Housing and Evictions: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the Government has lost control of the homelessness crisis as levels of homelessness continue to rise despite the winter ban on evictions;

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD, and his Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael colleagues in Government, including the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath TD, and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD, chose to allow more people to become homeless when they failed to introduce an emergency response to the escalating homelessness crisis in parallel with the winter ban on evictions;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's homeless figures in December recorded 11,632 people, including 3,442 children, in emergency accommodation;

— when adults and children in emergency accommodation funded by other Government departments and in hostels not receiving State Government funding, and people sleeping rough are taken into account the true level of homelessness is approaching 18,000 people;

— this does not include those sofa surfing or living in unsuitable and overcrowded accommodation; and

— the Government's targets for social and affordable housing are too low and have been missed three years in a row; and

calls on the Government to:

— reject the failed and failing housing policies of Darragh O'Brien TD, Paschal Donohoe TD, and Michael McGrath TD;

— extend the ban on evictions to the end of the year, except in cases such as breach of contract by the tenant or where an owner is homeless or is at imminent risk of homelessness;

— expand the tenant-in-situ scheme, for both social and affordable cost rental tenants, to ensure local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies purchase private rental properties where tenants have Notices to Quit, subject to price and condition of the property;

— use emergency planning and procurement powers, new building technologies and vacant properties to increase the delivery of social and affordable homes in 2023 above the current housing plan targets; and

— revise their overall social and affordable housing targets to ensure that at least 20,000 public homes are delivered in 2024.

I am sharing time with colleagues.

When the former Deputy, Eoghan Murphy, was the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, he introduced a ban on evictions. Within a very short period of time, the number of men, women and children in State-funded emergency accommodation dropped dramatically. Over the space of three or four months, we saw a 60%-plus reduction in official levels of homelessness. Since the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien, introduced his ban on evictions last year, a ban we urged him to introduce, unfortunately, we have not so far seen any reduction in the number of people in emergency accommodation. As the Minister knows, in November, the number of men, women and children across all categories in emergency accommodation increased. In December, the overall levels of homelessness increased, driven, in particular, by single-person homelessness. There was a modest decline in family presentations. While the Department will not be releasing the January figures until later this week, there is a genuine concern that at best, the levels will plateau and at worst, they will continue to deteriorate. If we ask ourselves why, the reason is because the Minister did not take the advice of many front-line homeless service providers, housing policy experts, as well as many of us in the Opposition, when we supported the introduction of the winter ban on evictions.

What we have not seen over the course of the ban period is any real emergency response to try to ensure that fewer people present to homeless accommodation and more people exit homeless accommodation more rapidly. We are still having huge problems with the tenant in situ scheme. It is not being applied consistently across all local authorities. There has not been sufficient guidance given by the Department to ensure that that scheme operates quickly and efficiently to ensure HAP and RAS tenants with eviction notices do not become homeless. We have not seen any definitive statement from the Department or the Minister to allow approved housing bodies, AHBs, to operate the tenant in situ scheme for affordable cost rental. I know the Minister has been privately supportive of attempts by residents in Tathony House to try and have that matter resolved, but I think we need something much clearer and more public across the board. Crucially, we have not seen the mobilisation, in a manner comparable with Covid, of all of the resources of Government, including existing emergency planning powers, procurement powers, new building technologies and vacant homes, to try to get some additional social housing stock in place more quickly to tackle the ever-growing levels of homelessness in the city. As a consequence, we are now facing the ending of the ban on evictions at the end of this month and a very serious cliff edge. Yes, it will be extended for some, but a very large number of notices will fall due from the beginning of April. That will accelerate into May and June. Even if we start to see a levelling-off of official homeless numbers in January and February, we are looking at the very real prospect of significant increases from April, May and June.

The motion we have tabled urges the Government to do two things. The first is to extend the ban on evictions. It can only be temporary. It is an emergency measure. I accept that there are legal challenges around an indefinite ban on evictions, even with the caveats in the current legislation. The primary motivation that convinced Cabinet to support the last ban was that in October of last year, at least 19 local authorities had no emergency accommodation available at all on given nights. The prospect of families with children having to spend the night in Garda stations as per Tusla rules convinced the Government to act. The fact that we are now potentially going to be in a much worse situation come April, May and June means the Government has to reintroduce an extended ban on a temporary basis.

I will make exactly the same point as I made when we debated this last year. A ban on evictions is not a solution. A ban on evictions is a mark of failure. All it will allow us to do is to use that breathing space to introduce the kind of emergency measures that the Minister will hear many of us on the Opposition benches, and many people working on the front line of homeless services in the public and voluntary sectors, urge him to. It does not matter how long the Minister's amendments are. They are no substitute for actions that actually make things better for people on the ground. The figures do not lie. More men, women and children than in modern history are in emergency accommodation funded by the Minister's Department. That is despite the fact that we had a winter ban on evictions. The time to act is now. The time to extend the ban on evictions is now. Crucially, we must introduce the suite of emergency measures that we are calling on the Minister to introduce. We will work with him on that to ensure that when we have the second ban on evictions, we see the numbers presenting as homeless and exiting homelessness go in the right direction.

Deputy Pa Daly

Last Friday I was in the Mitchels area of Tralee. I visited an award-winning social housing scheme for older people of 56 houses. I was informed that ten of those houses are empty and another four have been unoccupied for more than three years because the tenants are part of the fair deal scheme and have been in a nursing home for up to three years. Almost 25% of the houses in this scheme, which was constructed in around 2014 or 2015, is heated from a central source and is award-winning, are currently empty. At a local level, I note that all emergency accommodation in the entire county of Kerry is funnelled into Tralee town centre. There are four or five hostels within 250 m of each other. At a local level, there seems to be no coherent strategy for dealing with it that would allow people who become homeless around the county to remain in their local areas.

On a general level, we have seen that the Government has lost control of the homeless situation. It did not introduce an emergency response ban. There are 11,000 people who are officially homeless, but the reality is that figure is up to 18,000 when we take into account the number of people who are in emergency accommodation. I call on the Minister to deal with the issue at a local level and to give the local authorities targets. I spoke to the Minister last summer in relation to money that was made available for councils to purchase housing stock. The councils were saying that they did not receive the instruction. I think the then Taoiseach described that as a cop-out by Kerry County Council. There seems to be a communication problem between the two. Clear targets need to be given to the local authorities to deal with the housing stock that they have. The Government must also use emergency planning and procurement powers to ensure that there are more social and affordable homes, as well as extending the ban on evictions, which must be done immediately.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Eviction is simply a word to this Government. It is something that, hopefully, no Members of Government will ever have to face. For too many of my north Kildare constituents, looming eviction is an absolute terror. It is the terror of joining the almost 12,000 people in emergency accommodation across the State. That number does not include those who are sofa surfing or living on the floors of family members. Eviction is the terror of being reported to Tusla by the county council and losing your children if emergency accommodation cannot be found, which is so often the case in Kildare at the moment, and being forced to sleep in the car. It is the absolute terror of the working couple with a young child. I know of one such couple. The wife, Ruby, works as a healthcare assistant in north Kildare. She has already been served with an eviction notice and she is worried about being evicted from her home if and when the eviction ban is lifted. What are Ruby, her husband and young child going to do? There is nowhere to go. Across the State, there are fewer than 1,000 places available to rent. For another constituent of mine, Paula, eviction is the terror of losing her granddaughter to foster care. Her two grandsons are already in foster care because she has been issued with an eviction notice and the home she is living in only has two bedrooms. Eviction is a red letter day in the lives of too many people. Paula's two little grandsons bawl their eyes out every time they leave her and their sister; every time they leave their family. The boys' case is up for review in June and Paula is hoping to get a home from the council so that they can come to live with her and their sister. Without a suitable place, these boys will not be able to have a home. They are already deprived of the right to live with their family and their sister by this housing crisis alone.

This housing crisis is a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis that is breaking hearts, families and futures. The Government claims that it puts children first, but that is not the case for Paula and her grandchildren or the 3,500 children in emergency accommodation. It is just appalling. There are families living with the fear of being reported to Tusla hanging like a sword over their heads because the local authorities cannot come up with emergency accommodation. When we think about it, the Minister really should be ashamed. Eviction terrorises innocent people and the children of these families as well. I call on the Minister to extend the eviction ban.

Deputy Pauline Tully

The homeless figures released in December put the figure at 11,632, including 3,442 children. As my colleagues have said, the actual numbers are much higher because those figures did not take account of rough sleepers, those sofa surfing or those in the box rooms of their parents' homes. The temporary eviction ban was introduced to avoid people being evicted over the winter period. The Minister said it was intended "to afford time for housing supply to increase and to reduce the burden on homelessness services and the pressure on tenants and the residential tenancies market". We in Sinn Féin have consistently called for an emergency response in conjunction with the eviction ban to counteract the escalating homelessness crisis. The required response would be akin to what was done during the Covid-19 crisis. The Minister has not responded to this as a crisis. As a result, tenants are facing a cliff edge. There are few properties available and those that are available are practically unaffordable. Rents in my county of Cavan have increased by 19.8%. They have risen by 15.9% in Monaghan. A family attended my office last week. Their rent was €700 per month and is now going up to €1,250. They are distraught. They do not know how they are going to be able to afford it.

A young mother, a single parent, is facing eviction in the coming months when the eviction ban is lifted. She is being told the council will not give her the housing assistance payment, HAP, unless she can identify a property available to rent for less than €800 per month. That is not possible. She cannot find any such property.

The Minister needs to remove this cliff edge and extend the eviction ban to the end of the year. We must use that time as an opportunity to put in place emergency measures to increase and accelerate the supply of social and affordable housing. The existing targets are simply inadequate. We need 20,000 new social and affordable houses per year.

Local authorities seem to be interpreting the tenant in situ scheme to suit their own means. I have been told by my local authority that it does not have the facility to buy houses. It only selects those. It is telling me differently. Any time I suggest it should buy a house where somebody is facing eviction, its representatives tell me the council will not buy the house because it would only make house prices rise and would not help the situation. That is what I am being told.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Not a day goes by that I am not dealing with people in insecure accommodation in my offices in Swords and Balbriggan. It is without doubt the number one issue we deal with. It is no surprise the Government representatives in my area are largely absent when their constituents are looking for answers or help.

The situation is desperate for many. The latest family to cross the door of my office live in Balbriggan. They have been issued with a notice to quit and are frantic because they have to vacate their home in May. They have nowhere to go. They have two kids in school in Balbriggan. They also work in Balbriggan. There is nothing for them to rent in the town. Even if they could uproot their kids or manage a commute, there is nowhere for them to rent. They are hoping the council will buy their house, and so am I.

The Minister says one thing and does another. Last December, he said:

I have been clear with local authorities and there is no issue whatsoever with funding. That function is now delegated directly to them and we are seeing more homes coming in every day.

However, Fingal County Council told a landlord looking to sell late last year that correspondence from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage stated there was limited scope for acquisitions at the time. It told that landlord that Government policy was to deliver social homes through construction. It is hard to believe the Minister is serious about preventing homelessness. This is an emergency situation and it requires an emergency response. What about those who have a medical need for housing? In Fingal, my constituents wait for up to a year for assessment of their application for medical priority. That was again confirmed in an email from the council in which it stated that, unfortunately, the housing support team is not in a position to indicate when a decision on medical priority will be made. It went on to state the medical priority process can take approximately 12 months. There are people on notices to quit who have a medical priority assessment pending. Extending the ban on evictions is the only way they will be able to stay in their homes. These people are sick and desperate. They are in the middle of an emergency. Extending the ban on evictions is the very least the Minister can do to recognise the trauma that is going to be caused to these families by eviction. Kids will be forced out of their homes and schools. Families will be forced to commute.

Has the Minister ever been evicted? I have been. I am not ashamed to say it is absolutely traumatising to have your home taken from you and to not know where you are going to sleep. It is traumatising. This is an emergency and it requires an emergency response.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Is ábhar an-dáiríre é seo. Caithfimid admháil go bhfuil cruachás tithíochta ann, go háirithe le praghsanna cíosa ag ardú agus ag ardú, ach chomh maith leis sin níl an soláthar ann d’aon duine atá ag iarraidh cíos a íoc. Níl an soláthar ann de thithe sóisialta ná tithe príobháideacha má tá daoine ag iarraidh iad a cheannach nó iad a fháil ar cíos. Caithfimid dul i ngleic leis seo ach caithfimid ar dtús báire déanamh cinnte de go bhfuil éigeandáil fógartha againn. Tá éigeandáil tithíochta ann agus níl an Rialtas seo ag déileáil leis.

I do not agree with the part of the motion before the House which states that the Government has lost control. It never had control. That is the problem. For far too long, this Government and other governments have failed to address the issue and have failed to call it a national emergency when that is what it is. We need all hands on deck to address the problem. More than 3,000 children and nearly 12,000 adults are in emergency accommodation. That is a national emergency. As others have said, those numbers do not take into account those who are sofa surfing, living in cars or living on the street.

Obviously an eviction ban is not a long-term solution and nobody is saying it is. The Government has already had enough time to address the issues and has failed miserably to do so. We are asking for the eviction ban to be extended to the end of the year. We are calling on the Government to start to address the issues so that no more families end up in homeless accommodation. My area has quite a number of homeless accommodation, homeless hubs and family hubs. That is not a long-term solution. We need homes, apartments and flats. We do not need the kinds of properties that some landlords are advertising online at the moment. Some landlords are looking for mad money for uninhabitable and disgraceful properties. It is extortion. The State needs to get away from subsidising private landlords and must move away from HAP and all of that in the long term. In the immediate term, we must do it but we are giving the Government the time to address the issue in a national emergency.

Deputy Brian Stanley

The eviction ban ends at the end of next month. I am extremely concerned about the number of families and individual renters who are facing the prospect of homelessness through eviction if the ban is not extended. Renters have come into my office in the past week. They are at their wits' end and absolutely terrified. I cannot express this clearly enough. They are terrified of what is ahead of them. They need security of tenure.

When the current ban was introduced in November 2022, as other speakers have said, we warned the Government that it needed to use the breathing space provided to introduce a series of emergency measures, including increasing and accelerating the delivery of social housing. The Minister stated at that time that the intention of the ban was "to afford time for housing supply to increase and to reduce the burden on homeless services". We agreed with him. Unfortunately, the supply has still not been delivered and many renters now face the prospect of homelessness from the end of next month. Sinn Féin is, therefore, tabling this proposal to call on the Government to extend the emergency ban, and we accept it is an emergency measure, until the end of the year.

I will highlight the severity of the issue across the midlands at the moment. A total of 153 adults and 67 children are in emergency accommodation provided by local authorities. In County Laois, for example, such people can be left 50, 60 or 70 miles from home. If the ban is not extended, we expect to see that figure increase substantially. Those figures do not include those who are sleeping on couches, couples who have been forced to move back home with their parents and young families in unsuitable and overcrowded situations.

The latest Daft.ie figures from last week show the average tenancy rate in Laois has increased to €1,292 per month. Most of those are one- and two-bedroom accommodations. That is an increase of 12.8% on last year. In Offaly, it is up to €1,302, which is a rise of 15.6%. People simply cannot afford to pay those rack-rents.

It is crystal clear to Sinn Féin that we are in a housing emergency and the Government has lost control. We are putting forward a package of solutions to relieve the pressure, increase supply and protect renters. We need to see delivery of 20,000 affordable and social houses each year for the next five years. That is the minimum required.

We need to use the emergency planning powers and emergency procurement to fast-track delivery. On the matter of tenants in situ, at the last meeting of Laois County Council, the councillors, including the head of the housing strategic policy committee, asked for this circular to be brought to the chamber. It is clear from that circular that there are a lot of conditions on what the council can buy. I ask the Minister to examine that again. It is important that we continue this eviction ban and freeze rents.

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

Tairgim leasú Uimh. 1:

To delete all words after "That Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that:

— the increase in the number of people accessing homeless supports in recent months is a serious concern for the Government, and through the implementation of the Housing for All: A New Housing Plan for Ireland (Housing for All) the Government is actively addressing this;

— increasing social, affordable and private housing supply, for renters and those looking to purchase a home, is key to improving our housing system and eradicating homelessness, with almost 30,000 homes built last year, an increase of 45.2 per cent from 2021 (20,560) and 41.3 per cent from 2019 (21,134), and 5,250 or 21 per cent higher than the Housing for All target of 24,600 for 2022;

— a total of 9,183 social homes were delivered in 2021, and when verified and published in the coming weeks, figures will show more social housing new builds were delivered in 2022 than in any year in decades; and furthermore, in 2020 and 2021, more than €88 million was spent in bringing 6,032 vacant social homes back into use;

— a record €4.5 billion in State housing investment in 2023 will ensure the substantial uplift in supply in 2022 can be maintained and exceeded, with 9,100 direct build social homes and 5,500 affordable homes to be delivered;

— funding of over €215 million is in place to deliver homeless prevention measures, emergency accommodation and to support households to successfully exit homelessness, an increase of 10 per cent on 2022;

— while Government has legislated to protect renters facing homelessness by preventing 'no fault' tenancy terminations from taking place this winter, the long-term answer to these accommodation challenges remains an increased and sustainable supply of new homes, through the State-led expanded social and affordable housing programmes operating under Housing for All;

— the Government is supporting local authorities to acquire homes for social housing for priority purposes, including those that would support a household to exit homelessness, or with tenants in-situ to prevent homelessness, and delegated sanction to local authorities in respect of certain social housing acquisitions has been reinstated for the whole duration of the emergency winter eviction ban and up to the end of the transition period in June 2023, this has and will continue to allow local authorities to respond with more flexibility to secure acquisitions which support a household to exit or to prevent homelessness;

— other critical initiatives underway include increasing the number of 'Housing First' tenancies for those entrenched in homelessness, and opening up more opportunities to include conversion of commercial units to residential by expanding the Repair and Leasing Scheme;

— regarding affordable housing delivery:

— 2022 is the first full year of affordable housing delivery in a generation and supply at scale will be achieved through a mix of new or extended initiatives, including the 'First Home' scheme, Local Authority-provided Affordable Purchase Scheme, the Help to Buy initiative and the expanded Local Authority Home Loan;

— Cost Rental housing, a new form of State-backed secure, long-term rental tenure with rents targeted at a minimum of 25 per cent below open market rates, is being delivered at scale, with hundreds of Cost Rental homes tenanted, and the investment of €1.3 billion to support affordability measures and deliver more affordable purchase and Cost Rental homes in 2023;

— the Government, to tackle accommodation shortages in the rental market, is strengthening regulatory controls on short-term lets with a ban on the advertising of non-principal private residences in Rent Pressure Zones for short-term letting purposes, where the necessary planning permission is not in place; and

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has commenced a comprehensive review of the private rental sector to take account of the significant regulatory changes over the past several years and secure an efficient, affordable, safe and secure framework for landlords and tenants, and the review will include a thematic review of the principal and relevant elements of the rental market and its conclusion will be utilised to inform future policy direction;

— with regards to vacant properties:

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage recently published the Vacant Homes Action Plan 2023-2026, which outlines progress and details new actions that will be implemented to continue to return as many vacant properties back to use as possible, increasing the supply of housing available, and revitalising local communities;

— measures already taken by the Government include expanding the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant; funding full-time vacant homes officers in every local authority, exemptions to planning permissions to convert vacant commercial premises to residential use, and enhancing the Nursing Homes Support/Fair Deal Scheme to incentivise the selling or renting of unused homes; and

— measures in the action plan include a €150 million Urban Regeneration and Development Fund for local authorities to acquire vacant or derelict properties and sites for re-use or sale and a new local authority-led programme is being developed to help them buy or compulsory purchase vacant homes in their areas and resell them on the open market;

— in relation to the use of new building technologies, funding of €94 million has been allocated to pay down local authority loans on legacy indebted sites, which can deliver social housing projects through the use of accelerated delivery models, principally off-site/Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), and by paying down the outstanding loans, the fund will free up these sites for immediate development, with local authorities recouping the cost of repaying loans on 26 separate sites, all of which will be developed using MMC;

— in relation to the planning requirements, to help expedite the provision of housing by local authorities, new provisions, once commenced, will provide a temporary exemption from the 'Part 8' planning approval process by elected members for local authority own developments for social, affordable and Cost Rental housing which commence construction before the end of 2024; and

— having regard to progress already made, the Housing for All Action Plan Update and Q3 Progress Report commits the Government to reviewing the national housing targets and projections when the full Census 2022 is published in May of this year, this will include refreshed targets with subsets for social, affordable and market delivery that reflect need and demand, and a scaling-up to ensure optimal levels of sustainable supply over the lifetime of the plan in line with increased capacity in the construction sector.".

Gabhaim buíochas le Teachtaí Shinn Féin as an tairiscint. Tá ár bplean ag obair anois. Níl gach duine á mhothú go fóill. Anuraidh, thógamar 30,000 teach nua sa chéad phlean dár bplean. Ba 5,000 níos mó ná ár sprioc é sin. Anuraidh, thógamar níos mó tithe sóisialta ná mar a tógadh le 50 bliain. Bhí tithe le ceannach ar phraghas réasúnta den chéad uair le 15 bliain. Den chéad uair riamh, ligeadh tithe ar cíos ar phraghas réasúnta tríd an cost-rental scheme. Fuair níos mó ná 25,000 ceannaitheoir céaduaire morgáistí anuraidh freisin. Tá Tithíocht do Chách ag obair ar son ár ndaoine. Tá an deontas folúntais Croí Cónaithe curtha i bhfeidhm againn chun cabhrú le daoine tithíocht a thabhairt ar ais in úsáid. Fuarthas níos mó ná 1,000 iarratas cheana féin. Tá an first homes scheme curtha i bhfeidhm freisin agus tá níos mó ná 200 iarratas ceadaithe. Is fíorchabhair do dhaoine a thithe féin a cheannach atá sa scéim sin.

Déanaimid gach rud is féidir linn chun tithe a sholáthar dóibh siúd nach bhfuil tithe acu ar chor ar bith. Níl aon phlean sa tír cosúil le Tithíocht do Chách. Tá Sinn Féin i gcoinne gach rud sa phlean, mar shampla, úinéireacht tí, deontais help-to-buy, an first homes scheme agus deontais folúntais. Ar fud na tíre tá a chomhairleoirí i gcoinne tithíocht sóisialta. Tá a fhios agam na rudaí a bhfuil Sinn Féin ina gcoinne ach níl a fhios agam cad atá sé i bhfabhar.

I am sorry but that is simply not true.

On social housing vacancy, in the last three years, we have brought more than 8,600 vacant social homes back into use. We need to improve how social homes are managed and to ensure that new tenants get into those homes much more quickly than they have heretofore.

There is no plan from Sinn Féin or anyone else that is comparable with Housing for All or that has the investment Housing for All has to ensure that we are ramping up supply of affordable, social and private housing. We need to be very careful about measures we take that could further exacerbate the issues within the private rental sector. Everyone understands that or should understand it. The measures that the Government takes must be legal and carefully calibrated. We will review the situation with regard to the winter eviction ban in a very timely fashion.

An Ceann Comhairle

I want to inform Members that I am going to make a decision that in future if there is what I call strategic interventions and interruptions on either side of the House, I will suspend the House for a period, which will have the effect of time being lost from Private Members' business. If people want to discuss these matters and avail of the time, they should do us the courtesy of listening to each other.

As the Minister has left, there is not much point saying it here, but I can send him on the details of it. If he wants an honest debate it can be on the Limerick regeneration programme. For instance, in St. Mary's Park in my city there are 21 vacant houses owned by the local authority which does not have the money to do them up. This regeneration programme has been ongoing for 12 years. If the Minister wants to talk about councillors objecting to planning, he should go to Limerick and look at the activities of the Fianna Fáil councillors and public representatives there. They have a detailed printed leaflet explaining how to object to social and affordable housing in their area. If that is the honest debate he wants to have, then let us have that debate.

Returning to the motion, renters need security and an extension of the eviction ban. They need that automatically. Our constituency offices are inundated with people who are worrying what will happen when the eviction ban ends. There is no clarity as to what is happening. These are stressful times for people. On Monday, two couples were in with me. That would be unusual; I would normally have many more than that. Both couples are the subject of notices to quit. The landlord has not given them the notices but he stated he cannot wait to do so because he wants to sell the two properties. The Minister said we are always criticising landlords. Many landlords bought properties during the crash when they were cheap and now they are at the highest they have ever been. That is why the bulk of them are selling. It is not because they are suddenly not making money from being a landlord. They are selling it to get the profit now.

Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

The Minister made a speech containing a range of provocative comments that Opposition Members naturally responded to and then left without giving them a chance to respond. In terms of House etiquette, that is certainly challengeable, especially since most of the Opposition Members have not had their say yet.

I will raise an issue and maybe the Minister of State could raise it with his senior colleague. A cross-party delegation of councillors from Donegal came here today and protested outside. We are on the subject of people in desperate situations and trying to protect them. There is a sense put out by Government that the owners of homes with defective blocks are sorted now and that everything is fine. If that is the case, why did a cross-party delegation come here today? Around 20 councillors came here today and gave a presentation in the audiovisual room. What they said is very clear. These families, some of them with children with disabilities, some with persons with disabilities, and some who are older people and pensioners, are being asked to engage with building contractors and try to find alternative accommodation for a year when there is nothing to be found - certainly nothing that would suit people with disabilities.

The Government has just washed its hands of the matter and claimed that it has no responsibility. It has been repeatedly asked if the Housing Agency can be deployed to build urgent temporary modular accommodation and has refused. It has been asked to engage with holiday-home owners who might have properties available. The response has been, "No, it's nothing to do with us. There is your money. Away you go." Of course, they will not get 100% redress because the Government will not let the Housing Agency run the project. The Government is expecting traumatised homeowners, whose lives have been destroyed, to try to engage building contractors to put a square plug into a round hole, to try to make an amount of money fit that cannot fit, to make them pay tens of thousands of euro.

I ask the Minister of State to speak to his senior colleague who has left early because he did not have the courtesy to stay and listen to our point of view. Will the Minister meet members of Donegal County Council? Will he meet the councillors who were here today, including his Government party councillors who have called the scheme a sham? They have called out their own Government and said that the Minister needs to get up there urgently. People will be on the street again very soon in Donegal, Mayo, Clare and all these counties. They are in a desperate situation. The Government has put out a message that it is all solved. It has tried to con the people but very soon the people will be very aware of the scale of this. I again appeal to the Minister of State to ask his senior colleague to have the decency to read the transcript, given that he left early. He needs to go to Donegal and Mayo to meet the councillors who are profoundly concerned on behalf of our people.

Deputy Seán Crowe

Officially, 10,500 people, including 3,500 children, are homeless in the State. That is a failure as far as I am concerned and I think that is a failure for anyone listening at home. That does not include those who are sofa surfing or living in unsuitable and overcrowded accommodation as well as parents and children stuck in their granny's boxroom. We all have that experience. We have all met them, knocking on doors. We know those families intimately at this stage because they call our office practically every week and ask: "Is there anything you can do for my Johnny or my Mary?"

The figures show that homelessness is out of control. The Government and its predecessor have signally failed to address the housing crisis that has gripped the State for over a decade. Some of my colleagues have said that the Government has lost control of the crisis. Others have made the point that it never really had control. It is getting worse. People say that things are improving, but I do not see it and do not hear it from people who are impacted by the situation.

There was a plan to roll out modular homes as a short-term solution, which we all welcomed. We have been looking for this for a long time but again they are months overdue and we are told they are over budget. Unfortunately, it seems to sum up the Government's track record on the matter and shows its lack of ambition. Sinn Féin is calling for an extension of the ban on evictions until the end of the year, except in cases such as breach of contract by the tenant or where an owner is homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.

We accept that this is not enough. When the Government introduced the winter ban on evictions, we said it was not enough. The Government needs to use emergency planning and procurement powers, new building technologies and vacant properties to increase the delivery of social and affordable houses in 2023 above the current housing plan targets. We are asking the Minister to be more ambitious. I appeal to him to revise his overall social and affordable housing targets to ensure that at least 20,000 public homes are delivered in 2024. We accept that a ban on evictions is a stalling tactic in trying to address homelessness. However, without massive increases in the supply of housing, it will only stave off the inevitable. The two go hand in hand. We need to be more ambitious. We need to stave off the inevitable. The ban on evictions needs to continue. The Government knows this, and yet it allowed more people become homeless when it failed to introduce an emergency response to this crisis.

Deputy Claire Kerrane

Given the reality on the ground - the facts and figures do not lie - it is astonishing that the Minister spent ten minutes playing politics with this issue, which he calls the most pressing issue of our time, and criticising my party as if it has created and presided over record rents, record housing prices, record homelessness and has missed virtually all its targets when it comes to such a pressing issue, as he calls it.

He then spent two minutes talking about CSO statistics. A fat lot of good that will do the likes of the mother to whom I spoke today. Her daughter has additional needs, her son has a history of self-harm, she is in a difficult situation at home, and she and her two children could have to sleep in her car tonight.

Rents are not just an issue in our cities. The latest Daft data show that County Roscommon had the third highest rental increases in the State last year, with rents of more than €1,000 per month on average. The average rent in Galway is now €1,295 per month. Every day of the week we are approach by people who feel completely hopeless. There is no private rented accommodation, there is no local authority stock and there is nowhere to go. I checked the position in Ballinasloe before coming to the Chamber. There is one property - a tiny two-bedroom apartment - available in Ballinasloe, the county town of Galway, for €1,400 per month.

I have listened to many of the stories relayed to the House this evening. The Government is ruining the lives of children. They will never get their childhoods back. Shame on the Government for dithering over lifting the eviction ban, which will cause even more children to grow up in homelessness and ruin their lives as well. Shame on it.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. I will say something to my Sinn Féin colleagues who are bemoaning the absence of the Minister after 20 minutes - at least he turned up for their debate. He was not present for any of our housing debate a couple of weeks ago. Maybe he will be here for at least an hour of People Before Profit's Bill on the same issue tomorrow morning. We will build it up from there.

The motion is concise and simple. As Deputy Ó Broin stated, it will not solve the housing crisis or build more houses. It is an emergency motion to combat an emergency situation. It puts a finger in the dam of further evictions, which would add to the already record number of people in homelessness.

I will make a couple of requests of the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. On the Order of Business, the Taoiseach told our leader, Deputy Bacik, that the eviction ban would be reviewed within two to three weeks. I ask that the review, such as it is, take place urgently and the results be stated soon. I hope they will show that the ban can be extended. Two to three weeks would take us up to St. Patrick's Day, which would be two weeks shy of the ban's first cliff edge on 1 April. We all know what happens around the Oireachtas on St. Patrick's week, that being, very little. We must ensure that St. Patrick's week does not become 24 to 26 March. Tenants are already boxing up, bagging up and preparing for 1 April, but they are also hoping that the Minister of State and the Government will extend the ban. I ask that the review be held as quickly as possible and that the Government announce an extension of the eviction ban as soon as possible. That would be a great help. No one is calling for an eternal ban on evictions, and we understand that it has to be time limited in some manner, but such is the scale of the crisis that it is unconscionable that the eviction ban not be extended.

As well as extending the ban, we need to examine its operation. The eviction ban, such as it is, is having limited success. I know - I am sure the other Deputies present also know - that there are people who are staying in tenancies because of it, but there are those who still find themselves homeless. The Taoiseach said that this is down to familial relationship breakdowns, private rental agreements coming to an end, etc. It was a throwaway remark, but this eviction ban is aimed precisely at ensuring that those in private accommodation not fall into homelessness. While no eviction ban can account for relationship breakdowns, domestic violence or emergencies that we hope will only cause temporary homelessness, nothing speaks to why the numbers have increased since the ban came into place. I ask that the ban not only be extended, but that we strengthen it in order that it works better than it did this winter.

We have been speaking about the tenant in situ scheme, which is another element of the motion, for a number of weeks. It is another finger-in-the-dam policy. It does not create a new housing unit or otherwise increase stock. It just keeps people from entering homelessness. It does not take anyone off the homeless list or the housing list and put him or her into a new property. It is being inconsistently applied, to put it mildly, across the country. This is not good enough when we have a Minister who cannot spend his budget and there are local authorities dragging their heels and being bureaucratically resistant to the scheme. I do not believe that anyone is fully happy with the scheme at a time when we do not have high-volume delivery of public housing on a consistent basis. However, we are where we are and we need to ensure that the scheme can work quickly and some flexibility is applied to it. As those of us who run busy advice clinics and represent people who are in homelessness or at risk of homelessness know, each case is different and has a unique fingerprint. Rigorous schemes are being applied to fluid, different and difficult situations, but we need flexibility within the tenant in situ scheme. If there are people with a three-bedroom need who are living in a two-bedroom house or vice versa, we need to ensure the tenant in situ scheme can apply to them. The alternative is that a family with such a need will present at their local authority homeless desk, throwing themselves on the mercy of the State and into a period of homelessness where they do not know if they will be split up or where they will receive emergency accommodation, assuming they receive any. Their uncertainty will continue. The tenant in situ scheme came about on foot of a ministerial memo last July. It needs stronger impetus from the Government, and the Government needs to hold local authorities' feet to the flames.

I was dissatisfied not only with the content of the Minister's response to the motion, but also its manner. It did not reflect the manner in which the motion had been presented. Similar to our motion a couple of weeks ago, this motion genuinely seeks to provide solutions to various elements of the housing crisis, focusing specifically on the eviction ban and the tenant in situ scheme, which are practical emergency stopgap measures. What we saw from the Minister was more of a "Prime Time" or "The Pat Kenny Show" debate rather than a response to the contents of the motion. That was unfortunate and did a disservice to all those in this situation.

While we will support the motion and the extension of the eviction ban, we also want to see the introduction of monthly reporting by each local authority on the tenant in situ scheme, with adequate reasons given for the purchase of rental properties not proceeding. There is enough documentation in each assessment to allow for monthly reporting. We need to see an emergency building programme for public housing that uses the full resources of the State, but what we are seeing at the moment is delivery through Part V. My constituency of Fingal is seeing developments and estates being built, but the Part V deliveries within them are nowhere near enough to meet housing demand.

If I may, I will digress for a moment. A bugbear of mine is how, through variations, what is put forward in the initial planning applications to meet developers' Part V obligations differs considerably from what is actually delivered. The applications have a pepper-potting of public housing, be it affordable, social or cost-rental, under the scheme.

What we see in delivery is perhaps two apartment blocks in the far reaches or corners of a scheme that are given over to local authorities and labelled as social housing or public housing. That is not proper Part V delivery. We need to row back. Ultimately, Part V delivery is what got us into this mess. We need to see a proper public house-building scheme, and the Land Development Agency, LDA, needs to actually work and deliver. We must commence rapid compulsory purchase of vacant and derelict properties by local authorities, with targets for each, and mandate the LDA to issue compulsory purchase orders and assemble smaller sites for owner-occupiers and co-operative housing developments.

I wish to speak on accommodation for international protection applicants. The Labour Party has strong concerns about the profiteering we are beginning to see, with people who want to profit off the misery of people feeling the impact of war entering this space. They are buying properties, trying to flip them over to the State at a high profit and see this as a cash cow, rather than as a compassionate policy to ensure that we provide sanctuary for people. I believe that all of us in this House see the policy in that way. We will return to this matter in the coming weeks as we pick up more information on the ground. I put to the Minister our concern that we are seeing not the extension of accommodation for international protection applicants but, rather, the extension of direct provision and actors in that space in whom we are not confident to deliver what we need for these people.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Ó Broin for bringing forward this motion, which the Social Democrats are happy to support. On the eviction ban and the current situation with record homelessness and rents, we simply do not know from the Government what its plan is or what it is going to do. We have not heard from the Government. In fact, we have heard elements of the Government attacking its eviction ban on the basis that it has not brought down the numbers of people in emergency homeless accommodation. It makes you wonder if they have no concept at all of how bad the situation is and how much worse it would be if the eviction ban was not in place.

This is all happening in the context of this Government's failure to spend the hundreds of millions of euro allocated to expenditure in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage last year. I examined the €340 million that was not spent last year, as it should have been, and that was carried over by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage into 2023. I also looked at the €240 million returned to the Exchequer. If you consider the amount spent per social, cost-rental or affordable purchase home, given that to build any of those you borrow as well as put in direct investment, you are looking at somewhere up to 9,000 social, affordable and cost-rental homes which could have been built in 2022 if the Department had not carried that €340 million over into this year and had not returned the €240 million to the Exchequer.

For all the bluster and everything else coming from the Minister this evening, we have not heard why, given the crisis and disaster we are in, he feels it is acceptable for that money not to have been spent or what he is going to do to ensure there is proper delivery next year. Some things could be done on delivery; the Minister mentioned vacancy in local authority homes. The facts, according to the National Oversight and Audit Commission are that there are vacancy rates as high as 7% in the context of some local authority housing stock. That is utterly unacceptable, especially given that other local authorities have vacancy rates of less than 1%. If they can do that, there is no reason why the others cannot.

Something could be done on a much smaller level to get people into homes more quickly. There are delays when it comes to the delivery of Part V homes in the context of when they are handed over. When these homes are completed by builders and developers, there can be delays of a considerable number of months until they are completely finished out and tenants are moved in. Local authorities sometimes only deal with them in large batches when they could be turned around much faster in order to get people into much-needed homes. This would be without building a single new home or spending an extra cent. If that was done more efficiently, it would get people off our housing waiting lists, out of emergency accommodation and into brand-new homes that are finished and ready but empty. That should be done straight away. I would like to hear from the Government what it is doing about these easy wins that could be achieved now.

On social housing delivery, the Government has not addressed the delays caused by the bureaucratic four-stage approval process that is tying the hands of local authorities, sometimes for months or even years, in the context of the back and forth with the Department while waiting for approval. That should be done. There should be an expansion of local authority compulsory purchase order powers to facilitate the development of more housing.

The tendering process for local authorities needs to be changed in order that they do not have to go back out and tender for each individual construction project, which leads to substantial delays and significant and increased costs. Local authorities and housing bodies need to be supported to acquire land banks and improve the pipeline of housing delivery for the next few years. They are dealing with a skills deficit and with the severe skills shortage in the construction sector and in trades more generally. These are practical measures that need to be taken in order to get more housing and more social housing delivery so that we may then not need this eviction ban.

I have said before that the eviction ban is not some radical measure. All it does is temporarily bring us in line with most other European countries where tenants who pay rent and are not in breach of their lease agreements cannot be evicted. We talk a lot in this House, and rightly so, about our membership of the European Union and the benefits it brings. It has brought great economic, social and environmental benefits. For renters, however, it has not brought about the sorts of benefits it should. Our renters pay some of the highest rents in Europe and have some of the lowest levels of security. I would like to see us more in line with other European countries in that regard.

It is not surprising - but it was deeply disappointing - that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage used most of his time to attack Opposition parties rather than talk about solutions. This is what he usually does on the occasions on which he attends debates on housing. He often does not attend such debates. There is nothing new in that regard. I wish to address the serious questions raised about how many new homes were built last year. There are serious questions which deserved to be answered. To be clear, simply asking for answers to those questions is not an attack on the CSO. The CSO is an excellent organisation that does valuable work and produces excellent and valuable data. However, it is not true, as the Minister claimed, that the CSO had fully clarified its figures. In fact, the CSO issued a very short statement in which it criticised the figures from the building control and management system, BCMS, and indicated that the analysis relating to those figures does not account for one-off homes. That criticism does not stand at all because the analysis of some of those figures specifically accounted for one-off homes. When you drill down into the figures from the CSO and the BCMS, you see that most of the discrepancies occur in County Dublin, where there are very few one-off homes and the vast majority happen, not in Fingal, where there are a few one-off homes, but in Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire, where there are virtually no one-off homes. That is a red herring. In looking at these figures, it is important to read information the CSO provides on its methodology. The CSO states clearly that it can only predict and classify new and unfinished dwellings within its methodology to an 83% level of accuracy.

This is nowhere near 100%. It then clarified that when it did a deep dive into its methodology and figures, it discovered it had more instances of false positives than false negatives. It concluded that this results in a bias towards overcounting new dwellings. The CSO itself casts considerable questions over its methodology and figures. It is entirely legitimate for us to ask why there is such a discrepancy between CSO figures, which count not new dwellings but new ESB connections which is a slightly different thing, and the figures from the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, which has a legal requirement for people to complete certification of completion. There is a gap of 6,000 between these figures which is substantial.

Any of us who are serious about housing want to know why there is a gap of 6,000. How can it be explained? How can there be such a gap between the figures of two organisations that are serious about their methodology, accounting and data? It behoves any of us who are truly interested in this to get to the bottom of it rather than flippantly attack some Opposition parties that have merely asked questions on it. We all want to know how many new homes were built last year and what set of figures we can stand over. To be quite frank about it, we want serious contributions in the Chamber and not Ministers using a whole load of time simply attacking people in the Opposition. We want to hear exactly what the Ministers are doing now to address these very serious issues with regard to evictions, record levels of homelessness and record levels of rent. Clearly the measures to date simply have not worked.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

It appears to be a tactic of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to skip out of these debates and not listen to the Opposition on what the Government claims it believes to be the most serious crisis facing the country. It does not matter how we feel but I believe it is insulting to the people who are caught up in the housing crisis that the Minister is clearly employing a quite worked-out tactic in these debates. For the people who are really suffering extraordinary misery and hardship how could it induce anything but despair?

People think the Government does not care. I would like to think it is not true but increasingly I have to wonder. It is hard to interpret the Minister's departure from successive debates in any way other than that he just does not really care and he is not that pushed about how people are suffering. The fact is he spent the time he was in here having a go at the Opposition rather than dealing with the substantial issues Sinn Féin is putting forward in the motion. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. We will put forward some of the same proposals tomorrow morning with our eviction ban Bill. It does not bode well for the seriousness with which the Government takes this most serious of issues.

Something we should all consider is that the number of elderly people finding themselves in the most shocking situations is growing. In my time of dealing with the housing crisis, which is pretty much the entire time I have been in the House, it has tended to affect younger people or people with particular difficulties. There is an increasing prevalence now of elderly people who have worked all their lives finding themselves in very shocking situations. A couple came to me today, one of whom is working. The other had worked for many years but because of a heart condition and diabetes is no longer working. They are living in a storage cupboard. They can just about get a bed into it. They are in shared accommodation with many other people. One member of the couple is 67 and the other is 63. I could see their health has been seriously impacted. They were evicted from their previous accommodation on the grounds of sale. They do not get the housing assistance payment or rent supplement. They are surviving on the employment income of the female partner in the couple. They are in a really bad way. The husband who has diabetes and a heart condition is sleeping on the couch with the other people living in the shared accommodation passing by. It is shocking to do this to elderly people.

I am dealing with another man in his 70s. He has a severe spinal issue and he has been couch surfing for five months. We are still waiting for the council to process his medical priority application for housing. There is another couple whose case I have raised on a number of occasions. There was a little bit of coverage of it, although they want to remain anonymous and their identities have not been revealed. I accompanied them to the District Court on Friday. Their landlord, who by the way owns multiple properties, is evicting them and their two teenage children from the house they have lived in all their lives. They are a single income household. The husband has worked all his life for a semi-State company. As he is over the threshold, they are not entitled to the housing assistance payment or social housing.

I have asked, the Sinn Féin motion asks, and several members of the Opposition have asked whether we can purchase houses where people are threatened with the imminent prospect of homelessness, as this family is, to prevent them from being made homeless. We get a vague answers. I asked the Taoiseach today and he did not even understand the question. He thought we probably could but he did not understand about people being over the threshold. There is a complete lack of clarity. The local authorities tell us that if people are not on the social housing list the tenant in situ scheme does not apply. This is what they are being told. This needs to change.

The only reason the family I am speaking about is being evicted is that the house is for sale. Why would the State not buy the house? I heard the Minister come out with rubbish earlier. He said we could be paying €500,000 for a house. This house is actually valued at €350,000, just to let him know. The Government is paying €400,000 and €500,000 for Part V all the time. What is he talking about? This is just rubbish. The question is asked as to how much rent the State would charge. Approved housing bodies do this all the time. They borrow money and the cost rental is set against 40 years to recover the cost of the house. The State has the ability to spread it out even further. The answer to how we would set the rent is to do so at an affordable level according to cost rental on a reasonable proportion of people's income as against what they would have to pay on the market out there.

The couple I accompanied into the court are in their late 50s. They have lived in the house with their two children all their lives. There is no support available to them. We asked, as part of presenting the legal case to the judge, how many properties they had tried to go after on daft.ie and elsewhere since all this began. They estimate approximately 700 properties, with 300 of them before Christmas. They are desperately looking for places. Look at what is around them. Last week, just before going to court, they tried the new apartments on the N11. The rent is €2,700 a month. This case involves a worker in a semi-State company who gets approximately €50,000. The family can afford to pay €1,000, perhaps €1,200 and at a push they could maybe pay €1,500. They cannot pay €2,700. They are entitled to nothing from the State through the housing assistance payment or eligibility for social housing. What are they supposed to do? We keep asking these questions of the Government and the Minister just walks out and we get no answers.

The Taoiseach does not understand and neither does the Tánaiste. When I raised this case with the Tánaiste a week or two ago, he said they could not possibly be in court to be evicted because there is an eviction ban. He does not even understand his own eviction ban. The eviction ban only covers people who got notices to quit after the introduction of the legislation. If they were overholding before that, they could be evicted.

People were being evicted. God knows, if we did not have the moratorium, we would be in a diabolical state now and we are going to be in a diabolical state by the middle of this year but, still, the Government is humming and hawing, and saying “We cannot do this and we cannot do that.” Can it not just have a simple policy of saying “We are going to have a policy of doing everything we can to stop people ending up homeless”?

Another case I was dealing with this week is that of a woman who is in a refuge for domestic violence. She is being evicted from a refuge after five months because that is all people are apparently allowed to stay in this refuge. After suffering domestic violence and getting to a refuge, she is now going to be evicted into homelessness. This is the shit that is going on here. Does the Government understand how bad it is and how much people are suffering? Yet, it still will not take emergency measures because it is humming and hawing and saying “The Attorney General may say this”, and all the rest of it. Let the Attorney General say it after we put the legislation forward and start to act to prevent people going into homelessness, and deal with the scandal of the empty properties and so on. If somebody wants to take it to court, let us test it in court, but let us do what is right, which is stop people ending up in these appalling situations. Let us stop the scandal, which all the figures show, of land speculators sitting on tens of thousands of planning permissions and doing absolutely nothing with them because they are just watching their investment clock up, making money by flipping property.

The Government allows this to happen and then the Minister just walks out because he does not really care about the suffering. That is the only conclusion you can draw.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Bernard J. Durkan)

We move to the Regional Group. I call Deputy Fitzpatrick, who is sharing time with Deputy Canney.

Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick

Figures published in the Housing for All: Q4 2022 Progress Report at the start of this month showed 29,851 new homes were completed in the first full calendar year of the plan, exceeding the target by 20%. Construction started on 27,000 new homes in the year, the second highest since 2014. Strong activity has also been seen in the area of mortgage approvals, particularly for first-time buyers, with recently published data showing first-time buyer volumes at their highest levels since 2007. Yet, there are many people right now who do not have a home.

While the Government's ten-year housing plan may bring relief in the long term, more immediate action is needed to relieve the burden on renters. Many people pay more in rent than they would if they had a mortgage. Figures released by property website, Daft.ie, show that market rents have risen by 11.1% in Louth and 11.9% in Meath, where the average rents are €1,550 and €1,706, respectively, up 143% from the lowest point during the last recession. People are being priced out of buying a home and nearly half of people's wages are being paid in rent. However, the private rental market is persistently being starved of homes. Of the 1,096 properties available to rent on 1 February, there were 17 properties available in the whole of County Louth on the Daft.ie website, a county with a population of 139,100. This is down over 20% on the same date last year.

We need to ensure the temporary eviction ban is extended. People are queuing down the street for a room and the number of people being made homeless is unreal. The fact is that the Government had hoped the ban would lead to homeless numbers falling but they have continued to rise, albeit at a slower rate. A young woman and two children came to my constituency office yesterday and pleaded with me to contact the Housing Agency, which I did. Within the space of two hours, 114 people had sought accommodation. Things have become really serious. It is time all parties got together and had one working group. When faced with an acute shortage of rental homes, which shows little signs of abating, this must serve as a wake-up call to the Government to work together to come up with innovative ideas for the provision of more homes.

Louth is not alone in experiencing these issues. In fairness, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, came to Dundalk in January, where I introduced him to a local developer who has planning permission for more than 500 houses and is willing to put up between 150 and 200 modular homes. This is definitely a step in the right direction and the type of innovative thinking we need to engage in.

The scale of the housing needs is such that we have to make progress on planning permissions and housing projects that are well designed. I submitted a priority question recently regarding planning permission in rural Ireland. Daily, I meet constituents who are being rejected left, right and centre, sometimes for very vague reasons. I do not understand this. There have been too many objections over recent years and these objections do not match the crisis. Everybody needs a change of mindset in view of the enormous challenges facing us in housing.

All in government can agree that the current planning system should be changed, especially considering the conflict of interest claims and the eradication of the public’s trust in An Board Pleanála last year. I welcome the publication of the Planning and Development Bill 2022, which was approved by the Cabinet late last year. The Bill will bring greater clarity, consistency and certainty to how planning decisions are made, making the planning system more coherent and user-friendly for the public and planning practitioners. No additional delays should be imposed. We need to ensure this legislation is fit for purpose, successfully progresses through the next stages and is enacted as quickly as possible to facilitate planning approvals and developments.

I have a major issue with vacant homes in Louth and east Meath. I welcome the €61 million investment in vacant homes in the budget, as well as section 84 of the Finance Bill, which introduced new legislation for a vacant homes tax. In this year of crisis, we must ensure that all houses are fully utilised. We need to remarket the advantages of this in order to increase the supply of homes for rent or purchase. This provision will hopefully encourage the owners of long-term habitable vacant residential properties that are subject to local property tax to bring those properties back into use. However, it does not apply to derelict or uninhabitable properties. We need to reconsider this. I have previously highlighted the work of Louth County Council in bringing derelict vacant properties back into the housing stock. I know from my dealings with the council that the only thing holding Louth County Council back is the lack of funding from the Government. Why do we continue to keep these houses vacant? Let us not forget that as well as Irish citizens, we need to consider the long-term consequences and requirements in regard to housing tens of thousands of vulnerable people fleeing the war in Ukraine. We need to do more within this measure to ensure that all vacant housing is utilised. What I ask is that instead of us all playing political football, we all work together in this House.

Deputy Seán Canney

Coming from a construction background, at times I get frustrated by the fact things are not being done at a quicker pace. The supply of housing is the issue and the pace of supply is what is causing the problem.

I will go through the local authority processes. If a local authority buys a site to build housing, it has to appoint a design team and then do the design to get the Part 8 planning. Following on from that, detailed design has to be done, a procurement process takes place and then, lo and behold, we get to the construction phase. All through each of those stages, the county council has to go back to the Department for approval and during all of that process, time is lost.

We have a very good example in the devolved schools scheme, where the boards of management of schools were devolved the money to carry out the project, to employ the design team and to get all the work done, and they did not have to keep coming back. They were to come back just to get approval to sign a contract with the contractor. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we cannot devolve more responsibility to the local authorities and to finance and resource them so they do the job right.

People often talk about the fast-track building of houses as if the problem is on the site. It is not. The builders can build if they get the job to do, but the delay is in getting through all of the processes to get it to the stage where we can actually build the houses. Offsite construction is a great principle. The digitalisation of construction, the use of building information modelling and all of that helps, but it does not help to close the gap in terms of getting from project inception to having the keys handed over to people. At present, it is five or maybe even six years. While we are fighting against the tide of lack of supply, it is important we take some, if not drastic steps, then steps that are brave, and to try that with the local authorities.

We should also have another look at the Croí Cónaithe scheme for vacant properties. In that regard, I suggest there are a lot of vacant properties which first-time buyers or first-time principal owners will not be able to go into. We should be able to extend the scheme to support somebody who owns a derelict house to refurbish it, rent it or sell it off. In that way, we will make more of the existing stock that is lying there and bring it back into use.

There must be constraints on that but Croí Cónaithe is a good scheme and a great start. We have had it in the towns and now we have it in the rural areas. We must be sure we do not leave some houses out because they do not meet the criteria. Why must a house be two years vacant to be eligible? The scheme rules out some houses that are vacant and will continue to be, because at the moment they must have been vacant for two years.

We talk about young people. I was at a funeral last weekend and met a couple of people going in who were talking about football, football clubs and whatever. In one parish last weekend, five young people left to go to Australia. They were qualified nurses, qualified carpenters and an accountant. They were leaving by choice, but the choice was between staying in Ireland and paying huge rent for a property if they want to have their independence and going to Australia or some other country where they can have a good lifestyle and work-life balance while not being held down by trying to pay rent or all that goes with that. We are finding people are now emigrating because they want to get a chance at life and at independence and we cannot blame them for that. This housing situation is very serious. The future of our country depends on how we act now to ensure we encourage people we have educated and spent a lot of money on to remain here.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I thank Sinn Féin for this motion. If all of us who have been talking about housing in here for the last seven or eight years put one block on top of the other every day since we started talking we would have a building built that was taller than the Empire State Building in New York. That is the gospel truth.

There are a few things I have raised several times before. We have 171 voids in Kerry. The Government should start there and give us money to put those back in use again. Levies and service charges are depriving many people of the chance to build their own houses. Water connections, water and sewerage services and all that are too expensive. They are between a third and half the cost of the house. Getting rid of bedsits was a wrong move, as many people started out in those. I have said that several times. Planning permission in Kerry is now only for landowners' sons and daughters. While I appreciate that, there are a lot of other young boys and girls who would build a house for themselves if they could get planning permission somewhere in a corner in rural Ireland. There are plenty of corners and plenty of places but the rules are such now that they will not get planning permissions. Members combined in here and voted to get rid of Airbnbs. You can be there from June to January and these will not turn into long-term lets. The big problem is landlords are getting out because of two things, namely, they have to pay 52% tax on what they get and if something goes wrong, they cannot get tenants out. They do not own their own house any more and that is the gospel truth. Harm is being done by extending things to allow tenants stay on.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Ó Broin. We do not always agree on everything, and Deputy Ó Broin knows that, but I respect his intentions very much. I declare an interest in this, as I always do, because I provide all different types of accommodation.

I want to home in on one problem that is growing at an alarming rate. I say it for the benefit of the present Government and future Governments and Ministers, especially those with responsibility for housing. I refer to the mass exodus of people who are involved in the rental market. They are saying they are getting out. The property is being sold and taken off the market. That is no good for anybody because it is leaving less of a supply, which will only lead to a further increase in rents. Everyday at clinics, including last night's, all it was in place after place was housing, housing and housing. It was young people and all different types of people looking for housing. It is absolutely frightening. Who is the cause of it? Those responsible are in here. What people are hearing coming from this Chamber is making them sell homes and say they will not pay 56% tax any more when all the Government is offering is a bit of accelerated depreciation on cookers and washing machines. Who does the Government think it is codding? Does it think those people are going to stay providing a service? The rental sector is a service and it works both ways. It is not a one-way street and until politicians realise that, we will have less and less availability of housing.

Deputy Carol Nolan

This motion makes it very clear the Government has lost all control of housing. In Offaly there are just 11 homes available in the entire county and most of those are outside the reach of what most people and, indeed, families can afford. In a town the size of Tullamore, with a population of approximately 14,600 people, there are just three houses for rent at present. In Birr, which has a population of almost 6,000, there are just three properties to rent. People are in desperate need and the same is true in neighbouring Laois, which has a population of 85,000 people but with just 14 properties available for rent in the entire county. By any reasonable metric, this is the measure of a failed and failing housing policy. The Government has lost all control. It has not been proactive and we certainly need more housing schemes to be built and not just a big fanfare every two years when there is one completed. Government has much catching up to do on affordable housing schemes, because young couples are locked out of the market.

There should also be balance in terms of fairness for landlords and tenants because I am aware of landlords who have had their properties destroyed. There are good tenants and good landlords and bad tenants and bad landlords. That is an issue also. There needs to be balance and fairness.

Deputy Michael Collins

Tonight we debate the homelessness crisis plaguing Ireland. It is a crisis that has been growing for more than a decade with no real solution in sight. It is a crisis that is being ignored by politicians and policymakers in government, who have failed to provide any meaningful action to tackle it. It is a crisis that is destroying the lives of thousands of people across the country. I notice it every weekend in my clinics. The rising trend is homelessness and the scary part is some of these cases could be a marriage break-up or whatever. In a lot of cases people are sleeping in vans and cars. I have found a huge increase even in the last three or four months. Another trend is what is called couch surfing.

I heard the Minister of State's colleague saying earlier the Government brought in the €500 credit for people renting. I know of a young lady in west Cork who tried to get this credit only to be told she cannot, as she is renting from her parents. This was all done above board; her parents are registered with the RTB. We have been told she cannot get this credit. The false explanation behind the prohibition for tenancies of this nature is that if such arrangements were allowed qualify for the relief, it would leave the tax credit open to possible manipulation, where parents and their children could collude to create a tax advantage for either party which was not warranted. It is crazy. Anyone, regardless of relationship, could manipulate the situation if they really wanted to.

It is sad to see we are miles behind our counterparts in other countries. I encourage the Minister to continue the eviction ban because people are calling to me and they are fierce worried. They have got letters. Of course, it has been held up for the last six months and that is a relief to them but their worry is this will be reactivated in the very near future, which will cause serious danger. My colleague, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, mentioned the Airbnbs. This is a crisis the Government is making in this sector, which did not need to be there. It was a welcome relief for people that they could stay in communities when they went on holiday. Now it looks like there will be planning regulations and everything in respect of the person who is doing a bit of Airbnb, which is going to land people in crisis.

I always mention planning for young people in rural Ireland, which is a huge difficulty. There is no bother building houses without planning permission when the Government sets aside time to do so but when it comes to building one-off rural housing, planning is refused.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I commend Deputy Ó Broin and Sinn Féin on bringing forward this motion. I spent nearly five years on the housing committee and Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is right. If the reports, paper, visits and experts brought in had all laid a block each, or maybe two, we would have had lots of houses built. There is, however, an inertia here. First, the Government abandoned building houses after the economic crash. Then we gave them all off to the big schemes and the vulture funds. On the other hand, there is the fake oil crisis the Government is trying to blame on the war. I refer to the cost of insulation, labour, blocks and cement. Equally, there is also the whole mica crisis, which has still not been fixed but the cost of which the Government is putting on the taxpayers as well. The Government is crucifying ordinary taxpayers. I do not see why Cement Roadstone Holdings, CRH, and the big companies should not have paid for the mica issue. Why should the taxpayer be the patsy?

I do not see why we cannot allow people in rural Ireland who want to build houses to do so. This is the fundamental issue. The Minister of State is a decent man himself, but his own party and its links with An Taisce leads to nothing but objections. The Government will not let people who have the wherewithal, the site, the vision, the passion, the ability and the courage to house themselves to do so. Someone else mentioned the price of water connections. We could give the Government phone numbers. Despite the cost of development charges, nothing at all is being got for them. It is not even possible to get a pothole filled.

The Government is cleaning out people in taxes. It has cleaned them out so much now with extra fuel charges, the carbon taxes and VAT that in 2022 the Government made almost €4 billion more than it did the year before. It is nothing short of daylight robbery. Come back Ned Kelly, who robbed the rich to pay the poor. The Government is robbing the poor to pay the rich. This is what it is doing, day in and day out, and its members should be ashamed of themselves. If the Government cannot do the job, then it is time for it to pack up and move out and let someone who can do the job with passion and vision. Let us go back to T.K. Whitaker and Seán Lemass, who built this country from nothing. Now, we have reports and experts. We also have NGOs by the dozen, costing us €6 billion annually. Some of these NGOs are very good, but more of them are just pen pushers who have the ears of the Government. They are twisting and turning paper around and stopping progress.

Deputy Thomas Pringle

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this motion. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward. I have spoken on the issue of housing more times than I can count. I will, however, continue to raise my concerns and those of my constituents for as long as this Government continues to sit on its hands. Not only are the housing targets of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, shockingly low, they have not been met for three years in a row now. That the Minister cannot even meet the incredibly low standards he set for his Department is extremely concerning.

This Government, with the help of vulture funds, has made our country completely unliveable, not only for those looking to come here but for those who already live here and are now forced into emigration. The increased threshold for social housing will do nothing to help the situation in Donegal. People on €31,000 will not be eligible for social housing, yet there is no way a bank would give them a mortgage either. Many people in my constituency are within this income bracket and so many will never have the opportunity of having a house.

The Government is completely out of touch. The reality is the housing crisis has affected everyone in this country, whether they know it or not. The current shortage of nurses and teachers is a direct result of emigration caused by failed housing policies. The housing crisis has also contributed to the seemingly never-ending rise in the cost of living. A group in society which has been severely affected and often overlooked is the children of this country. Not only is their education suffering due to the lack of available teachers, a recent study by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, found that the longer children are exposed to inadequate housing from birth to the age of nine, the more harm they experience. This is concerning given that 3,442 children are currently living in emergency accommodation, not to mention the thousands who have also moved out. According to the study, children living in inadequate housing have worse health and developmental outcomes than their peers. It is clear the policy of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has not only failed in terms of affordability and supply but also regarding the well-being of our citizens. This should be the main priority of all policy.

The lead author of the report, James Laurence, said "This report shows that current housing policy needs to focus as much attention on housing quality and adequacy as supply and affordability, for the well-being of children and families". The report details how respiratory problems are common in nine-year-olds who spend more time living in poor housing conditions, such as damp properties, as well as in homes which are not adequately heated. This is particularly concerning when we consider the number of children forced to live in such conditions because they live in defective concrete homes across Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick and many other counties. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy has failed and continues to fail to protect these children. It has exposed them to defective homes which are not only incredibly dangerous but which affect their health as well as their social and emotional well-being.

I hosted members of the Mica Action Group earlier, along with county councillors. They spoke to Oireachtas Members about the revised defective concrete blocks scheme, which has still not been delivered despite declarations of urgency from the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. It will probably be later this year before we even see anything happen regarding this matter. Despite misleading statements made by the Government, the revised scheme does not deliver 100% redress due to caps and exclusions. It was agreed at the meeting that the Minister needs to come to Donegal to discuss these issues and Donegal County Council needs to be proactive in how it is going to deal with affected homeowners. There is also a complete lack of support in project management and infrastructure, which will leave many homeowners without a way forward. This is completely unacceptable and unfair to homeowners who have been fighting for years to receive compensation for homes that were built, unknowingly to them, with defective blocks due to Government's light-touch regulation. This continues to this day. Indeed, homes are being built that will still have problems even after the Government has supposedly changed this situation.

What is even more frustrating is the shocking inequality between this scheme and that for the victims of Celtic tiger defective apartments. All victims of defective homes deserve to be treated equally and funded fully for the stress and pain they have endured at the hands of bad policy and regulation. I strongly believe we need to bring a well-being focus to all future policy and especially to all future plans to tackle the housing crisis. I have been calling on the Government to introduce a significant tax on all derelict homes and Airbnb units for some time now. Portugal has proved it is possible to do this. Under new housing plans put forward by the Portuguese Government, all unoccupied houses will be forced onto the market at affordable prices and there will be no new licences given to Airbnb or holiday rentals, except in less populated rural areas. If we had a Government like that here, it would be some difference. I urge the Government to seriously consider doing the same here, although it will not. I also urge it to extend the eviction ban as soon as possible, which it will also not do, which this motion calls for and which I support fully.

Deputy Catherine Connolly

Here we go again. I had a young woman in my office this week. She was full of enthusiasm that there was a new movement on the ground. I actually held my head in exhaustion at the enthusiasm which is completely unaligned with what this Government and every other Government has done. I thank Sinn Féin again for bringing forward this motion. Obviously, the ban on evictions must be extended. If we were seriously interested in dealing with homelessness, then this would be the most basic step we would take. I have repeatedly pointed out that as I walk here to the Dáil from my hotel, I am passing people on the streets. Imagine I am becoming immune to this. Imagine I am walking past four or six people and the birds are playing around with the basic ingredients of life these people have. I am looking and wondering what has happened to me. What am I doing colluding with this? I try not to at every stage. I use every opportunity to speak to say there is something seriously wrong.

I have some of the figures here, and they are rising all the time, including 11,632 children. As the Sinn Féin motion goes on to say, this includes a figure of 3,442, but it does not include all the other homeless not recognised as such. I have been a Member of this House since 2016. Other than health and public transport, this is the topic on which I have spoken most. Foolishly, I then relaxed a little bit when a task force was set up for Galway in 2019. It was to set out to furnish an annual report. I foolishly thought it was going to look at the problem in Galway, which is as bad as if not worse than the problem in Dublin, but with little focus on it. Then here was this task force, with high-level people on it, and I thought it would be coming back with reports. Do the Deputies know what the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, told me lately, and I complimented and congratulated him on his honesty? He said he had not received the report referred to in his reply and understood it was in preparation. This is the report for 2021 and 2022, from an emergency task force in Galway that was set up to look at the reasons for the situation there.

The minutes I have go back to May 2022. The last letter I have is very detailed, but it is not a report or an analysis.

Geraldine Tallon, the chairperson of the Galway social housing task force, said: "Notwithstanding the efforts made by both authorities despite the difficulties... it has to be recognised that the overall achievement falls far short of social housing need and of the annual average housing demand which you defined." She continues, but I have two minutes left so I cannot read out the rest of it, but it is all set out here that the local authorities are not achieving their targets despite their best efforts. What is the result of that? The Simon Community helpfully tells us every quarter and we are due another report in March. It looked at Galway told in 28 snapshots over three days. In the first snapshot it did not find a single property that was available under HAP, whether ordinary HAP rates or discretionary HAP rates. Galway city distinguished itself with two-bedroom houses for €3,000 a month. I saw an ad in the newspaper at the weekend for a tiny bit of land on the Claddagh, where I live. The auctioneer said it was wonderful. It was a tiny piece of land, smaller than where the clerks and reporters are sitting in front of me, for an astronomical price.

We are being fed the same thing we have been fed for the past ten or 15 years. What would I like? I certainly do not like standing up here and complaining. I do not like taking every God-given minute I can get to talk on this. There are so many other topics I would like to talk about. The Government is heading for continuous disaster when it keeps fiddling with the market and keeping prices artificially high through all the schemes it has brought in. Various Ministers bring up the help-to-buy scheme. It is a total disaster. All the evaluations have confirmed it is a total disaster. With regard to the mortgage-to-rent scheme, no analysis has been done and there is no business case. We have no idea what money has been paid to the voluntary bodies or the one private company that is there. We are told the Government is now going to get more private companies under expressions of interest. What is the solution? It is actually to act on the emergency and use public land for public housing. That is what we need. That is not what is happening in Galway. We are fiddling with different sites to have a mix. I am allergic to this language of "a mix". We have lots of land in the harbour area held for us in trust by a private company and it is negotiating with the Land Development Agency about mixes, which is keeping the prices of houses up.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Malcolm Noonan)

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions. I will not have time to respond to all the specific issues raised but my speech will address some of them and we will try to come back on some of the specific questions, particularly around the tenant in situ scheme and other elements that have been put forward by Deputies. Quite a number related to the tenant in situ scheme and the social affordable targets, which were raised by Deputy Seán Crowe. Deputy Mac Lochlainn requested that we meet Donegal county councillors, and I will put that to the Minister. Other comments were made by Deputy Pringle about defective concrete blocks. If I have time at the end, I will try to come in on some of those issues specifically. Other Deputies raised issues around rural housing and the rural housing guidelines. The task force in Galway was raised by Deputy Connolly. That is the responsibility of Galway County Council. Our Department puts forward the policies and funding for Housing for All but it is up to Galway County Council to respond in kind and progressively to that. Social, affordable and cost-rental housing and all the usual issues have been raised. We will try to get responses on those matters to Deputies.

No one on these benches underestimates the scale of the challenges ahead. The rise in homelessness seen in recent months is of major concern to all in government. Current levels are too high. We know this but we also know that to solve a problem as long-standing and far-reaching as this, we must have a plan. Housing for All is the plan. Contained within the original document and the update launched last year are a number of actions to address the wide range of issues surrounding homelessness. Increased supply of social housing is crucial to solving the problem. When 2022 figures are finalised in the coming weeks, they will show the State delivered more social housing this year than any other year in the past half-century. We know what is needed to solve the issue and are dedicating every resource available to us to doing so.

Supply as a whole is also increasing. The figures from the first full year of Housing for All delivery not impacted by Covid-19 are also promising, with almost 30,000 homes completed in 2022. This is an increase of 45% compared with 2021 but, importantly, it is an increase of over 41% on 2019 completions, which was the last full pre-pandemic year. In 2022, almost 57,000 homes were either commenced or completed, the figures being 26,957 and 29,851, respectively. There has never been more Government funding available for housing in the history of the State. In 2016, capital funding for housing stood at €400 million. In budget 2023, €4.5 billion has been made available for the delivery of housing programmes. Some €1.3 billion will be spent on affordability measures and supporting homeownership in 2023. Budget 2023 also provides an increase of 10% on last year's funding to more than €215 million for the delivery of homeless services. In addition, €10 million in capital funding is being provided for supported emergency accommodation for families and individuals experiencing homelessness. My Department is also progressing specific actions with the regional leads and local authorities to tackle homelessness. This includes raising the income eligibility limits for social housing for the first time in more than a decade, which came into effect on 1 January 2023. Eligibility thresholds in local authorities have been increased by €5,000.

The past year has seen some extraordinary challenges arising from the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and rising interest rates, as raised by Deputies today. It was important to build in the provisions to make sure the plan stayed relevant over its lifetime and kept focus on the core issues and challenges we face. That is why we committed to reviewing Housing for All annually. At the start of November 2022 we published the first annual review of the plan. The updated plan identified 33 priority actions that will directly or indirectly support the supply of well-built sustainable homes for people. It will activate and accelerate the delivery of housing supply while also continuing to deliver on the fundamental reforms set out in the plan. The flexibility is present throughout every aspect of the plan. Housing for All currently sets out annual targets of overall housing delivery to 2030. This clearly shows us building up towards 40,000 homes per year. We cannot simply go from 2,000 new homes per year to 40,000 overnight. We need to expand the industry and build capacity, and that is exactly what Housing for All is aiming to do. The motion calls for our targets to be reviewed and they will be. We will be updating the population and housing projection model as part of the first revision of the national planning framework, which is commencing shortly. This will inform the updating of targets and will commence following the publication of the final census data later this year.

The motion calls for an expansion of the tenant in situ scheme, as raised by a number of Deputies. The Government is already acting in this regard. The Department is supporting local authorities to acquire homes for social housing for priority purposes. This includes acquisitions which support a household to exit homelessness or with tenants in situ to prevent homelessness. On 28 November, my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, wrote to all local authority chief executives advising of his intention to continue the delegated sanction for the whole duration of the emergency winter eviction ban and up to the end of the transition period of June 2023.

Another key pillar of our response for those suffering from the sharpest edges of homelessness is Housing First. This programme is one of the key responses in ending long-term homelessness among those with complex health and mental health needs. It provides the most vulnerable of our homeless population with a home for life as well as key wraparound health and social supports. Under the plan, an additional 1,319 supported tenancies are to be delivered nationally over the next five years.

The motion highlights the eviction ban, which was introduced to give renters facing homelessness as much protection as possible during the winter period. The winter eviction ban is a short-term emergency measure. It affords time for increased housing supply to come on stream and to reduce the burden on homeless services and the pressure on tenants and the residential tenancies market. While there are no plans to bring forward further legislative proposals at the moment, we continue to monitor closely the operation of the rental market and the Residential Tenancies Acts as well as any further measures that might be required while further additional supply comes on stream.

We know the rental market is not working for many of its participants right now. That is why my Department has commenced a comprehensive review of the private rental sector to take account of the significant regulatory changes over recent years. The review, which will be completed by the end of June 2023, will ensure our housing system provides an efficient, affordable, safe and secure framework for both landlords and tenants.

We also know that the lack of supply and, in particular, the supply of rental properties speaks to the core of the problem. We are exploring every possible avenue which might result in added supply, and that is why on 7 December last, the Government approved the priority drafting of the registration of short-term tourist letting Bill and the publication of the general scheme of the Bill. The new register will help to ensure properties built for residential accommodation will be used for that purpose, and Fáilte Ireland estimates that up to 12,000 properties could come back into the long-term rental market or residential housing market as a result.

The motion calls for the use of new building technologies and planning powers to deliver increased supply of homes, and that is exactly what the Government is doing. The Housing for All action plan update, which was published on 2 November, includes a new action to develop a roadmap with targets for increased use of modern methods of construction, MMC, in public housing. My Department is now working closely with local authorities to increase the use of modern methods of construction in social and affordable housing. To this end, funding of €94 million has been provided to local authorities to address legacy land debts in December 2022. The provision of the funding was linked to the immediate development of a housing proposal, a commitment to use MMC, and construction to start in 2023 or not later than 2024. Local authorities received funding for 26 sites which will be part of an accelerated delivery programme with additional sites since added. Overall, approximately 30 sites have been identified for accelerated delivery, involving more than 1,500 new social homes.

The Government is introducing provisions for the recent Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Act 2022 which, once commenced, will provide a temporary exemption from the Part 8 planning approval process by elected members for local authority-owned developments for social and affordable housing, including cost-rental housing. This new provision, which is a time-limited arrangement to help expedite the provision of housing by local authorities in the context of the need to increase housing supply, will be mandatory for local authorities in strictly defined circumstances where certain criteria are satisfied. This provision has the potential to shave months off the process and is a testament to the fact that when it comes to solving the crisis, nothing is off the table.

Addressing vacancy and dereliction is another top priority for this Government. That is why the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, launched our new vacant homes action plan and details of the new €150 million urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, vacancy fund. The action plan provides for more detail and measures which my Department will implement over the coming years to bring more vacant and derelict residential and commercial properties back into use as homes. This includes a roll-out of the data collection project across all local authorities to capture accurate vacancy data and further support for our full-time role of vacant housing officers.

We have achieved much in the 15 months since Housing for All was published but we know there is still a long road ahead. We will continue to do everything in our power to increase affordability, improve the rental market, eradicate homelessness, address vacancy and fix the housing system for generations to come. Certainly, we welcome positive proposals from the Opposition, which is an important part of the collective work of this Oireachtas in addressing the housing crisis.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

In this housing crisis, no one should be made homeless or be put under that threat. If the eviction ban ends in the coming months and if it is not extended, this threat of homelessness will become a reality for many families. Renters are stressed, anxious and fearful for their future and parents are fearful for the future of their families. It is just not sustainable that people should live with the prospect of being evicted hanging over their heads.

We know landlords are leaving the rental sector in large numbers and those who are still renting property are doing so at exorbitant rates. Another factor which is helping to skew the rental sector is the opportunity that Ireland’s distressed housing market has given to the vulture funds which have taken full advantage of the mess that is the housing market. They have bought up large housing estates and apartment blocks and are charging exorbitant rents for these properties. They have bought these properties by outbidding households by a massive premium, thereby pushing families even further away from home ownership. Such funds have the means to pay such premium rates for property and they are prepared to do so because of the high returns for renting out these properties.

All of this points to the failure by the Government to provide or build social and affordable housing. The Government has failed to put together a functional policy for housing. Instead, it has put forward proposals such as the shared equity loan scheme. Historically, however, this policy has proven to be a failure and disastrous for people who ended up accumulating very significant and unsustainable debts. The policy also caused an inflation in house prices. There is no reason to believe this will not happen again under the shared equity loan scheme.

The Government needs to encourage and promote housing projects such as the Ó Cualann housing co-operative. Ó Cualann has a proven track record of providing realistic, affordable housing over recent years. The housing shortage is impacting on every aspect of daily life and the consequences are being felt across many sectors of society. If people cannot afford to find accommodation, they cannot then take up the college place, nurses and doctors have to go abroad to work because they cannot find accommodation here, and so on. This toxic mixture of bad housing policy, spiralling rents and unaffordable housing is why we are now at record levels of homelessness. Let us not add to this by placing more people in danger of homelessness through evictions. I say to the Minister of State that the eviction ban needs to be extended.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I agree with my colleagues that this eviction ban has to be extended. This is a humanitarian crisis and a national emergency. The senior Minister came into the House a while ago, attacked the Opposition, attacked Deputy Ó Broin, and attacked us all. He answered no questions, ran out the door and left the Minister of State here, as happens every time we have a discussion on housing. It is a medal the Government should be giving to the Minister of State because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers will not come into the House and answer the real questions.

There are 11,632 people in homelessness, including 3,442 children. Where are the Ministers, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste?

I was out canvassing in the past week in Mayfield, the Glen and Knocknaheeny. There were boarded-up houses in virtually every terrace in these council estates. I listened to the Minister of State waffle on, and I mean him no disrespect, about the Government giving money for 120 units when there are more than 500 units empty. There are 31 local authorities and thousands of houses boarded-up and the Government is not doing anything about it. It is a drop in the ocean and the Minister of State is coming into the House and listing off figures. These are real homeless people we are talking about, people who are terrified. There is five weeks to go, and the Government cannot give people an answer.

A man who came into my constituency office, and I have dozens of families in this position, has three children in college and one doing the leaving certificate and he is to be evicted in April. How are his children going to do their college exams or, more importantly, their leaving certificate, if they do not know they will have a roof over their heads? The Minister of State and this Government will not answer those questions. It is an absolute disgrace and proof, if ever it was needed, that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in for the big money, the vulture funds and the cuckoo funds.

The Minister of State, however, is a member of the Green Party which was supposed to stand up for the ordinary people. The Green Party said when it went into government that it would do that, but it is letting the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, run out the door here. I am asking the Minister of State to go to the Green Party and to ask if it will ban evictions.

Cork City Council unanimously passed a motion this week to have the eviction ban for another year. This included Green Party, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin on a Labour Party motion and we cannot get an answer from the Government.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The matter under discussion this evening is of enormous importance. We are talking about single people, families and children who do not know if in five weeks' time they will have somewhere to live. There could not be a matter more important for us to discuss. The Minister’s behaviour this evening, I have to say, while true to form, surprised me somewhat. He came in like a petulant child and showed no compassion or comprehension of the stress and strain that hundreds if not thousands of people are under. Rather than dealing with the matter at hand and the very reasonable suggestions many of us on this side of the Chamber put forward, he engaged in denial, deflection and wilful misrepresentation of everybody on this side of the House to avoid dealing with the issues.

Exactly as my good friend, Deputy Gould, said, the Minister then scurried out. He did not even have the courtesy to wait for the person on the floor to speak. He left the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, once again carrying the can. There is only one conclusion that I can draw from the Minister's behaviour: Deputy Boyd Barrett is right. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage does not care. If he did, he would have been here for the two hours of this debate and would have listened, considered and responded with some level of consideration.

What we are asking for is not unreasonable. We are asking for the Government to announce, at the earliest opportunity, that it is its intention to extend the emergency ban on evictions. It will have to be done. The sooner the Government announces it, the better. We ask the Government to accept what we are all telling it, in that the tenant in situ scheme is not working the way the Minister believes it is and to rectify those problems in the detailed manner with regard to which I wrote to the Minister a number of months ago.

We are asking the Government to extend the tenant in situ scheme to cost-rental housing. Of course, there have to be price caps and consideration of the rent, but the first thing the Government has to do is to extend the scheme to those who are not eligible for it at present and work out the details, as appropriate, afterwards. On top of that, we are begging the Government to mobilise all of the powers of the State in the way that took place during Covid, to add 1,000 or 2,000 additional social homes to the stock of social housing, above and beyond the Government's existing targets.

The measure to which the Minister referred, the Part 8 derogation, will not deliver a single home in the next 12 months. We know that. It is one of the reasons I did not think it was an especially good idea, but we did not oppose it, because we were not going to get in the way of the Government. It will not deliver a single extra home. None of the measures the Minister of State has outlined, with the greatest of respect to him, will do anything or provide any additional comfort for those men, women and, crucially, hundreds of children who face the very real prospect of losing their home in April, May or June.

If the Government keeps coming to this Chamber telling us its plan is working when rents, house prices and homelessness are rising and when even an increase in the number of private homes has no impact on growing levels of need or high housing costs, it shows the Government just does not understand. Waving, over and again, the same tired speeches and quarterly reviews does not convince anybody, least of all those people who most urgently need the Government's help.

I will do what I do at the end of all of these debates. I will appeal to the Minister of State for him and his Green Party colleagues to use whatever influence they have, this week and next, to get the Government to make a decision on this matter. They should not let it run into St. Patrick's week or until the eleventh hour. I ask the Government to extend the ban, protect the families and introduce emergency measures to reduce the flow of singles and families into homelessness and accelerate the exit of those in emergency accommodation. If the Government does not do that, this crisis will get worse.

Amendment put.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Bernard J. Durkan)

In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time tomorrow evening.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Tuesday, 21 Feb 2023

Housing and Evictions: Motion [Private Members]

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 21 Feb 2023