I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Planning and Development Act 2000 to provide for an increased percentage of social and affordable housing in private residential developments and in strategic development zones.
Deputies are aware that the housing and homelessness is getting worse. Tonight 6,000 people will sleep in emergency accommodation and 2,000 of those are children. Many of those families will spend up to two years in emergency accommodation. There are more than 130,000 households on local authority housing waiting lists and increasingly, the average waiting time in large urban areas is ten years. The total increase in local authority and approved housing body stock last year was 2,000 units, yet the Dáil Committee on Housing and Homeless recommended that we needed an increase of 10,000 units annually. That committee also recommended greater use of strategic development zones for the delivery of social housing.
One of the decisions made by the previous Government under the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, which has made the crisis worse, was the reduction in the Part V requirement from 20% to 10% of private housing for social use. The former Minister made a case at the time that the 20% requirement was prohibiting private developers from submitting planning applications and that reducing it to 10% would result in a significant increase. However, that has not happened and we have seen a reduction in the past 12 months.
The Bill I am introducing seeks to restore and increase the Part V requirement to at least 25% in private developments and to 30% in strategic development zones such as the one in my constituency in Clonburris on the former Irish Glass Bottle Company site in Ringsend. This would be good for developers. It would give them a guaranteed income stream through pre-agreed sales that they could use to assist in getting development finance. It would be good for the families who would get off the housing and homeless list and into social housing and it would also be good for social housing policy because it would increase the level of income mix, which is what Government policy requires. On that basis, I commend the Bill.
