues to over rely on the private sector to meet social and affordable housing need; and
— Rebuilding Ireland, unless substantially amended, will not address the underlying causes of the housing and homeless crisis; and
calls on the Government to:
— honour the proposal from the Report of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness to increase the stock of social houses owned by local authorities and approved housing bodies by a minimum of 10,000 units a year from 2018;
— introduce a new affordable housing programme in 2018 to enable middle-income households to access private rental and private purchase housing at affordable prices;
— support these housing programmes with a capital investment commitment substantially greater than that outlined in Rebuilding Ireland;
— introduce new measures to stop the flow of people into homelessness by providing greater protections for private renters and greater supports for those in long-term mortgage distress; and
— give a clear commitment that no family with children will be left in emergency accommodation for more than six months and that no person will be forced to sleep rough due to lack of safe and appropriate emergency accommodation.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 3:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that:
— the State has built fewer than 3,500 social homes since 2011, less than the number constructed every year on average from 1994–2010;
— fewer than 600 new social homes will be constructed in 2017 when the Rebuilding Ireland target is 5,000;
— only 24% of 10,000 units in the ‘construction pipeline’ are on site, so it will be 2021 before most are built compared to the already unambitious target of 26,000 units;
— the overall housing budget is too low and skewed toward current housing programmes, such as housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme;
— the capital house building budget, €730 million in 2017, is still 51% below 2008 levels;
— as a result, no new housing stock is being added as social housing provision coming from the private rental and owner occupier market;
— due to years of under-supply and pent-up demand Ireland needs 40,000–50,000 new homes per year to make a dent on demand and a noticeable impact on affordability;
— the Government target is 25,000 by 2021 and 15,000–18,000 new units expected in 2017;
— clearly there is a market failure in housing and new interventions are required to stimulate supply;
— the Government’s reluctance to accept the actual challenges and their refusal to make any interventions in the housing market is making a crisis situation worse;
— there has been no commitment by this Government to making housing more affordable, with the confirmation that there is no intention to re-introduce affordable housing initiatives for low- and middle-income households;
— it is in the area of homelessness that the Government’s inept housing policy really comes into plain view, and the abandonment of targets on hotel accommodation and continuing failure to make a dent in rising homeless figures cannot continuously be ignored;
calls on the Government to:
— commit to meeting Rebuilding Ireland’s targets on moving homeless families out of hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation by the end of 2017;
— revise the emergency homeless strategy, in particular redesigning homeless HAP and the HAP scheme so households are not discouraged from taking up a tenancy and are not removed from main social housing waiting lists;
— increase and re-balance the housing budget toward capital expenditure;
— put in place new vehicles to enable off-balance sheet funding for social housing projects from private sources and credit unions;
— devise a strategy to enable and encourage far greater scale and size in social house building projects;
— recognise the significant market failures in housing, including in planning, finance, infrastructure and costs of construction, which the market requires State intervention to overcome;
— acknowledge that the Government’s target of 25,000 new house completions by 2021 is not adequate, given years of pent-up demand and under-supply, and that at a minimum we need 45,000–50,000 units output annually over the next few years;
— commit to reintroducing affordable housing schemes including affordable owner occupier and rental housing schemes for middle income households and explore possible financial incentives aimed at encouraging development of housing at more affordable price points;
— introduce financial incentives to build high-density developments where they are currently not commercially viable to build in Dublin City and other local authorities;
— commit to greater enforcement and implementation of rent pressure zones and other rent regulations including more staffing and resources for the Residential Tenancies Board;
— tackle land hoarding by large investors, which is clearly holding back supply including by making changes to capital gains tax and introducing a new site tax to encourage the use of empty sites; and
— devise new strategies to manage vacant properties including an active occupancy register."
- (Deputy Barry Cowen)

I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion regarding housing. On Wednesday, 27 September 2017, on the question that amendment No. 3 to the motion be agreed to, a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 70(2), that division must be taken now.

Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 41; Níl, 36; Staon, 46.

  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Browne, James.
  • Butler, Mary.
  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Cahill, Jackie.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Casey, Pat.
  • Cassells, Shane.
  • Chambers, Jack.
  • Collins, Michael.
  • Cowen, Barry.
  • Curran, John.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Fitzmaurice, Michael.
  • Fleming, Sean.
  • Harty, Michael.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Lahart, John.
  • Lawless, James.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • MacSharry, Marc.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McGuinness, John.
  • Martin, Catherine.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • Moynihan, Aindrias.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Murphy O'Mahony, Margaret.
  • Murphy, Eugene.
  • O'Callaghan, Jim.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Keeffe, Kevin.
  • O'Loughlin, Fiona.
  • O'Rourke, Frank.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • Rabbitte, Anne.
  • Scanlon, Eamon.
  • Smyth, Niamh.
  • Troy, Robert.

Níl

  • Boyd Barrett, Richard.
  • Brady, John.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Buckley, Pat.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Collins, Joan.
  • Coppinger, Ruth.
  • Crowe, Seán.
  • Daly, Clare.
  • Doherty, Pearse.
  • Ellis, Dessie.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Healy, Seamus.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kelly, Alan.
  • Kenny, Gino.
  • Kenny, Martin.
  • McDonald, Mary Lou.
  • Mitchell, Denise.
  • Munster, Imelda.
  • Murphy, Paul.
  • Nolan, Carol.
  • Ó Broin, Eoin.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • O'Reilly, Louise.
  • O'Sullivan, Jan.
  • Penrose, Willie.
  • Quinlivan, Maurice.
  • Ryan, Brendan.
  • Sherlock, Sean.
  • Smith, Bríd.
  • Stanley, Brian.
  • Tóibín, Peadar.
  • Wallace, Mick.

Staon

  • Bailey, Maria.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Brophy, Colm.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Peter.
  • Byrne, Catherine.
  • Canney, Seán.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
  • Creed, Michael.
  • D'Arcy, Michael.
  • Daly, Jim.
  • Deering, Pat.
  • Doherty, Regina.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • English, Damien.
  • Farrell, Alan.
  • Fitzpatrick, Peter.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Halligan, John.
  • Harris, Simon.
  • Heydon, Martin.
  • Humphreys, Heather.
  • Kehoe, Paul.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McHugh, Joe.
  • McLoughlin, Tony.
  • Madigan, Josepha.
  • Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
  • Moran, Kevin Boxer.
  • Murphy, Dara.
  • Murphy, Eoghan.
  • Naughton, Hildegarde.
  • Neville, Tom.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Connell, Kate.
  • O'Donovan, Patrick.
  • O'Dowd, Fergus.
  • Phelan, John Paul.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Rock, Noel.
  • Ross, Shane.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Zappone, Katherine.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Michael Moynihan and John Lahart; Níl, Deputies Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Denise Mitchell.
Amendment declared carried.

As amendment No. 3 has been carried, amendments Nos. 1 and 2 cannot be moved.

Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 not moved.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 40; Níl, 37; Staon, 46.

  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Browne, James.
  • Butler, Mary.
  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Cahill, Jackie.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Casey, Pat.
  • Cassells, Shane.
  • Chambers, Jack.
  • Collins, Michael.
  • Cowen, Barry.
  • Curran, John.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Fitzmaurice, Michael.
  • Fleming, Sean.
  • Harty, Michael.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Lahart, John.
  • Lawless, James.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • MacSharry, Marc.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McGuinness, John.
  • Moynihan, Aindrias.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Murphy O'Mahony, Margaret.
  • Murphy, Eugene.
  • O'Callaghan, Jim.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Keeffe, Kevin.
  • O'Loughlin, Fiona.
  • O'Rourke, Frank.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • Rabbitte, Anne.
  • Scanlon, Eamon.
  • Smyth, Niamh.
  • Troy, Robert.

Níl

  • Boyd Barrett, Richard.
  • Brady, John.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Buckley, Pat.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Collins, Joan.
  • Connolly, Catherine.
  • Coppinger, Ruth.
  • Crowe, Seán.
  • Daly, Clare.
  • Doherty, Pearse.
  • Ellis, Dessie.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Healy, Seamus.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kelly, Alan.
  • Kenny, Gino.
  • Kenny, Martin.
  • McDonald, Mary Lou.
  • Mitchell, Denise.
  • Munster, Imelda.
  • Murphy, Paul.
  • Nolan, Carol.
  • O'Reilly, Louise.
  • O'Sullivan, Jan.
  • Ó Broin, Eoin.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • Penrose, Willie.
  • Quinlivan, Maurice.
  • Ryan, Brendan.
  • Sherlock, Sean.
  • Smith, Bríd.
  • Stanley, Brian.
  • Tóibín, Peadar.
  • Wallace, Mick.

Staon

  • Bailey, Maria.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Brophy, Colm.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Peter.
  • Byrne, Catherine.
  • Canney, Seán.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
  • D'Arcy, Michael.
  • Daly, Jim.
  • Deering, Pat.
  • Doherty, Regina.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • English, Damien.
  • Farrell, Alan.
  • Fitzpatrick, Peter.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Halligan, John.
  • Harris, Simon.
  • Heydon, Martin.
  • Humphreys, Heather.
  • Kehoe, Paul.
  • Kyne, Seán.
  • Madigan, Josepha.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McHugh, Joe.
  • McLoughlin, Tony.
  • Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
  • Moran, Kevin Boxer.
  • Murphy, Dara.
  • Murphy, Eoghan.
  • Naughton, Hildegarde.
  • Neville, Tom.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Connell, Kate.
  • O'Donovan, Patrick.
  • O'Dowd, Fergus.
  • Phelan, John Paul.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Rock, Noel.
  • Ross, Shane.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Zappone, Katherine.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Michael Moynihan and John Lahart; Níl, Deputies Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Denise Mitchell.
Question declared carried.
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