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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Mar 2023

Vol. 1035 No. 5

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

This afternoon, the Dáil will vote on the Government's decision to lift the eviction ban in nine days' time. Every Deputy has a clear choice to make: to back a Government decision that will escalate the unprecedented housing emergency or to protect working families, single people and pensioners who, because of this decision, will lose the roof over their heads. I ask the Taoiseach again: where are people meant to go? Where are the 3,000 households whose eviction notices will kick in from 1 April meant to go? It is a question he dodges because he knows the answer. They have nowhere to go. Nothing the Government has announced in recent days changes that reality for people. Two weeks ago, the Government confirmed that it would remove the eviction ban with no plan in place. Then it cobbled together a list of previously announced measures. Then it changed tack again, hastily adopting other measures simply to get votes. The Government is scrambling all over the place but remains unable to answer the one fundamental question: where are people to go in nine days' time?

The Taoiseach has heard the stories of those who will be evicted as result of the Government's decision - the woman with stage 4 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, on constant oxygen, the mother going through chemotherapy and the family who will lose their home of 15 years and who have found nowhere else despite searching for months. The Government should therefore be in no doubt but that its decision and the vote today will have real consequences for real people. On the Government's watch, we have the most serious housing emergency in the history of the State. Nearly 12,000 people are homeless. More than 3,000 of our children are growing up in emergency accommodation and, now, because of the Government's decision to lift the eviction ban, 3,000 more households are looking that harrowing experience in the eye.

The Taoiseach says that nothing would change in the time an extension to the eviction ban would buy. That, in reality, is the Government admitting that it will not tackle the housing emergency with the urgency it requires. The Government is conceding that it is out of ideas and that it has thrown in the towel. The policies of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil created and deepened this crisis. Tens of thousands are trapped in a private rental nightmare, living with crushing insecurity and with no hope of getting a deposit together and no real chance to buy their own place. They are a generation locked out of home ownership by the failures of government. People have lived with this crisis for far too long. They have had enough of the excuses. They know that housing can be fixed, but it will not be fixed by a tired, jaded Government that has thrown in the towel.

Tá mé ag impí ar gach Teachta Dála tacaíocht a thabhairt do rún Shinn Féin an cosc ar dhíshealbhú a shíneadh amach go dtí mí Eanáir na bliana seo chugainn. Caithfidh an Rialtas an t-am seo a úsáid le dul i ngleic leis na fadhbanna tithíochta a dhéanfadh difríocht cheart. By lifting the eviction ban, the Government and those who back it are choosing to escalate a housing crisis that is already out of control. They are choosing to make people homeless. I appeal to every Deputy to stand with Ireland's renters and to face down this horrendous decision. I ask the Taoiseach again to do the right thing: to reverse this cruel decision and extend the eviction ban.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

I can guarantee the Deputy that we will do the right thing; it is just the case that we disagree as to what the right thing is. When it comes to this entire matter, the Deputy has been very disingenuous in how she has spoken about it. She is deliberately stoking up additional anxiety and fears among people who have enough to worry about as it is.

Thanks to you.

Deputy McDonald is creating the impression that 4,000 notices to quit in the past three months will result in 4,000 evictions and 4,000 more families needing emergency accommodation. That is not the case. Does the Deputy know how many new tenancies there have been in the past three months? There have been 19,000.

Those are registered tenancies, not new tenancies.

There have been 50,000 new tenancies in the past year. The truth is that the vast majority of people and families will find alternative accommodation. The relatively small number who will not, and we cannot know for sure how many that will be, will be provided with emergency accommodation-----

Deputies

Where?

-----and whatever supports the State can provide them.

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. It is our view that extending the eviction moratorium until the end of January, the depths of winter, which is Sinn Féin policy, will just make things worse then. It is not a solution.

These are the solutions. It is more social housing. We built more social housing last year than in any year since 1975. There has been no government in the Deputy's lifetime or mine more committed to social housing than this one, and we will build even more this year. It is the tenant in situ scheme, with local authorities and approved housing bodies buying up homes in order that housing assistance payment, HAP, tenants and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, tenants can become proper social housing tenants. It is more supply. Among the measures we have confirmed this week is an expansion of the Croí Cónaithe grant in order that we can have derelict to rent, bringing old buildings back into use for the purpose of rent, as well as changes to the fair deal and the activation of unactivated planning permissions. We have also confirmed this week that there will be taxation changes to encourage small landlords to stay in the market and new ones to enter it. Those changes will be in the budget and they will apply from this year. We are providing additional funding for NGOs, councils and others to help with homelessness prevention, which is crucial.

We should step back for a moment and recap on what happened here. Last October, we all decided that there would be a winter eviction moratorium and that it would end on 31 March. We proposed it and Sinn Féin voted for it on a voice vote, and that vote was to end it on 31 March. Sinn Féin has since changed its position. Now its members have tabled a Private Members' motion, which is not legally binding. They knew it was not legally binding when they tabled it. It is a show motion from showboaters who have changed their position on this three times in the past few weeks. It will not pass, and even if it did, it would have no practical effect, and they know that.

The Taoiseach's Government came to office telling us that it was the Government that would sort out housing, but nothing changed; in fact, matters worsened. Deputy Varadkar came into office as Taoiseach last December. He said he would be the Taoiseach to sort this out, but nothing changed; in fact, matters worsened. There is no urgency and no ambition, only dithering and failure. However, the Government's determination to end the eviction ban and its insistence that it happen now, its urgency on this matter, stands in very marked contrast to the sluggish, incoherent, piecemeal, failed Government approach to actually solving homelessness. The Government's failure to provide affordable housing, its failure to cut rents, its failure to give working families a chance and its biggest failure of all, to give our young people a fair shot, on these matters there is delay, delay, delay in its approach. However, when it comes to the 3,000 households now facing the loss of their homes come April, there is no delay. The message to them is: "You are on your own", with nowhere to go. Those are the facts. I call on the Taoiseach to reverse this decision and to extend the eviction ban.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

Once again, it is a decision for which Sinn Féin voted.

Moving on, I ask, as I did yesterday, for a different approach from the Opposition.

Instead of rhetoric, anger and words, I am asking it to help us to solve the housing crisis. It can do so in three ways. It can stop opposing new housing in their constituencies.

(Interruptions).

It can take the pressure off first-time buyers by ending its opposition to the help-to-buy scheme-----

Pushing up house prices.

-----and it can stop threatening small landlords with more taxes and regulations. If Sinn Féin does those three things it will help resolve the housing crisis. Will it do those things?

Extend the eviction ban.

Getting you out of Government will help solve the housing crisis.

(Interruptions).

Will it do those things?

(Interruptions).

When does the Taoiseach think it all began to go wrong? When did his housing policy begin to unravel? Was it in 2014 when Fine Gael first promised to tackle the housing crisis? Was it in 2015 when just 75 social homes were built by local authorities, the lowest figure in the history of the State? Was it in 2016 when Fine Gael promised to end the use of hotels to house homeless people within one year? Was it in 2017 when Fine Gael introduced strategic housing developments that bypassed local planning and broke An Bord Pleanála? Was it in 2018 when the Taoiseach described the housing crisis as a national emergency? Was it in 2019 when a five-year-old homeless boy was pictured eating his dinner off a piece of cardboard on a street? Was it in 2020 when co-living developments, which Fine Gael championed as very trendy and an exciting choice for young workers, were quietly scrapped? Was it in 2021 when it was revealed vulture funds were buying up entire housing estates? Was it in 2022 when there was a staffing crisis in schools and hospitals because teachers and nurses could no longer afford to rent? Or was it this year - this moment - when homeless figures reached record highs but the Government decided to lift the eviction ban and make thousands of people homeless?

The Government's decision to lift the eviction ban, the only protection for thousands of people against homelessness, seems inexplicable. People do not understand why any Irish Government would make a conscious and deliberate choice to vote for mass homelessness. However, placed in the context of so many years of Fine Gael's bad decision-making, perhaps it is not so surprising. It has never made the right decisions on housing. Why would we expect it to start now? Fine Gael's entire tenure in office has been one long litany of broken promises and abject failure on housing, turning a housing crisis into a housing disaster. Each year we think things cannot get any worse, yet somehow, under Fine Gael, they do.

This is not just a credibility issue for Fine Gael. Frankly, the party has none on housing; that is long gone. This is about the misery its failed policies are causing to men, women and children in every corner of the country. No area is immune from the wrecking ball of its disastrous housing policies. This decision is particularly cruel, however. Homelessness is not just a housing issue. It is a societal catastrophe. The profoundly negative impacts on children are especially devastating and the Government will today vote to inflict that damage on them.

I would ask the Taoiseach to reverse his decision, but he has already told me he is not for turning.

Time is up, Deputy.

Will the Taoiseach clarify when it all went wrong? When did the Government's housing policy begin to unravel?

I acknowledge, as does everyone on this side of the House and all three parties in government - we are a three-party Government - we are facing a very serious housing crisis, indeed a housing emergency, that is affecting people in all sorts of different ways, whether it is people having to pay very high rents, people who are experiencing homelessness or people struggling to find their first place to buy in order to get on the housing ladder, to use that term.

We have a housing deficit of probably around 250,000 units. There are many reasons as to why that is the case. I am happy to explore those with the Deputy at another time, or later in this debate, if she wishes. Most people acknowledge that we have, for many different reasons, a very major housing deficit in this country of probably 250,000 homes. We have a mountain to climb but we are climbing that mountain step by step. The Deputy mentioned many different years in her contribution. I will mention four years: 2022, 2023, 1975 and 2007. I will explain why I picked those years. In 2022, 30,000 new homes were built in this country, which is the highest since 2007. That is our housing policy going right. More homes were built last year than any year in the past 15. In 2022, and figures will be confirmed in a few weeks' time, roughly 8,000 new social houses were built in this State, which is more than any year since 1975. That is more than in my lifetime or the Deputy's. No Government has been more committed to social housing in the Deputy's lifetime or mine. The final date, January 2023, was the year we had more first-time buyers buying their first home than any year since records began in 2010. Surely, that is something the Deputy can acknowledge is progress. More young people are buying their first home in January 2023 than any year since we started counting those figures in 2010. Will the Deputy at least acknowledge that some progress is being made?

I do not know who the Taoiseach is trying to kid. Is it the Opposition, the electorate or himself? He told us recently we had turned a corner on housing, but we have been listening to him say that since 2014. It is nine years of turning corners. It should be clear to the Taoiseach by now that he is not turning corners but blatantly going around in circles. For nearly a decade, the Taoiseach claimed to have the answers to the housing disaster. Every year, for years, he says things are about to improve, people just need to patient, the Government just needs a little more time, and it is the Opposition's fault. The reality is the Taoiseach does not even believe it himself. He stated the eviction ban cannot be extended until next year because that would defer the crisis. In other words, he does not believe the situation will have improved. In fact, he stated it would be worse and nothing the Government could do in the coming year would be enough to make a difference. If that is not an indictment of the Government's approach to housing, I honestly do not know what is. The Government's housing policy is a failure, which is causing devastation and trauma all over the country. When will the Taoiseach admit this?

In my previous response, I acknowledged the housing crisis and housing emergency, and the impact that is having on people. I acknowledged that many times. I continue to do so because it is important and right to do so.

I have not said we have turned the corner on the housing crisis. I never said that. The Tánaiste said we turned the corner on new home construction-----

(Interruptions).

-----which is clearly a different thing. He is correct in that regard. When I see posters for the Deputy's party, I see the three things it says it stands for. One of those things is honest politics. It is not honest politics to falsify quotes, misquote me or misrepresent the Tánaiste. That is not honest politics. We are hoping for a different type of politics from the Deputy. It is clear that we will not get that from her, unfortunately.

Certainly, it is not my intention or desire to try to deceive anyone. I set out some facts and they are facts. Why is it so hard for the Deputy to acknowledge that? Some 30,000 homes were built last year, more than any year in the past 15. Some 8,000 social houses were built last year, more than any year in the Deputy's lifetime or mine-----

That is not true.

-----and more first-time buyers bought their first home in January this year than any year since 2010. Is it because she does not want those things to be true?

In 2010, there was a collapse.

(Interruptions).

Here are a few things we know. We know that children living in emergency accommodation, such as hotel rooms, learn to crawl later and learn to walk later than children living in homes with any bit of space. We know that some children living in homeless accommodation start speaking at a later age than other children due to the trauma of losing their homes. We know that thousands of households have notices to quit, NTQs, against them, that the majority of local authorities are out of emergency accommodations, that many people with NTQs will be forced into emergency accommodation or couch-surfing, and that many of these households have children.

We now also know that, shockingly, the Government has decided to fire the starting gun for these evictions to happen.

The Government can spin this whichever way it wants but it is clear that the Taoiseach and his Government believe that there is an acceptable level of homelessness and of damage that can be done to these children.

The left in Irish politics has long argued that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are Ireland’s Tory parties. These parties have equally long denied this but at 4.40 p.m. today, or shortly after, it will be clear for all to see. The Taoiseach and his Deputies will vote for a policy which would be applauded by any free market extremist anywhere in the world and supported by any hard right government anywhere in the world also.

There has been much talk of safety nets in the past 24 hours but the real safety net is the one being provided for the Government by the Regional Group of Independents who might, by the way, consider changing their name to the right-wing independents. By choosing to support the Government in its hour of need rather than renters in their hour of need, these Deputies will place a mark of shame against their names which will not fade out for many years to come.

Of course, the party with the most colourful name in Irish politics is the Green Party. Renters across the country will no doubt use somewhat colourful language to describe that party and its actions after this vote because the Green Party is not only showing its true colours this afternoon but is nailing those colours to the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael mast, on the side of the landlords and the men and women who will evict little children into homelessness in the weeks and months ahead. That is the truth of the matter.

Tradition dictates that I end this contribution with a question so I will simply ask the Taoiseach this. What will he say to the parents of the children facing eviction into homelessness after he casts his vote at 4.40 p.m today?

I am always curious to hear when any Deputy in this House or any politician starts a contribution by telling somebody what they think because it is usually a prelude to a strawman or a trope, and that is basically what Deputy Barry has engaged in once again. I do not believe that there is an acceptable level of homelessness. I certainly do not believe the current levels of homelessness are acceptable. I can speak for the entire Government and our side of the House in that regard.

The Deputy again makes the ideological point about right and left, neoliberals, capitalists and all of that stuff. We are the Government that has built more social housing in a year than any government since 1975. There has not been a government in my lifetime that has been more committed to social housing than this one.

What did it do for-----

We are the Government that brought in two eviction bans. We are the Government that brought in cost rental housing and made a new form of public housing possible for the first time, and we are going to ramp that up in the years ahead. How does any of that fit in with the ideological trope Deputy Barry has tried to impose on us?

The Taoiseach said he does not feel there is an acceptable level of homelessness. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that on one hand and come in here at 4.40 p.m. and vote to lift an eviction ban which he knows will put significant numbers of people, including children, into homelessness. He cannot have it both ways. The Taoiseach does feel that there is an acceptable level of homelessness and his denials are not convincing or credible.

The Government’s numbers are shrinking. It will be a minority Government if just one more Government Deputy goes overboard. Despite the sell-out by the Regional Group, the Government’s support in this Dáil is shrinking. That is not a very good position to be in and from which to deal with the housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and the potential for turmoil in the international banking system. The decision 100 years ago by a government to cut a shilling from the old-age pension and the decision 40 years ago by a government to put VAT on children’s shoes were remembered for decades afterwards with justifiable bitterness. The next election is drawing closer to us and this decision will not be forgiven and, I suspect, it will not be forgotten either.

The Deputy may have forgotten this but I led a minority Government for three years - the previous one - and it lasted for a lot longer than anyone thought it would. There have been times in this Dáil when this Government did not have a majority, yet we have won the votes and won them by clear margins and we will do so again today. I can reassure the Deputy that this Government is built to last.

The difference is that we have a policy disagreement here. It is the Deputy’s view that extending the eviction moratorium indefinitely is the solution to homelessness. I do not believe that. The solution to homelessness is additional social housing, the tenant in situ scheme, ramping up the supply of housing in all forms, tax changes to encourage landlords to stay in the market and more of them to enter it, and focusing and properly resourcing homelessness prevention. That is what we are doing and that is what will work.

Why were EU funds intended to support rural Ireland redirected to climate measures? In 2021, Ireland received €365.5 million from the EU to spend on supports for Ireland’s economy in mitigating the impact of Brexit. Ireland was the biggest beneficiary of Brexit funding as we were the country worst affected by Brexit. The funding Ireland received was to contribute to the improvement of living standards, support economic growth and mitigate the negative impacts on local communities.

Through a Government source, I have learned that a request was made to the European Commission to transfer €150 million of the Brexit adjustment reserve funding to support the roll-out of climate measures. What is the biggest crisis in Ireland currently? It is surely housing. Why can the Government not direct the funding into housing infrastructure? I have asked for this to be done for the past three years. A few minutes ago, the Taoiseach asked this side of the House to help. I have been a building contractor all of my life. I understand building, infrastructure and how to build houses and other properties. The Taoiseach said the answer to this is to build social housing. I agree with him.

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, was in Limerick recently where he announced that social housing was to be built. We visited five different areas. We started in Patrickswell where 110 houses were being announced but the infrastructure in Patrickswell is under pressure and funding is being sought. We then went on to Hospital where 20 new houses are being delivered. I am thankful for that as I have been asking for this housing but five of those houses had on-site sewerage systems because there was no capacity. The Taoiseach has asked me for help and I am giving him my advice on something I know because I live and breathe it every day. The answer to the housing crisis is infrastructure. For 40 years, the governments of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have failed to invest in infrastructure in Limerick. If I had infrastructure, I would deliver the houses. The Government can take the recognition for it and I would give it. I ask it to give me the funding to put infrastructure in Limerick and we will have no housing crisis in Limerick.

A number of different funds are operated by the European Union through the European Commission and there are very strict rules around those funds. One of those funds is the Brexit adjustment reserve fund. Ireland secured just over €1 billion from the fund but we are limited in how we can spend it. For example, we are able to spend it on upgrading our ports facilities and we have done that in Rosslare and in other ports around the country. We are able to spend it on fisheries and much of the money has gone to the fishing industry.

It has gone to closing it down.

We would have liked to have spent a lot of it helping businesses, for example, and the agricultural sector but in order to do so, we have to demonstrate that those businesses have lost their profits or have gone into the red solely as a consequence of Brexit. Given the increased trade that has occurred between Britain and Ireland, the performance of business and rising incomes, this did not fit the criteria. When money from one fund is not spent, it can be moved to another fund, and we have moved this money to another fund called the European recovery fund.

That cannot be spent on housing but it can be spent on things such as retrofit, and that is one of the things we have decided to divert the funding to. That will be of benefit to the construction industry because the same people carry out a lot of that work.

In regard to funding for infrastructure, the Deputy is absolutely right that for a prolonged period, when this country had no money, we were not able to invest adequately in infrastructure, and that is one of the things that is holding us back. The Deputy is right about that, but where are we now? There is a housing budget this year of €4.5 billion, the highest ever, and an infrastructure budget this year of something like €13 billion or €14 billion, the highest ever, higher than the European average, higher than that of many of our peers such as the Netherlands and Denmark. There is no lack of money for new housing or infrastructure. The constraints are different ones. They tend to be around planning, the availability of labour and the availability of materials, and they are the bottlenecks we are trying to fix.

I thank the Taoiseach, but what is he going to tell the people in Askeaton, Oola, Hospital, Kilfinnane, Dromcolliher, Patrickswell, Ballingarry, Abbeyfeale and many more places around County Limerick given those promises were made 40 years ago to upgrade sewerage systems so that we could build houses and infrastructure? I accept that the Taoiseach said money is available now, but will he give it to Limerick so we can build houses?

Recently, funding of €2 million was given to Limerick for specific projects. Just €25,000 of that €2 million budget came to the county and the rest went to the city. Where is the equality between Limerick county and city to allow us to build? When the Government gives Limerick the money for infrastructure, I will build houses. There will be local employment for everyone to build houses and we will give the Government recognition for it, but first it has to give us the funds to do it, and it has not done that in the past 40 years.

Irish Water has a capital programme of over €1 billion a year, and it is there to provide water and wastewater to free up lands for housing. Understandably, it prioritises those sites where the most housing can be delivered first, and that makes sense from my point of view. There is a specific programme for small towns and villages to allow them to have the water services they need to allow for a natural increase.

It has been 40 years.

I believe every town and village should be able to increase its population and have a natural increase. We will be sitting down with Irish Water over the course of the year to see whether we can provide it with additional funding to service more sites but, as I said earlier, the bottlenecks we face in Ireland are no longer a lack of money. We have never had a bigger budget for housing than we have now. We have never had a bigger budget for health than we have now. We have never had a bigger budget for investment in public infrastructure than we have now. The constraints are different ones. They are planning, the availability of labour and the availability of materials, and they are the bottlenecks we need to solve.

You do not need planning for infrastructure.

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