I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion regarding housing and evictions. On Tuesday, 21 February 2023, on the question, "That the amendment to the motion be agreed to", a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 80(2), that division must be taken now.
Housing and Evictions: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Eoin Ó Broin on Tuesday, 21 February 2023:
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.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 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.".
- (Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage)
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 74; Níl, 56; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brophy, Colm.
- Browne, James.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Colm.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Chambers, Jack.
- Collins, Niall.
- Costello, Patrick.
- Coveney, Simon.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dillon, Alan.
- Donnelly, Stephen.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Duffy, Francis Noel.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frankie.
- Flaherty, Joe.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Harris, Simon.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Hourigan, Neasa.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Leddin, Brian.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Martin, Catherine.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Matthews, Steven.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McHugh, Joe.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Noonan, Malcolm.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Brien, Joe.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Dowd, Fergus.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Smyth, Ossian.
- Stanton, David.
- Troy, Robert.
Níl
- Andrews, Chris.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Berry, Cathal.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Brady, John.
- Browne, Martin.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Cairns, Holly.
- Canney, Seán.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Clarke, Sorca.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Michael.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Funchion, Kathleen.
- Gannon, Gary.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Gino.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Nash, Ged.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Reilly, Louise.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Ryan, Patricia.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Bríd.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tully, Pauline.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Hildegarde Naughton and Cormac Devlin; Níl, Deputies Pádraig Mac Lochlainn and Denise Mitchell.
Amendment declared carried.
Motion, as amended, put and declared carried.