Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 July 2024
37. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the public expenditure measures he is considering in the forthcoming budget to address infrastructure and public service deficits and provide for demographic change; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29952/24]
View answerMy question follows on from the previous one. If we take housing as an example, the Housing Commission states that need to almost double the number of houses we deliver each year. If I understand what the Minister says in the summer economic statement, there is only going to be €1.4 billion in additional capital spending. Last year's housing package was €5 billion. How on earth are we going to get up to the level of housing output necessary to meet what the Housing Commission expects the housing needs of this country to be in future years if all that is available in this budget is €1.4 billion? It just does not add up, and it suggests, in the context of the key area we must address, that there is not going to be enough in the budget to deal with the dire housing crisis we face. That is one example. I could talk about health and other areas.
Deputy Boyd Barrett refers to a figure of only €1.4 billion. He should take a step back and listen to what he said. Is that all he can offer? He says it is only €1.4 million more. Do his words not feel hollow to him? What we are doing is proposing to increase by more than 10% the amount of capital spending we have within the year compared with where we are at the moment. The economy is at full employment. The construction sector is struggling to get and keep the people it needs to turn higher spending into more homes. Yet, all Deputy Boyd Barrett has to offer is to say that an increase of more than 10%, of €1.4 billion, is not enough. What kind of increases is the Deputy proposing? Where is he going to get the money for it? How does he propose to increase spending by so much more than that and not cause a massive increase in inflation and the economy to overheat in the most traditional way that we know can be happen, namely by pumping money into an economy that does not have the ability to absorb it?
I know Deputy Boyd Barrett is going to say that he will fund it from a lower surplus or higher taxes for big companies. On the one hand, he rails against big companies and globalisation but, on the other hand, it is the solution for him for spending all the money he says is easily there to spend.
I could take Deputy Boyd Barrett through the answer I have here. I have already shared so much of it with Deputy Conway-Walsh that I do not think there is a need to take the House through it again. I go back to where I began. I do not know where Deputy Boyd Barrett is coming from on these matters but the last time I checked, and increase of €1.4 billion is an awful lot of additional money to spend in a year. It is being used in so many different ways. One of the main ways it is being used is to enable the building of homes.
That is a nice rhetorical flourish-----
You are capable of a few of them yourself.
-----but it does not answer the question. The Housing For All targets were for 33,000 houses a year. The Government does not want to debate what the Housing Commission has said, although it promised weeks ago that it would debate it. There is reason it does not want to debate it before the end of term. Including the deficit of 250,000 houses and future demand, the Housing Commission states that we need 60,000 houses a year. That is almost a doubling of current housing output. The commission also states that a very large part of this has to be social and affordable housing. If the social and affordable housing provided in 2024 was 9,300, then to get up to the level the Housing Commission is proposing we would need to pretty much double this social and affordable housing output. Last year's budget for housing was €5.1 billion. How do we double social and affordable housing output and general housing output with a fraction of what was invested last year? Yes, a wealth tax would allow us to fund it in a way that would not overheat the economy.
We would get to that point in the same way as we do with many other targets. We would do it step by step. Despite Deputy Boyd Barrett's best hopes and ambitions, we do not live in a centrally planned economy. We do not live in an economy in which there is only one thing in respect of which we have to make progress. We have to build more homes. We also have to build more schools. We also have to build better infrastructure, better gas, better electricity and better water to allow more homes to be built.
Absolutely.
How are we going to do that? We are going to do it step by step. How are we not going to do? By means of the type of explosion that Deputy Boyd Barrett appears to be proposing, funded by the very companies and individuals he rails against all the time, he would look to do it all in a single go. Can he accept that there is merit in doing this step by step? He might state that it will take time to get there. I accept that it will, but we would get to it in a way we are confident we can afford without leading to the large increase in inflation that we could face if we were to go ahead with what is, I think, Deputy Boyd Barrett's plan, which is to do it all in a big bang or a single go.
How will we get there? We will get there gradually. We will get there step by step in the same way we have done over the past seven years. We have seen capital investment go from approximately €4 billion to the level it is at present. It has also multiplied, and we have done it phase by phase and step by step.
The step-by-step approach to addressing the housing crisis has left us with a deficit of 250,000 houses and record numbers of people who are homeless. Those numbers are growing every month. Approximately 100,000 households on housing lists have been waiting for ten, 15 or 20 years. There is a great deal of mystery. It is not us but the Housing Commission which says that a radical reset is necessary. Nobody is saying it can be done in a year. It is saying it could be done over ten years but that it has to start now and that we have to double the output. The Minister is absolutely right that we can add to this list water infrastructure, public transport and schools that need to be built. My point is that there is not enough in what the Minister is proposing to even begin the ten-year step towards addressing this problem. There is a way the Minister can do it and find the money without increasing inflation. It is not just us who are saying this. Oxfam estimates that a small wealth tax could raise €9 billion a year. We are more modest in our budget proposal of an additional €5 billion a year. This could fund it without overheating the economy and it would address the desperate housing situation we face.
Give me an example of a country that successfully implemented a wealth tax.
There are housing crises all over the world.
Give me an example of a country that has successfully implemented a wealth tax.
They are all neoliberals like you. That is the problem.
Nice flourish but no answer. I asked Deputy Boyd Barrett to give me-----
So because it has never been done we cannot do it. We cannot do something new.
At least you are admitting in the answer back that it has never been done. At least you are admitting that. What you are offering as a solution to the housing crisis is a solution from a taxation perspective, which you admit has never been done.
A new idea.
You know well-----
God forbid.
They are your own words. The Deputy knows well that we have taxes on property, most of which he wants to get rid of. He wants to get rid of the property tax, which is the main form of taxation we have for wealth that is held in the form of property.
It is a tiny one.
Yes, but if we were to increase it, you would be against that as well. All you have to offer is a solution that you admit has not been done before. As the Housing Commission says, this needs to be done in phases and this is what we will do. As I have said already, we have shown our ability to increase capital investment in such a way that is the reason, while acknowledging the great difficulty that so many face in looking for a home, we have seen housing commencement and housing output, in particular during the first three months of this year, get to a place that many, including I am sure Deputy Boyd Barrett, thought would never happen. It is happening, and we are going to continue with that progress.
