We move immediately, a little bit late unfortunately, to Leaders' Questions.
Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Yesterday, I raised the need to introduce an emergency ban on rent increases for three years. Even though workers and families are being hammered by relentless rent hikes, the Taoiseach again dismissed that call. Over the 12 years that Fine Gael has been in Government, life has become increasingly hard for renters. In that time, rents have more than doubled. The latest Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, report simply crystallises the lived reality for renters. They are ripped off every single month. New rents are up nearly 12% this year. This is the highest annual increase since RTB records began. Even the news for existing tenants is bad. Their rents are up 5% across the State and 5.5% here in Dublin.
This has not come out of the blue. Since this Government came into office, the regular reports from the RTB and daft.ie have shown rents going in one direction, and that is up. What does this mean in real terms? Since the Government took office, across the State people must find, on average, an additional €3,800 to pay for a new rental. In Dublin, the price to renters for a new rental is an additional €4,700. Where on earth do renters, fleeced for over a decade and now living through a cost-of-living crisis, find that money? These extortionate rents mean that many young people are unable to save for a mortgage deposit. This sets them back in a very big way.
We also have a large increase in young adults living at home with their parents. Rents are too high and so the journey to home ownership has become increasingly difficult, impossibly difficult for many. According to the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, BPFI, nearly half of first-time buyers are now over the age of 35. The average mortgage taken out by first-time buyers has surged. It stands at €315,000 for new builds. Here in Dublin, the average mortgage taken out by first-time buyers stands at nearly €500,000 for a new build and over €387,000 for existing builds. I am sure the Taoiseach will agree this is crazy stuff.
The reality is that first-time buyers are saddled with higher debt and higher monthly repayments. Under this Government, home ownership is becoming more difficult, more distant and more expensive. All the while, the Government continues to set affordable housing targets that are far too low and keeps missing those targets. Tá sé in am d’athrú ceart i gcomhar cíosóirí. Caithfidh an Rialtas cosc a chur ar arduithe cíosa ar feadh trí bliana ar bhonn práinne. We desperately need a change in direction. We need now to give this generation the chance that it deserves. The Government must finally step up and tackle extortionate rent increases. The big question that renters are now asking is how bad it has to get before the Government intervenes with decisive action. When will the penny drop that an emergency ban on rent increases is required to give squeezed, ripped-off renters the space and breathing room they need to build a decent future? Renters are pushed to the brink. I am asking the Taoiseach to reconsider his position. I am asking him, again, to ban rent increases for three years.
I thank the Deputy. I appreciate that a lot of renters in Ireland are paying very high rents and that a lot of people who are renting do not want to rent. They want to be able to own their own home. The Government understands that lived experience. We do not agree with the Deputy's proposed policy of an across-the-board rent freeze for three years precisely because we think it would be counterproductive. It would reduce the amount of supply, reduce the number of rental properties available and leave more people with no place to rent, and would probably, therefore, lead to a rise in homelessness.
That is why we do not agree with the Deputy's proposal.
What can we do for renters? We can increase supply of places to rent. That would mean fewer people who are homeless and lower rents in the round. We do that by ramping up the supply of places to rent. We need more public and private homes and apartments. We do that by investing in social housing, in particular. I am proud to lead a Government that is building more new social housing every year than any year since the 1970s. I am proud to lead a Government that has made cost-rental housing a reality, whereby the Government provided rental properties for those who do not qualify for social housing. We are ramping that up, and will ramp it up a lot more over the next few years.
Social housing is something that benefits everyone. It does not just take people off the housing lists; it also frees up rental properties for other people to rent and exerts a downward pressure on rents and property prices. It is good to see that in the past ten years, the number of people who rent social housing from the State, and the number of families who benefit from social housing, has increased by 40,000. The figures have also increased in percentage terms. That blasts the myth from the fake left that somehow this Government or the previous one did not believe in or was not committed to social housing. Raw numbers, percentages - any way you want to look at it, there are more people who benefit from social housing today than was the case when the census was done in 2011.
The other thing we are doing for renters is the rent credit. It will be €750 next year and is €500 this year. Bear in mind, that is per renter and not per property. A couple sharing an apartment, who are both working and paying income tax, can claim €1,500 back. That is roughly a month's rent back into their pockets. If three people are sharing, the figure will be €2,250. I encourage people to take up that rent credit. There was a pretty good take-up last year, but not so much this year. People can claim it three years in arrears and I would encourage them to do that. Of course, parents can claim it on behalf of their children if they are students who are renting. That is making a real and practical difference for renters.
In terms of housing and being able to buy, I remind the Deputy that we are seeing record numbers of first-time buyers in Ireland, the highest we have seen in 16 years. That is encouraging. I want it to be a lot more. That did not happen by accident. It is because of increased supply, in part because we have suspended development levies, something Sinn Féin opposed. It is also because of the help to buy scheme, where we give hard-working young people their income tax for the past three years back so they can afford a deposit, something Sinn Féin opposes. It is because of schemes like first home, which bridges the gap between the amount the bank will lend you and the cost of the house. Again, that is something Sinn Féin opposes because Sinn Féin is actually against homeownership and that is the truth.
The realities are these. We have waiting lists for social housing that are unbearable. I have dealt with people who have spent years on social housing waiting lists. I assume the Taoiseach has also met these people and families. As he brags about social housing delivery, he should be very aware that tens of thousands of people who languish on lists know the real story. He talked about downward pressure on rents; there is no downward pressure on rents. I have just given him the figures. There has been a 12% increase in new rents, the highest since the RTB started to report. There have been increases of 5% to 5.5% for existing rents. This is a runaway train.
I ask the Taoiseach to intervene in a real and substantive way. If he was really interested in giving young people, in particular, the breathing room to put together a deposit and have the chance and option to purchase their own home, or even to live decently in rental accommodation, that is the action he would take.
I thank the Deputy. There is no need to be condescending. It may come naturally to you, but it is unbecoming of somebody who wishes to be Taoiseach.
Look in the mirror.
Once again, the Deputy engaged in misrepresentation and misleading behaviour, because she is the great misleader. I did not say that there was downward pressure on rents. I know rents are rising. I said that increased social housing exerts a downward pressure on rents, and that is just a fact. She knows that is a fact but it does not matter what I say. She will twist, manipulate and mislead because she is the great misleader.
Can you answer the question?
Of course I meet people all the time who has been on the housing lists for far too long. Anybody in this House deals with the huge number of housing cases in their clinics and constituency offices. I also meet people all the time who are now buying their first homes. I see the enormous joy when people get to move into their first home. I also meet loads of people who are getting social housing - over 1,000 people a month are moving into new social housing. There is one thing that a lot of those people have in common. They are moving into houses that were opposed by Sinn Féin.
How many houses did Deputy McDonald's party object to?
Please.
It must be thousands.
Deputy Farrell, can we have order for the leader of the Labour Party?
You must have missed "Prime Time".
This week, we have seen the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsen further. After a brief glimmer of hope last week with the humanitarian pauses, we have seen absolute devastation wreaked across the Gaza Strip, with reports of 16,000 people killed, including thousands of children. Gazans are facing a deepening horror, the UN tells us, as disease spreads, food is scarce and humanitarian aid is all but cut off. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the situation is apocalyptic. His colleagues have described the situation as the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south. UN officials have been told to empty warehouses of goods and move on. Where to go? There is nowhere to go for people in Gaza.
Nearly all of us in the House condemned the brutal attack by Hamas when it was carried out on 7 October. Nothing excuses Israel's brutal retaliation, bombardment and carpet bombing of Gaza. Israel's breach of international law and resultant commission of war crimes have effectively turned Gaza into a city of ruin. That was what Netanyahu threatened on 7 October. That threat has now been realised, with unthinkable consequences for many civilians who have been forced to leave their homes and see their friends, family and children killed. They have seen buildings and infrastructure turned into rubble. Hospitals and UN facilities have been targeted. There is seemingly no end in sight, two months on from the onset of the most recent war.
While many of us have been proud of Ireland's strong stance in support of Palestinian rights and support the Government on that, we now urge the Government to do more because it can do more. We are all continuing to receive correspondence from people across the country who want the Government to do more and are urging a stronger stance at international level, and here in Ireland, from the Government. We want a stronger response from Ireland, pushing at EU level, to ensure other EU member states can be brought on board to seek the crucial goal of a permanent humanitarian ceasefire.
Will the Taoiseach update the House on his Government's response to what are now genocidal policies being conducted by Netanyahu and his government? Will he tell us how he is going to work at European Council next week to ensure that pressure is brought to bear on his colleagues? I am conscious that Fine Gael is a member of the European People's Party, the largest grouping in the European Parliament. The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is drawn from the European People's Party. We know that at the European Council next week, EU leaders are to discuss the situation in the Middle East. What will the Taoiseach do at EU level to push for a ceasefire and put pressure on Netanyahu's government to ensure that we see an end to this horrific toll on civilians in Gaza?
Once again, for the avoidance of doubt - not in this House but perhaps in other parts of the world - I want to condemn unreservedly the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel where 2,000 people were killed, were tortured. We know now that many women were raped and others were kidnapped and taken hostage, and remain as hostages in Gaza today. While Israel has a right to defend itself, what it has done goes well beyond that in my view and that of the Government. Israel is allowing a situation to develop whereby 100 children a day are being killed in Gaza. That is unbearable and unacceptable, and we deplore and condemn it.
As a Government, we seek a new ceasefire so that the killing ends, so that we can get aid and relief into the Gaza Strip to relieve the suffering of the people there, and so that a new government, or at least a new administration, can be put in place in Gaza that does not involve Hamas and can be one that can become the basis for a lasting peace. That is what we are seeking at EU level, at UN level and in our engagements with other countries in the Middle East, making it very clear there can be no expulsion of populations, either from the West Bank or Gaza, that there can be no reoccupation, that there can be no further loss of territory and that there can be no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza. That is the position we are advocating. We will do it at EU level, at UN level and in our contacts with other countries in the region.
Specifically, the Tánaiste begins a three-day visit today to the Middle East. He will travel to Saudi Arabia today, then onward to COP in Dubai, and he will use these visits as an important opportunity to engage with key actors in respect of the devastating war between Israel and Hamas, in which so many innocent lives have been lost. I will use my role as Taoiseach at the European Council next week to press for the European Union to adopt wording calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and calling for the European Union, in particular, to take a much more active role in pushing for a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood, because the European Union has been far too passive for far too long when it comes to this conflict.
I agree with the Taoiseach; the EU has been far too passive. I am glad to hear the Taoiseach has confirmed he will be pressing at EU level next week for a text that will call for a permanent ceasefire and that will press for the two-state solution. His Government can do more, however, here at home as well. Senator Black's occupied territories Bill received cross-party support in the Seanad and, indeed, here in the Dáil, where Fianna Fáil and the Green Party supported it previously. Will the Taoiseach act now to bring that Bill through finally into law? He would have our support and, I think, support across the Opposition for that.
Will he also recognise Palestinian statehood? He made the commitment in the programme for Government: “Honour our commitment to recognise the State of Palestine as part of a lasting settlement of the conflict.” Is not now the time to take this brave and bold action, unilaterally, yes, but as a strong voice for peace within the EU and to take a strong stance, as we did to end South Africa's brutal apartheid regime? We can do more domestically, as well as doing more at international level, to press our EU partners to look for a permanent ceasefire. We can do more to impose trade sanctions on Israel, to pass the occupied territories Bill and to recognise Palestinian statehood.
The advice we have from consistent Attorneys General, and it remains the advice to the Government, is that the occupied territories Bill cannot be enacted by the Dáil because trade is an EU competence and that is clear in the EU treaties. Even it were enacted, it could not have a practical effect, and that has been the view of three or four Attorneys General from all sorts of backgrounds over previous Governments.
The Government favours the recognition of the state of Palestine. This House and the Seanad have passed motions to that effect. We do not believe the best way to do it is unilaterally. That would be dismissed, it would be ineffectual and we would be seen as an outlier acting unilaterally at a European level. We would like to do it as part of a group of European countries, and that would be a more significant statement. We do not just want it to be a statement. We want it to be part, perhaps, of an agreement to end the violence that is happening at the moment and to put in place a new administration in Gaza for the day afterward. That is the kind of conversation we are having at the moment, for example, with Spain, which has a similar view to ours, and some other countries as well.
In October 1999, plans were first drawn up for a ring road around Galway. Here we are, more than 24 years later, with more than €40 million spent and we still do not even have planning, never mind a ring road. Traffic has more than doubled in those 24 years, and there is increasing anger in Galway about the traffic situation and the lack of progress on finding a solution. More than 100,000 traffic journeys are made on the city's road network every day, on roads that are just not able to cope with the traffic volume. Galway city is slowly becoming a car park, if it is not one already.
The commuters who are stuck in traffic every morning and every evening trying to get to and from work are getting extremely frustrated at the lack of progress on a proposed ring road for Galway. People are late for work, students are late for college and patients are missing hospital appointments. I am getting calls every day from frustrated drivers, as I am sure my Oireachtas colleagues in Galway are too. One commuter has told me that in the past ten years, it has taken him double the time to travel to work. One local developer in Annaghdown, east of the city, who is doing a major development in Bearna, west of the city, told me it is taking him up to three hours to get to the site each morning with traffic. A person can commute from Galway to Dublin in less than two hours, and it takes nearly three hours to cross Galway city. The carbon footprint, with all the cars and HGVs stuck in traffic morning, noon and night, is huge.
In the Gallery today is Councillor Donal Lyons, who was twice elected mayor of Galway city and is currently the deputy mayor. Councillor Lyons is a very strong advocate for the ring road, along with his colleagues, and he is very frustrated that after 24 years, we do not even have planning. Businesses in Galway city are very worried that the lack of progress on a ring road will have a negative effect on them and they are demanding that progress on the planning decision happen urgently. In Parkmore, where most of the multinationals are based, they have to stagger their starting and finishing times to facilitate the workers. The people of Galway are saying enough is enough and they want action.
The question I am asking the Taoiseach is not from me but from the tens of thousands of people who are stuck in traffic morning, noon and night. Will he, as Head of Government, take charge of this project, work with all stakeholders involved and get this project through the planning process as a matter of urgency?
As we are discussing matters Galway, it would be good to put on record the fact today is a good news day for investment in Galway, with a total allocation of €1 million confirmed for the east Galway sports campus, €2.5 million for the Renville sports and community centre and €20 million for the sports ground redevelopment at Connacht Rugby. The Deputy and I have been strong supporters-----
I welcome that.
-----of that project for quite some time, as are the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, Senator Kyne, Deputy Ó Cuív and everyone in the area, and I am really glad that money is confirmed for Galway city and county. Of course, it is not just about rugby or sports. This will also be an important and much-needed events space and conference centre in what is the fabulous city of Galway.
One thing that would make the city even better would be the construction of the Galway ring road, and I am a supporter of the project. I cannot interfere in the planning process, but I am glad to see it is back before An Bord Pleanála. I hope it can make a decision soon, thus allowing us to go to tender, always aware there is a risk, of course, of a judicial review, which is why these things need to be done carefully and properly.
I know that some people will argue the Galway ring road is contrary to our climate action plan. I do not believe that is the case. I believe the construction of the Galway ring road will free up the city and road space within the city for pedestrians and cyclists, making it more attractive to residents, tourists and investors. I also take the view that by the time it is built, and we know it will take many years to build, most of the electricity we produce in this country will be from renewables and many more people will be using electric cars and other electric vehicles.
Therefore, the argument that building this road will mean more fossil fuels and more greenhouse gases being emitted in the environment is, I think, a weak one. When we take into account the improvements to the public realm and life within the city, the reduction in through traffic, better air quality and the electrification of our energy system and the increased uptake of electric vehicles, I would argue this project is not contrary to our climate objectives. I do know, of course, that any major road construction project has an impact on the environment, but having visited the site of the Ballyvourney-Macroom bypass and having seen it completed, I was interested to learn how much building techniques have changed and how things can be done in a way that has a lesser impact on the environment than was the case in the past.
I welcome the announcement made this morning regarding the additional funding for Connacht Rugby to develop the sports ground and of the €420,000 for the Renville sports project.
Some 54 homeowners are caught up in all this. They are technically prisoners in their homes. They have been waiting for years for a decision to be made on whether this project will go ahead. This is wrong. It is unfair to these people, many of whom are elderly. They are stressed about this. The people of Galway are asking how it is that so many other bypasses and road projects have been designed, funded and completed during that time and they still do not have planning permission for a ring road in Galway.
I am not asking the Taoiseach to interfere in the planning process. I know he cannot. I am only asking him to contact An Bord Pleanála to expedite the decision for the people of Galway. If the decision is that the road will go ahead, we need to build it immediately. This cannot be allowed to drag on any longer. The people of Galway will not take it. Galway city is practically a car park now morning, noon and night. People are getting extremely frustrated. I ask the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, to get involved, lead this and get this much-needed project through the planning process and built.
I will be in Galway on Monday morning and will have the great privilege of officially opening the Moycullen bypass. It is a project I was in involved in initiating when I was Minister for transport. At the time, we thought it might be possible for the ring road and Moycullen bypass to be built at the same time, so I understand the frustration people must feel that one part is done and the bigger part is not. We know the backstory to this. Planning permission was granted by An Bord Pleanála. It was struck down by the High Court. The application is now before An Bord Pleanála again.
As regards delays, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I met the chairman and chief planner of An Bord Pleanála in the past week or two and asked them what they needed to ensure decisions on major public infrastructure projects are made more quickly, not only on this project, but on projects such as BusConnects, the DART extension that is important to my constituency and MetroLink. We are doing what they asked for. They now have a full complement of 15 board members and more than 300 staff and they will be able to take on more staff. From next week, the new planning and environment division of the High Court will sit for the first time. That means that if an application goes to judicial review, the case can be heard and decided on more quickly than was the case in the past.
This country is made up of a lot of SMEs. In fact, there are 23,000 SMEs that employ between nine to 45 people and a huge number of SMEs that employ larger numbers of people. Especially the smaller ones, in carrying out their day-to-day work, and especially in the groundworks and machinery side of the housing sector, many people have to go to a site to price a job and look after their workers. These are generally small set-ups and they are trying to do their best. They price the job, get the materials, put in the machinery and make sure their workers are looked after by paying wages and so on. Of late, it seems to be getting harder and harder for small businesses to survive. I noted in the past week that even if people have worked for county councils, they cannot get qualified with Irish Water unless they have done three jobs with Irish Water. That is crazy.
To go back to the matter at hand, the subsistence companies or private operators pay people from the country who drive to Dublin or any of the large cities to build houses if they go farther than a certain distance is what we call "country money". Revenue is changing the goalposts. It is not that any of these people ever want to do anything wrong. Now, before subsistence is paid, Revenue has to be informed. That involves more paperwork.
What the Government needs to understand is that these people do not have a dedicated section in their businesses. These are small family businesses where perhaps a husband and wife price the work, look after the employees, deal with the person they are doing the work for and, at night, do paperwork. Now they will be asked to inform Revenue before they give the money. It is visible every six months or year when businesses do their accounts that country money or subsistence was paid. It is there in black and white, but Revenue now wants this to be input every week before it is even paid saying where the employees were and what they were doing. This adds another layer for people who are struggling and who do a lot of work that is not recognised.
On top of that, Revenue has now published a consultative document on VAT. VAT is paid perhaps every two months, but most businesses pay every six months. The consultative document states that every time a customer pays a business, the business will have to tell Revenue that VAT was collected. These people will be constantly on a computer trying to comply with rules and regulations. It will drive people away from setting up small businesses.
Thank you Deputy.
Will the Taoiseach talk to the Ministers and get a bit of common sense into this for the sake of the survival of small businesses?
I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I concur with him about the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. All small businesses together employ more people than the public sector and the entire multinational sector combined. They employ people in every town, village and parish in the country. We appreciate that costs are rising for businesses. That is why the Minister, Deputy Coveney, got approval this week for his €0.25 billion package to help SMEs with rising costs. We also appreciate that the administrative burden for small businesses can be great because they cannot hire as many administrative staff and do not have a HR or accounts department in the way a big company would.
On the specific matter the Deputy raised, the Finance Act 2022 provides for new requirements under which employers must report to Revenue on or before they provide certain non-taxable benefits to their employees or directors. They are the small benefit exemption, the remote working daily allowance and travel and subsistence payments. Employers are already required to determine the tax treatment of such benefits before providing them to their employees or directors. For compliance purposes, they are also required to record and maintain information which supports that determination, for instance demonstrating that the benefit meets the specific conditions of the relevant tax exemption. While the new reporting requirements have not yet been brought into effect, it is intended they will be in place from 1 January.
The period between enactment and commencement is designed to allow sufficient time for Revenue to undertake stakeholder engagement and ensure successful implementation. To date, the stakeholder engagement process has included issuing a survey to employers and their agents, considering submissions from practitioners and representative bodies, developing technical guidance for software providers and scheduling a series of webinars for employers and their agents. Revenue will continue to issue guidance on the reporting requirements and participate in other industry events in the coming months. As with any change in established procedure, there is likely to be a bedding-in period during which stakeholders will need to adapt to the new procedures. I am assured that Revenue has incorporated information gained from stakeholder engagement into the development of the enhanced reporting regime to ensure the mechanisms and processes will not be overly onerous and that employers will have a variety of mechanisms through which they can make their returns.
The Taoiseach said a few words, including "survey". What will a survey do for a small business of four or five people with one or two at the head who are trying to do everything and make sure everything is right? The other word he used was "software". We are back to the same thing. That is grand for a business with a HR department. It will have someone dedicated to that. The Taoiseach mentioned the Minister for trade and enterprise, Deputy Coveney. Yes, certain help is available but at the end of the day the people I am talking about have small businesses with one, two, three, four or five employees who are trying to do everything themselves to survive. Revenue cannot keep putting the likes of this in place. These are the small people who do the groundworks on building sites for the big guys or might do a one-off water main for a county council or for a group water scheme.
These are the small people who do not have a big enough turnover for the procurement set-up that they have to go by now in most aspects of Ireland or they are kicked out. They will not even get on the list of suppliers. What we must remember is these are the people that get up early in the morning and do the bread and butter work to keep Ireland ticking over. What the Finance Act is doing is putting more pressure on these people to the extent that some of them will just say it is not worth it. There are only so many hours in a day and there is only so much they can do and why would they even bother if they are being pushed out of business.
As is often the case when it comes to a new set of rules or a new set of regulations, there can be a bedding in period. Once they are in place for a few months very often they work well and people's concerns are allayed but that is not always the case, and we have to be flexible and mindful of these things and sometimes make changes if they need to be made. With that in mind, the Department of Finance will continue to monitor this matter as Revenue continues to engage with stakeholders.
As it currently stands, there are no plans to deviate from the commencement of the enhanced reporting requirements from 1 January. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, who is sat beside me here, has a particular remit for business and is aware of the matter, as is the Minister for Finance, Deputy McGrath, and we will certainly monitor the situation and make sure that this happens as seamlessly as possible.