I welcome the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien and I thank him for giving us his time. As agreed on the Order of Business we have 90 minutes scheduled for this debate. The Minister will have ten minutes to set out his stall after which Senators will each have six minutes and the Minister will have the right of reply for ten minutes. He may want less or more and that is up to himself.
Housing For All: Statements
I thank Senators Kyne, Fitzpatrick, Casey and the Acting Chairperson for being here. I welcome the opportunity to update Members of the House on the progress being made on Housing for All. It is just over two years since the plan was published and although the landscape and environment in which we are operating has changed significantly, real progress is being made. While challenges remain, we continue to be agile and responsive in addressing these challenges head on and delivering an increasing supply of homes for all.
It is important to take stock of progress to date and I will provide the House with some detail on the continued innovation in Housing for All. This plan represents the most ambitious housing plan in the history of the State. The capital funding being provided in budget 2024, coupled with Land Development Agency and Housing Finance Agency investment, is at a record €5.1 billion for next year. We are starting to see significant delivery. In 2022 just short of 30,000 new homes were delivered. This exceeded our target by more than 5,000 for last year.
In the first nine months of this year, just short of 22,500 new homes were delivered, a 9% increase on the same period last year. Some 31,500 homes were completed in the rolling 12-month period to the end of September 2023. This is the third quarter in a row where the figure has surpassed 30,000. The level of completions to date suggests we are on course to exceed the overall target of 29,000 new homes for 2023. Industry sources are also very positive about increased delivery continuing next year.
As Senators know, between 40% and 50% of the homes delivered this year will be backed directly by the Government through the various schemes we have. At the same time, nearly 24,000 homes commenced construction in the first three quarters of this year, up 14% on the same period last year. The reasons for this include the waiving of development levies and Uisce Éireann connection charges which were criticised by some, although not all, Opposition Members. Combined with the upward trend in the number of new residential planning permissions, this suggests that the recent substantial uplift in supply will be sustained into next year and beyond.
Last year saw the highest annual output of social housing in almost 50 years, with 10,263 new social homes delivered through local authorities and approved housing bodies through build, acquisitions or leasing. Just short of 7,500 of these are new-build homes. This has almost doubled new social homes and it is a testament to how Housing for All is having a tangible positive effect for tens of thousands of the most vulnerable in this country, including our homeless community.
I fully recognise the scale of the challenge of homelessness and the need to tackle social housing waiting lists. We have significantly increased the numbers of people prevented from entering emergency accommodation and exits from emergency accommodation are also increasing. However, we know more needs to be done. Key to addressing this is to give those who are in emergency accommodation a safe and secure home through delivering increased supply.
Housing for All will deliver 90,000 new social homes between now and 2030, with more than 54,000 affordable homes.
As I am standing here speaking to Senators, approximately 22,600 social homes are either on-site or at various stages of design and procurement. Increasing the level of homeownership is one of the key pillars of our plan. Providing affordable homes for our people is one of the Government's top priorities. More than €760 million in direct affordability and homeownership funding for next year, 2024, has been allocated and that will support affordability initiatives that we put in place.
The first home scheme, which was launched in July 2022, just over a year ago, will support at least 8,000 affordable house purchases over the lifetime of the scheme. Since its introduction, just short of 7,000 people and families have registered their details with the scheme. Really importantly, just short of 3,000 households have been approved, are eligible and are buying their homes through the first home shared equity scheme. The first home scheme has been extended to include those who are building their own homes, and we have already seen double-digit approvals in this space. This shows the Government’s commitment to increasing homeownership. Homeownership is a just and honest aspiration for people and households to have and it is something that should be supported.
The local authority home loans have also been enhanced - and we can do more in that space - to make it easier, particularly for single people, to get mortgages. The scheme supports first-time buyers and low and moderate incomes who are unable to secure mortgages. More than 600 home loans were drawn down last year.
Affordable purchase schemes are coming on stream right across the local authority sector. More than €350 million has been approved under the affordable housing fund. So far, we have 67 projects over 20 local authorities which will deliver more than 4,000 affordable homes to purchase through our local authorities. That is being added to every week. Last week, I approved an additional €82 million for 500 extra houses. I will have more announcements next week.
The help-to-buy scheme has been extended. I welcome that the Government has made that decision. It has been expanded to the €30,000 rate so people can get their own tax back into their pockets to help them buy their own homes, to the end of 2025. Some 42,200 people have benefited from the scheme. We are committed to keeping it in place where others would scrap it.
Housing for All is also focused on tackling supply and affordability issues in the rental market. We are targeting 18,000 cost-rental homes between the period from now to 2030 through local authorities, approved housing and the Land Development Agency, LDA. Now, private providers are able to access cost-rental homes through the secure tenancy affordable scheme. We have approved more than 1,000 tenancies. Next week we will make some significant announcements on very sizable schemes relating to cost-rental homes.
We are also completing a comprehensive review of the private rental sector. That needs to happen in order to take into account the significant regulatory changes that have taken place in the past few years. We are exploring every opportunity to add supply to the rental sector. We need homes in the rental sector as well. Really importantly, we have extended and increased the rent tax credit for next year to €750 per renter. That is a significant assistance to renters. It is cash back in their pockets to defray the cost of rent.
On vacancy and the vacant homes refurbishment grant, or the Croí Cónaithe grant, there have been more than 4,500 applications to date. In every town, village and city, we are seeing increased applications. There is up to €70,000 to help defray the cost of taking those homes back into use. We have had more than 2,000 approvals to date. These are 2,000 vacant homes that have been brought back into use. Rightly, we are supporting people to do that.
In May, we launched our residential construction cost study, which is a timely report that prioritises action to deliver economically sustainable housing in the long term through productivity, cost reduction and innovation. A big part of innovation is the delivery of homes through modern methods of construction, MMC, and off-site construction. We have targeted, with the local authorities, an additional 1,500 social homes through sites where we have taken the debt from the local authorities on the basis that they will deliver those homes through the use of modern methods of construction, MMC. Approximately 48% of the homes in the country are delivered on the basis of timber frame and MMC. The State lags behind that at approximately 24% or 25%. We want to push that up. It is a better way of producing homes.
We have to create the environment to enable the supply of more than 300,000 new homes. That is why it is crucially important that the new planning and development Bill 2023, which was approved by the Cabinet on 3 October, is passed by this House and the Dáil. It is the most comprehensive review of planning legislation that has ever been undertaken. It is the third-largest Bill that has been produced since the foundation of the State. It is urgent, it is radical and it is needed. We need up-to-date legislation that underpins a streamlined, modern planning system.
With that, it is necessary to ensure that we have the resources in our planning system. There are more than 300 posts in total approved with An Bord Pleanála and 15 board members now in place where we were as low as five last year with all the difficulties that An Bord Pleanála has.
If I could use the opportunity here in the Seanad, I know that many Senators, like me, will have been alarmed by the report in today's Irish Independent in respect of alleged attempts to exploit the planning appeals process, to extort money from home builders. As we all know, any private profiteering at the expense of people struggling to get a home is simply not acceptable. The price for such alleged actions is ultimately paid by the first-time buyers themselves, forced to meet higher costs, and by communities that need more homes and are hit by delays in the appeals system. It is deeply unfair on people who are trying to start out in life by getting their first home. I have received assurances from the Attorney General that matters such as those that were reported today are provided for under current law, notably section 17 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act which states: "It shall be an offence for any person who, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, makes any unwarranted demand with menaces." The Attorney General also advises that sections 6 and 7 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act may apply in instances such as those. I would urge anyone who has been subjected to or has knowledge of such fraudulent actions to contact the Garda. It is simply not acceptable that people will extort money in this way.
To achieve our goals, we must remain agile. The second annual update of the Housing for All action plan will be published early next week. The update is an opportunity to re-engage the whole of government in the process and to ensure the plan is focused on actions which activate and accelerate housing. In short, progress is being made. By any fair observation and estimation, one can see that house completions and commencements are increasing and increasing substantially. First-time buyers are up to the highest levels they have seen since 2006 or 2007. We delivered more new social homes last year than we have done since 1975 and we will do more this year as we move on with new forms of tenure like cost rental. I welcome the opportunity to address the Seanad this afternoon and present progress on Housing for All. I look forward to the Senators' contributions and input into this.
I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I commend him, the Government and everybody who is involved in delivering Housing for All and making it a reality. It is great to see the Minister come here today and report real progress in every element of housing. When the Government was formed and the housing challenge was to be addressed, the Minister stood up and took on the job. He is to be commended on that and the energy that he and his team put into championing a solution to our housing crisis. The housing crisis being experienced in Ireland is not unique to Ireland but what is unique is the energy, innovation and ambition that is being applied here to actually resolving this housing crisis. There was a decade of under-supply, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, supply side shortages, construction inflation - the list goes on. The challenges are endless. The easy thing to do would be to stand back from all that and point at all the deficiencies. The much harder job, the job of Government and those who support Government, is to take on the challenge and try to innovate and create. That is exactly what Housing for All is doing. It is a €20 billion plan to deliver 300,000 homes. It is backed by legislation and all the resources of the State, not just the Minister's good self and his offices but all of the resources available to the State including the land and the human resources that are being applied to it. It is right that this House should recognise the success to date, the record number of homes that have been built since Housing for All has been introduced. It is absolutely noteworthy that by the end of this year and in the short period of this Government and of Housing for All, there will be a record 100,000 new homes built.
That is a large figure by any standards. It is an ambitious achievement. When we debated Housing for All, the Affordable Housing Bill, or any of the housing initiatives brought forward, there were those who thought there would never be 100,000 homes built by 2030, never mind by the end of 2023. I commend everybody involved in it - not just those in this House, but everybody on every building site who gets up early every morning to go to work to build homes for us.
There are still significant constraints, and the crisis is defined as one of affordability and supply. Housing for All seeks to address, and actively addresses, both of those elements. On affordability, any independent observer of the housing crisis will recognise that construction inflation, supply-side shortages, and all of those elements have added to the cost of a new home. It is always the biggest financial investment most of us will make. However, Housing for All does not just address the supply by direct capital investment. The Minister has said that more than €5.1 billion is to be invested in increasing housing supply in 2024. There are also direct, immediate supports to address the affordability challenge for people who want to be first-time buyers and buy their own home. For the first time in a generation, the State is supporting people to own their own homes. The help-to-buy scheme is to be supported. People who tell me they cannot save for a deposit because they are paying rent are given €30,000 of their taxes back. The local authority home loan amendments made to the first home scheme and the vacant and derelict grants are all to be commended. There are supports for students, with investment for the first time ever in affordable student accommodation. There are supports for renters with the rent tax credit. The tenant in situ scheme is providing permanent homes to people faced with notices to quit. All of these initiatives are to be commended, as is the €242 million that is there every year to ensure there is an emergency response and preventative measures.
I could go on at length about all of the achievements to date, and eaten bread is soon forgotten. We need to look to what is coming in the next few years. The Minister has mentioned the review of Housing for All and the review of the targets. He has made commitments to modern methods of construction, reducing construction costs and increasing supply. I ask for three additional things. I have already raised this in the House as an issue. The Minister knows that I am a former Dublin city councillor. Since I was first elected in 2004, Dublin City Council has been talking about regeneration projects.
Talking.
Talking. The proposed projects include those at Dorset Street, Dominick Street, Constitution Hill and Matt Talbot Court - the list goes on. These are prime sites in one of Europe's greatest capital cities. Dublin City Council is moving at a glacial pace. It is unacceptable. It is a complete dereliction of duty. Will the Minister use his offices to engage with Dublin City Council? I appreciate there is a new director of services, but we need an accelerated pace from Dublin City Council on the regeneration projects. We also need an initiative to increase the supply of homes to purchase, and we need affordable homes in Dublin city. It is a great city to live in, but we have teachers, nurses, gardaí, entrepreneurs and actors who cannot live in the city. The State needs to drive new builds for purchase, because it will not happen otherwise. We also need affordable homes to purchase and rent. The Minister innovated by introducing affordable cost rental. It had never been done before. We were told it could not be done. He did it. He legislated for it, and made it a reality for thousands of people who are already moving into their homes.
If the Cathaoirleach will indulge me, I will also mention the adaptive reuse of vacant commercial properties. A minimum 17% of commercial properties are vacant in Dublin city at the moment. People are not coming back into offices. It has been done in other cities. I ask the Minister to set up a task force to drive adaptive reuse of commercial properties.
Objecting to planning is a morally bankrupt activity. There are 12,000 people in emergency accommodation, including 4,000 children. Anybody who is objecting to housing being built today is morally bankrupt.
I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome the upbeat tone of his remarks.
Considerable progress has been made, as Senator Fitzpatrick has said. It would be foolish of us to deny this, but it would be equally foolish of us to underestimate what we now face.
I want to make several points, first on the Constitution. There is a suggestion that we need to amend the Constitution somehow to tackle the housing crisis. I defy anybody in this Chamber to point to any provision of the Constitution that prevents the Irish Government from doing what is required, including in respect of the compulsory purchase of land, the valuation of land, property prices, land banks and all the rest of it. I am convinced, on the basis of going back to the Kenny report, that there is no constitutional reason the Government cannot do its job. In that context, I remind us all that the Housing Act 1966 conferred and imposed on every housing authority the obligation to come up with social and affordable housing strategies and implement them by their own actions and through the plans they draw up for the development of their functional areas. Unfortunately, that duty was repealed because it was thought there was a danger that housing authorities might actually be brought to book and forced to account for their own failures.
I agree completely with what Senator Fitzpatrick said about Dublin City Council. There is mass dereliction in this city. Much of the property in question is owned by Dublin City Council. The worst areas of dereliction and rundown areas have been in the hands of the council. Walk down Bolton Street and take a look at the flats beside the fire brigade building. They are in a terrible state of dereliction. Walk up Dominick Street and ask yourself whether this is the new Dublin we are working towards. Who owns all that property? It is Dublin City Council.
The rental sector is important. I am aware that the Minister has been fiddling around with tax allowances this way and that way to try to sustain the departure from the sector, but there is one very simple reason for what is happening. I know about it myself because I was a landlord for a while. It is that the law has changed in a way that actually takes away from the landlord the value of his or her investment. It is now the case that if you let a house to a number of young people in their 30s, they can continue to substitute tenants among themselves. With the changes already in place and with what Sinn Féin is now proposing, you never get your property back. That has driven an awful lot of landlords out of the sector. If they want to realise the value of their investment, they realise that it has effectively been expropriated.
The Minister has referred to the new planning Bill. I want to see that Bill in its final form. I see it has been agreed upon by the Government. I want to understand why some of the more controversial provisions of that Bill are necessary. We are grossly overregulated regarding building. I do not believe we need an office of planning regulation; we need an office of planning and construction encouragement. I am one of those people who believe that one-off housing is not a bad idea in rural Ireland and that if a farming couple wants to give a quarter of an acre to a one of their kids who wants to live in the area, it is a good idea. I do not agree with the green philosophy that those concerned should be herded into villages on the basis that it is more sustainable. If you look at any map of Ireland from the 1900s or 1800s, you will see there were far more houses in rural Ireland than there are now. The little black square dots speak for themselves.
I want to say a few words about an issue the Minister raised, namely that of people gouging others in the context of planning applications. He mentioned a reference in the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act to demands with menaces. Demanding with menaces in the context of the Act is effectively an offence of mugging. It is where someone says, "Give me your wallet or I will stab you." I do not believe it is applicable to those who say that unless they are given X amount of money or that if X or Y is done to their land, they will object to a planning application.
The Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act is not the legislation in question. I looked at the two sections to which the Attorney General drew the Minister's attention, namely, those relating to causing loss and making gains by deception. There is no deception if somebody comes to you and says that they will object to your planning application unless you count them in on the proceeds or make this or that arrangement. That is not illegal; it is just an advancement of personal ambitions and greed. We need a different approach, which is that people should not be allowed to object to planning applications unless they are bona fide and that if they are making demands of the would-be developer, they should be obliged to declare that in any appeal they make in order that their intent is very clear.
With regard to people in city centres living above shops, in apartment blocks, etc., I am of the view that our fire regulations are too strict and are not workable. We should relax them. People were not burning to death when everybody lived above the shop, but we have come to the point where nobody can actually use above-the-shop accommodation without the while property being effectively rebuilt. We must be realistic. If we have an emergency, let us make use of it.
I thank the Minister for coming to the House. Debates on housing in this Chamber are always welcome. I echo many of the comments made by the Minister with regard to the progress that has been made through both Housing for All and Rebuilding Ireland. If we look at where we came from in 2013, fewer than 5,000 homes were being built in this country. Last year, 30,000 homes were delivered. We are going to exceed that number again this year. More than 470 first-time buyers are purchasing their first home every week. If that continues to the end of the year, over 25,000 first-time buyers will have bought their first homes in 2023. That is not something one hears about very often, but it is a fact because those are the figures.
As the Minister indicated, the number of new social homes last year was 10,200. That is an increase of 500% on 2014. These numbers represent an absolute step change. If we look at those in opposition, and I know that the Minister has called them out in recent times, but I have been doing that for a long time with regard to the lack of an actual policy on housing. My understanding is that there could be something appearing this week. If that is the case, I certainly look forward to scrutinising it. The main Opposition party's last housing policy was published in 2016. It stated that in government, said party would deliver 100,000 new social and affordable homes through local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, over the following 15 years. Sinn Féin also stated that in the period 2016 to 2021 it would deliver 36,500 social and affordable homes. One does not hear the Opposition talking about those numbers because the previous Government and this one have delivered 48,210 social homes in that period. The Government figure represents an increase of 32% on what Sinn Féin said it would deliver.
The Minister cited many of the schemes he has put in place, and I welcome them. The waiver on Irish Water development contributions is to stimulate construction. I certainly hope that this can continue into next year. In the context of the help-to-buy scheme, more than 42,000 individuals and families are living in homes today. The Opposition has no alternative to that. As Senator Fitzpatrick rightly pointed out, this scheme is an invaluable lifeline to allow people to get deposits together. If it was taken away tomorrow, all that would happen is that fewer homes would be built.
That is the case because if a builder or developer knows there are purchasers for their products, they will continue to build. If they know that the help-to-buy scheme will be taken away tomorrow and the number of people who can get deposits together is reduced, fewer homes will be built. That will occur as sure as night follows day. Some 2,000 buyers were approved in the first 12 months of the first home scheme. Affordable purchase schemes across the country are being delivered, including in my county, Waterford. We must see more local authorities in that space delivering strong numbers in the coming years. It looks like more than 50 or 60 individuals and families moving into homes in Waterford already or in the next few weeks, including individuals and couples who did not think they would have the opportunity to purchase their own homes. My office assisted 18 of those affordable purchasers to go through that process with the Land Development Agency, LDA, and council in order to purchase their first homes. Likewise, we assisted about ten or 12 people to utilise the first home scheme. These schemes are working for people. Opposition parties are proposing to abolish them. It does not make sense because they are helping people, just like the vacant property refurbishment grant, for which there have been 4,000 applications and 2,000 approvals. It is delivering homes in rural communities in particular, which has a positive effect, as Senator McDowell rightly pointed out. It assists the GAA club and local schools and provides people to shop in the local community. Those are really good things. It brings houses back into productive use. There needs to be more cost-rental. The Minister introduced a host of schemes in that space but delivery from local authorities, in particular, taking that jump and entering that space has been very slow. They need to get into that space a lot more quickly.
On the single-stage versus the four-stage approval process, I raised this issue with the Minister's officials at the committee. Local authorities can have their schemes underwritten by €6 million. That figure must be increased and must go hand-in-glove with a commitment from the Department that if a local authority enters the single-stage approval process, the tendered price will be underwritten by the Department. At the moment, there is a financial risk. If the local authority says that scheme A will cost €5 million and it ends up in a tender price of €5.5 million, it has a risk. I was told a circular would go out but I understand it has not, to date. If one went out from the Department stating that the tendered price will be underwritten by the Department, there would be far more local authorities using that single-stage approval process, which would increase the quick delivery of homes.
I welcome the Minister to the House. He is welcome here, as ever. Recent Eurostat figures stated that 68% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 still live at home with their parents. In Denmark, I think it was 4%, in Finland, I think it was 5% and in Sweden, I think it was 6%. In Ireland, 68% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 still live in their childhood bedrooms. They can only dream of home ownership. For those who rent, we know they live in a complete nightmare, despite Senator McDowell coming into the House saying that landlords are in a desperate situation altogether. People who rent can lose their tenancies if the home is sold, if the landlord decides to move in or if the landlord's family member decides to move in. There is no protection in those cases and there is certainly no protection if your name does not even go on the lease.
The Taoiseach disputed the Eurostat figures, and the Minister may also have done so. Even at 30% or 31%, the CSO figures are outrageous.
Fine Gael has been in government for 12 years. Fianna Fáil has supported it for seven, and the two have been in a formal coalition for three and a half years. During that time, house prices have increased by 28%. Rents have increased by 25%, costing almost €4,000 more per year. Homelessness among adults, children and pensioners is at a record high, with no sign of the upward trend changing anytime soon. The Government is in trouble with its social and affordable housing targets.
Today, we in Sinn Féin launched our detailed alternative to the Government's budget on housing. The focus of that is on delivering affordable homes. We made provision for an additional €1.4 billion of Government capital expenditure and €300 million for AHB borrowing to deliver 21,000 social, affordable and affordable purchase homes next year. It is possible to reach that target in a single year by increasing investment, cutting red tape, increasing the use of vacant and derelict homes, increasing the use of new building technologies and redirecting building workers to where they are needed rather than building - because the Minister invited them into this country - the types of developments we do not need such as luxury student accommodation, luxury grade-A office blocks and luxury apartments that nobody can afford.
We also set out an emergency response to the escalating homelessness crisis with a specific measure to end homelessness for over-55s in a single year and dramatically reduce child homelessness through the delivery of 1,000 additional social homes using emergency planning and procurement laws and new building technologies. We would also double the delivery of Housing First tenancies for single people in emergency accommodation to 500. Our alternative budget stands up for renters, outlining what a real rent tax credit would look like alongside a three-year ban on rent increases, which the Minister refuses to do.
Our alternative budget also sets out how to improve the quality of existing housing stock, how to address the needs of our Travelling community, people with disabilities, how to rise to the challenge of climate change, how to deliver 100% redress to all those impacted by building defects and defective block, and how to properly resource our planning system. I am hearing all sorts of chatter under the Minister's breath. He has had all the time he needs to sort the housing crisis. It is time for a change of Government and a housing plan that will undo decades of bad housing policy in this country.
The next speaker is Senator Moynihan.
I apologise to Senator Moynihan. I am due to be in the Dáil. My good colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, will be here for the rest of the debate.
I welcome the Minister of State. The Labour Party believes in three central tenets of an Ireland that works for all when it comes to housing. First is to secure affordable housing. Second is security of tenure for renters. Third is a more ambitious public housing programme. I will start with some good news from this Government. The schemes that Government trumpets are helping. I use them. I tell people to apply for help to buy or if they want to move outside, to look at the shared equity scheme. We have broken the cycle of sluggish growth in the residential sector. I appreciate that the shared equity scheme has not had the inflationary impact on house prices that I feared and that I warned about.
It would be worth keeping an eye on this, however.
While there is some good news with respect to housing - that does matter - it does not really feel good and percolate down when a significant number of people still feel locked out of homeownership. Many people are in insecure rental accommodation and nearly 3,000 children are homeless. We need to increase our targets. We know that work is being done in that way for the growing population we have, but, fundamentally, we still need to change how we structure our housing system. We need to move more to be like places such as Austria, where there is state-led planning and provision of housing by the state. I have always considered the LDA to be the big game-changer in the context of doing something like that but the agency has not stepped up to the plate as yet. The presentation it sent to us all last week sets out the timelines for some of the housing and development which should be taking place.
There are 550 homes to be developed between the LDA and the digital hub, all of which is on State land, and that is being delayed. In the context of Inchicore, which was announced as a flagship scheme in 2017 for cost rental, it has yet to be confirmed how many homes are going to be on that site. Stakeholder analysis is still being done and the baseline survey is still being examined. This is a matter for the city council rather than the LDA, but on Springvale, where 178 homes are planned for Chapelizod, planning permission was received for a rapid-build project in 2018, That site is still not occupied. We also have CIÉ in 2021, which published a master plan for 1,000 homes at Heuston Station. The application was meant to go in at the end of the year. This will not be happening until 2025.
I appreciate that work is being done and that agencies such as the LDA have been capitalised by the Government. The money is there, but the agencies in question are still simply not moving when it comes to the delivery of homes, turning the sod on projects and putting people in there. We need to have more affordable cost-rental homes on State land. I suggest that we then allow people to supplement that with the housing assistant payment, HAP, to make up the difference between what local authorities are not delivering when it comes to pure social housing and what is actually delivered in the context of affordable cost-rental homes.
The level of homelessness continues to increase. The one thing we know from homelessness is that people are stuck on housing lists that are simply not moving and are coming from the private rental sector. Again, I appreciate what the Government has done with the tenant in situ scheme. That was a Dublin City Council initiative. Senator Fitzpatrick and Deputy McAuliffe went to the Government with the scheme and the Government ran with it.
We need to remove the proposed sale of a property as a ground for eviction. This is standard in many European countries, where if one pays one's rent, one is entitled to a secure place to live. Our rental sector is typified by insecurity. Unfortunately, for Senator McDowell, his rights to a second home and to an investment property simply should not be the same as somebody who was living in a house and had a roof over their head. That is something we need to deal with and with which the whole political system needs to grapple. We need to change how we look at our residential and rental sectors.
I wish to finish by commenting on a matter of concern to me. An application was made for office accommodation on Baggot Street, which is fine. That application was turned down. We have sluggish growth in the office and residential sector. One of the grounds which the local authority seems to have given as a reason for refusing this application was that it would devalue properties adjacent to it. I want to see devaluation of all properties because it is simply too expensive for people to live in them. That is not what we should be looking at. For such a reason to be a planning ground for a local authority means that one is giving a charter to NIMBYism whereby people say that their properties will be devalued if anything is built beside them. We very much need to write to local authorities to say that that is not a legitimate planning ground for rejection. I do not mind the rejection of projects to construct office buildings on that ground, but I do not believe that such a ground should apply to residential accommodation.
I thank Senator Moynihan very much for that contribution. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. We have set aside 90 minutes for this debate. Just two Senators have indicated their intention to speak and we are only 45 minutes in. I call Senator Casey.
I join others in welcoming the Minister of State. I thank the senior Minister, Deputy O'Brien, for his presentation earlier.
We are seeing sustainable progress in the delivery of housing.
We must acknowledge that progress and we must acknowledge that is a reality. The facts are there to back up that progress, despite what other people might like to put into the media. Sometimes, when you bring it back down to your own local level, it can relate a lot more to you, so I will speak specifically about Wicklow. I will speak first about social housing and the delivery of social housing. Wicklow had the largest number of social houses in its history delivered in 2022. This was second only to Dublin City Council. It delivered 690 social homes in one calendar year.
In relation to local authority-led affordable housing, Wicklow County Council had its first local authority-led affordable housing scheme in 14 years, with the development of an affordable housing scheme in the Greenhill Road in Wicklow, which delivered 36 houses. Only last month, the Minister was down in Baltinglass, where he turned the sod on a site. Affordable sites for Greystones, Kilcoole and other areas across Wicklow are currently going through the Department. Again, this is delivery. In relation to cost-rental housing, which had never been heard of in Wicklow until this year, there has been the delivery of more than 2,000 cost-rental homes in Greystones, and phase five of Archers Wood was closed only two weeks ago. Again, this is delivery.
At the heart of our delivery has also been ensuring that rural housing is treated in the same way as market housing. With that, we have ensured that the help-to-buy scheme applied to rural housing, that the first home scheme applied to rural housing and that the development levy waiver scheme applied to rural housing. This is because we believe in rural housing. At the heart of all this is home ownership. What this Government has done in relation to home ownership with the introduction of the first home scheme has been a game-changer. That, in conjunction with what the help-to-buy scheme did previous to that in providing people with the option of getting a deposit, has been an incredible change in the dynamics. We are seeing those dynamics and this is a reality because, once again, the facts are there. The help-to-buy scheme has delivered for more than 42,000 people who aspire to own their own home. The first home scheme in its first year has approved more than 2,700 families who aspire to owning their own home, with 7,000 applicants currently going through the process.
We have restored the aspiration of owning one’s own home. We are making that dream a reality. In Sinn Féin’s case, they would make that a nightmare, because they would eliminate any and every scheme that will assist and help young people and young families here today who are aspiring to own their own home. I can give example after example that has come through my office. I have gone out and done seven public meetings on these schemes. I know how they are working and I see how they are now affecting families every day. I can speak about Miles and Hannah, who bought a house in Ashford for €400,000, because of the first home scheme. There is Michelle, who is a single mum, who bought a two-bed duplex in Wicklow Town for €255,000 because of the first home scheme and the help-to-buy scheme. People who thought they had lost the opportunity to buy their own homes can once again think of that reality because of the help of the first home scheme. While they may not be in a position to get a full mortgage, they may be able to get a mortgage three times their salary and, with the first home scheme, they can once again aspire to owning their own home. More than 450,000 mortgages for first-time buyers are being approved on a weekly basis. These are game changers. These are not fantasy figures; these are a reality.
However, if the Minister were here I would ask for a number of things to be looked at, because I believe that both schemes could be improved. One of these is in relation to the help-to-buy scheme and the loan-to-value ratio. Taking the 70% loan-to-value ratio on its own and not including the first home scheme is putting lower income and lower market value houses at a disadvantage when compared with the higher prices. I would like that to be looked at. In relation to the first home scheme, its market value needs to be looked at in some areas, specifically in Dublin. In my own constituency of north Wicklow, Bray and Greystones, the prices of the houses already exceed the ceiling and therefore the first home scheme is not really practical.
I will conclude on this point. I was not going to mention it, but the Minister brought up the article in the Irish Independent from this morning. He spoke about private profiteering at the expense of people. The development mentioned in the newspaper is in my community. It is only 10 minutes away from where I live. Not alone is this greed in the context of what is happening here; at the heart of it there is a community playground that has been shut down for one year and two months. The community, the children and the families have been disadvantaged as a result of what is happening. This type of carry-on has to stop. This was a community-led playground, funded through the Leader programme and by families who went out and raised funds. It was a remarkable playground in the centre of Ashford village, in one of the most natural environments one could put playground. Now it has been padlocked and the entrance welded shut by the owner as a result of this dispute. This has to stop.
I thank the Minister of State for being with us. It is great to hear the numbers relating housing, whereby almost 30,000 homes were delivered in 2022, and the targets in Housing for All.
In my home town of Ballinasloe, more than 70 units are going to come on stream as a result of a particular development. These are homes for families in our town. They are crucial. This was a turnkey development. Funding was provided to local authorities to purchase the site for a turnkey development in Ballinasloe. Allocations are happening through Galway County Council. We look forward, please God, to families being in those homes before Christmas. The funding to the local authority was crucial to support the build.
We have also seen a very positive development with the increase in the income thresholds. For County Galway, the income threshold rose by 40%. It is now €35,000. Previously, it was €25,000. There were two increases of €5,000, which were very important. The threshold in County Roscommon rose to €30,000. There are different bands in different counties. My question is on HAP rates. County Roscommon falls into one of the lower bands. I ask that the Minister and the Department look at these lower band rates. Monksland, which is located outside the city of Athlone, is in County Roscommon. It is competing in the most urbanised area outside of Ballinasloe and Roscommon town in terms of the HAP rates being paid through the local authority. However, County Westmeath, which is on the other side, has a higher level of HAP. We see this sometimes around county boundaries. When one is living in a city or a large town, there are a lot of pressures that cause many challenges for local authorities in supporting families who have to pay the difference and top-up. My question regarding HAP would be to ask that those lower levels be examined. How do we look at areas that are within a city or large town boundary where there are real urban pressures on prices and rental prices?
The first home scheme is great. Leveraging shared equity is a fantastic initiative, as is the help-to-buy scheme. This is all wonderful to see. My real interest is with the vacant home scheme, or Croí Cónaithe. From what I understand, we have the largest number of applications for the scheme, in County Galway. I stand open to correction on that, however. Our county is the second largest in the country, so that would make it very reasonable to see that. The challenge is for inspectors to come and examine properties. We are seeing time lags in this regard. Local authorities have experienced huge demand, but what we are not seeing is the capacity or, perhaps, the resources being put in place. I would like to know how we will resolve this because there are delays coming into the system. People are applying for the scheme, which offers up to €50,000 or €70,000 for a derelict building. They pay all this money out in the first instance and the works have to get done. There is a certain period of when the works have to be done, and then for the inspectors to come out.
There is a timelag on this. We are seeing this specifically in County Galway for people applying to this programme. I want to see more and more people applying for it. I want to see it be a huge success because it is something being driven by our Government. However, I see the challenges around the administrative processes, which of course are necessary. Can this programme be reviewed to see if some sort of staged funding could be provided if a certain amount of work is done? If €10,000 worth of work is done, for example, is there any way of looking at how staged payments might be processed to support young people, or people who are trying to manage with a mortgage who are also planning to use this fund, but the funds will not be available until works are complete? For example, is there a way of working with credit unions on this issue? I know we have spoken about this before, but it might be taken into account for a review of this programme.
I will probably think of ten other things when I sit down. I thank the Minister of State for the update.
I thank the Senators for their contributions. I was listening in my office to some of the contributions when the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was here. I will respond to some of the points raise before I give my closing statement.
Regarding the point made by Senator Moynihan about the Land Development Agency, I disagree with her. She states that it is not setting up and that is not the case. I think it will prove to be a very effective organisation over time. She also spoke about more affordable and cost rental homes. Those will be delivered and are being delivered at scale under the Housing for All scheme.
I note the positive comments regarding the tenant in situ scheme, which has been hugely significant over recent months and in the last year in particular.
Senator Casey raised the delivery of social housing in Wicklow. The figures speak for themselves in terms of affordable housing schemes and cost rental homes in Greystones and other areas. On the help to buy scheme and the loan to value ratio and the first home scheme, we will take on board the points raised by the Senator and get back to him on them.
I thank Senator Dolan for her comments regarding the 70-unit turnkey development in Ballinasloe. This is very significant and transformative in a town like Ballinasloe.
The Senator also raised issues around the funding to local authorities and income thresholds in Roscommon and the lower band rates for HAP there. We will take these points on board and come back to the Senator. It is perhaps an anomaly that the Senator has pointed out on the Roscommon side of Athlone.
The issues regarding shared equity and the help to buy scheme and the staged payments for Croí Cónaithe have been raised in the Dáil by a number of Deputies. The upfront cost is an issue although it is an incredibly generous scheme. I can see why it has been so popular.
From the heritage side we have added to the scheme with a €7,000 conservation advice grant. It is a really good initiative and there has been good uptake of it. It offers the opportunity of a site visit by a conservation architect and a report on the conservation approach for the site. It is very useful for traditional farmhouses in particular. I urge people to avail of this €7,000 grant.
All the Senators have raised challenging points that we face in meeting the housing needs of young people, our homeless and those now making a new life in Ireland. This Government is using all its available levers to address the housing crisis. We are building on significant achievements over the past two years since the publication of the Housing for All document.
As we all know, many things have changed since the initial launch of the plan. Some of these changes were anticipated, but many could not have been foreseen, such as the level of inflation, the war in Ukraine and the extent of supply chain issues. These are just a few examples of what is a very changed landscape. Housing for All was intentionally designed as a living document and we have said this from the outset. The Government's pledge to regularly review and revise the plan guarantees its ongoing flexibility, relevance and adaptability to address issues as they arise. Critically, it returns the State to a central role in the provision of social and affordable housing in the largest State-led home building programme ever.
With the second annual review soon to be published, this is a good time to reflect on what has been achieved. For the past 25 months, Government has taken extensive action to accelerate the delivery of new homes and we will continue to do so until the housing crisis is resolved once and for all. Completions of almost 22,500 new homes were seen in the first nine months of the year, with over 30,000 completions expected by the end of the year. As the Minister said at the outset, we now expect to exceed that figure this year and we will exceed it again next year. The Government is conscious about the debate on our overall housing targets. These need to be updated in light of the recent census figures as well as the impact of the major influx from those fleeing conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere. I expect we will have preliminary updated targets early next year in the context of the review of the national planning framework.
Although many things have changed, we are well aware and concerned around the significance of the issue of homelessness and the profound effect it is having on people’s lives. We continue to support households at risk of homelessness so that they can be prevented from entering emergency accommodation and supporting those in emergency accommodation to exit into secure tenancies as quickly as possible. The long-term solution is to provide safe and secure housing options for those in need. That is our key focus and our aim is to provide 90,000 new social homes and 54,000 affordable purchase and cost-rental homes over the lifetime of Housing for All. The latter is focused on addressing the challenges of supply and affordability in the rental market. The plan has specific measures and is supported by multi-annual State investment aimed at increasing the supply of affordable homes to rent. The Minister focused on delivery. I will focus on some energy measures in the Housing for All plan.
This Government is working hard to ensure that people’s houses are warmer, healthier and more energy efficient and is committed to reducing carbon emissions by 51% by 2030 in line with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2021. To help achieve this objective, nearly zero energy building regulations were introduced for all new dwellings in 2019. All new dwellings now have an A-rated building energy rating, BER, and almost 90% of new dwellings now install renewable energy heat pumps for their heating needs. We have also introduced requirements that all existing dwellings undergoing major renovations should achieve a B2 BER or cost-optimal equivalent. In 2022, the Government launched unprecedented grant supports for home energy upgrades and increased numbers of free retrofits for those at risk of energy poverty. This not only helps to reduce emissions but also makes homes easier and cheaper to heat and light. Following the introduction of the new measures, over 27,200 home energy upgrades were supported in 2022, including 4,438 upgrades provided to households at risk of energy poverty. This upward trend has continued this year, with almost 30,000 home energy upgrades supported by the end of August. In addition, we are committed to retrofitting 36,500 social housing units, or 40% of available units, to a BER of B2 by 2030, and we will continue to implement these ambitious targets in line with the forthcoming climate action plan 2024 and the draft energy performance of buildings directive, expected to be adopted this year.
Looking forward to the longer term, the Government expects to shortly receive the report of the Housing Commission. The commission has been tasked to advise Government on the future of housing policy beyond the current response to our housing needs. Specifically, it is looking at tenure, standards, sustainability and quality of life issues in the provision of housing, all of which have long-term impacts on communities. It will examine the functioning of the markets and it will also bring forward proposals on the wording for a referendum on housing. I expect the commission’s report will be a valuable contribution to the debate on Irish housing policy and will be something this House will wish to discuss in future debates.
I will close by assuring Senators that new homes are being built at a record pace. The Government is aware that there are some who are not yet feeling the effects of the plan. It will take time for the measures outlined in Housing for All and the additional supply to make the impact needed. However, we are taking unprecedented measures to support first-time buyers through the help to buy and first home schemes, to support people who rent through new and expanded tax credits, and to support people at danger of eviction through expanded buy to let and cost cental tenant in situ schemes. We are supporting affordability through new affordable housing schemes and supporting compact development by ensuring the viability of apartment development through our secure tenancy affordable rental investment scheme. It is not just about delivering units. It is critically important that we build sustainable communities too.
It is important to recognise that there is no easy fix to the challenges we face, but to acknowledge the significant work that has been done. The first two years of Housing for All have established a strong foundation for our success. The implementation of our affordability initiatives and reform of our planning system will be fully realised as they gain momentum over the coming months and years.
In addition, the introduction of the cost-rental model will impact positively on the rental market. However, possibly most importantly, while we will adapt to our constantly evolving environment, one thing that will not change is the core message of the plan. The aim of my Department and the Government is to provide well built, affordable and sustainable housing for all.
I thank the seven Senators who participated in the debate.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 4.35 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 5.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 4.35 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.