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Departmental Functions

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 9 February 2022

Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Ceisteanna (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Mary Lou McDonald

Ceist:

1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [4719/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Alan Kelly

Ceist:

2. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [5962/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Paul McAuliffe

Ceist:

3. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6343/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Ceist:

4. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6345/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Ruairí Ó Murchú

Ceist:

5. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6482/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

6. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6392/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Paul Murphy

Ceist:

7. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6395/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Cian O'Callaghan

Ceist:

8. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6525/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Peadar Tóibín

Ceist:

9. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6686/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Mick Barry

Ceist:

10. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [6747/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (30 píosaí cainte)

I propose to take Question Nos. 1 to 10, inclusive, together.

The housing and infrastructure unit supports me and the Government in developing and implementing policy to support sustainable economic development, with a particular focus on the development and delivery of policies relating to housing and infrastructure. It supports the work of the Cabinet committee on housing, which oversees the delivery of housing for all. The unit undertakes ongoing monitoring and tracking of the actions in the plan and prepares quarterly progress reports. The most recent of these, for quarter 4 2021, was published in late January and shows significant progress, including affordability measures such as the new local authority home loan, the extension of help to buy, the delivery of cost-rental homes and a cap on rent increases. Other progress includes the launch of project tosaigh and our commitment to delivery, with more than 200 new staff approved for local authority delivery teams.

There are signs that the sector is rebounding from what has been a very challenging number of years due to the Covid pandemic. More than 20,000 new dwellings were completed in 2021, with more than 30,000 commencements in the same period. Planning permission figures are also strong. The housing crisis will take time to resolve but we are confident that with sustained momentum on implementation of the plan, its benefits will become tangible.

The unit supports the delivery of wider public investment through Project Ireland 2040, which falls under the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and investment. The unit is also responsible for developing the national risk assessment, which provides a high-level overview of strategic risks facing the country. The latest national risk assessment was published in December 2021, with inputs from a public consultation process through which more than 50 organisations, public representatives and individuals made submissions.

The experience of recent years has demonstrated the importance of strategic risk management and preparedness. By promoting an open and inclusive discussion on the major risks facing the country, the national risk assessment plays an important role in this work. The unit, part of the broader economic division in my Department, maintains an overview of progress in key policy areas in line with Government priorities, and provides me with briefing and speech material on infrastructure, housing and related policy issues.

Given the number of questions included here, we will take a maximum of one minute per Member.

Regarding housing and infrastructure, rural development comes under the Taoiseach's remit. He knows the importance of funding under the Trans-European Network for Transport, TEN-T. In December 2021, the European Commission published its proposals for a revised TEN-T, which remains largely unchanged. Crucially, it does not include the western rail corridor. Given the core funding of 85% that will be earmarked and provided between now and 2030, the western arc in the revised TEN-T is really important. The west of Ireland and, in particular, the north west is the only region in Ireland that is no longer a developed region. It has been downgraded to a region in transition. We need to see investment in the west and it cannot be shafted in place of the eastern seaboard. We are not looking for one or the other. We are looking for our fair share in the west of Ireland and we need it for transport. Why is there not more emphasis on the west, the north west and the western arc in particular, under TEN-T funding?

I thank the Taoiseach for the commitment he has shown in dealing with some of the difficult issues in the community of Ballymun that arose further to the recommendations from the Ballymun - A Brighter Future report. I know he has more work to do on that and he is due to visit the constituency and meet public representatives. A key element of that is the delivery of housing. We have 19 sites in public ownership with 28 ha of land which provide a great opportunity to deliver a mix of housing for a community that really deserves and will benefit from that investment. I am talking about public investment in public housing. Working with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will the Taoiseach continue to ensure Dublin City Council, which owns that land, shows ambition to deliver the type of housing the Government wants?

Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, delivers on Government policy relating to national roads. I spoke to the Taoiseach and regarding the southern relief road in Carlow. I am now glad that the strategic assessment report, SAR, has been completed by Carlow County Council and it has recently been given clearance to proceed to prepare a preliminary business case, for which I thank the Taoiseach. However, other projects like this one are not progressing due to lack of funding. The level of funding available in the first half of the national development plan is not enough to progress all the schemes committed to. Other Deputies have raised this with the Taoiseach and more will do so. My concern is for the N24 and N25 roads. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on this on this and I am happy he has agreed to meet the Deputies and councillors from the area.

We spoke about the cost of living and housing. The biggest issue relating to adaptation grants for local authorities is that the grant is not big enough. Several people have come to my office in recent months saying they cannot afford to make up the shortfall after receiving the local authority adaptation grant. Given the cost of living and the cost of materials, we need to look at the grants because they are affecting older people and others who need them.

The Daft report showing annual rent increases of 10% for the past year demonstrates the utter failure of the Government's rent control measures. Earlier, I heard the Taoiseach ask whether Opposition Deputies had any solutions. Uniquely we have repeatedly argued for actual rent controls where we set rents. A transition year school student, Shyanne, is doing her work placement in my office this week. I asked her to see if she could find any rent control regimes anywhere else that might work here so that we could perhaps explain them to the Taoiseach. Within a few minutes, she came up with the example of France, which has just introduced a new regime of rent controls, just like the one we are proposing. Rents are now set on a district-by-district basis to ensure affordability, based on the size and the age of the property. There is a proposal from a transition year student, one that is actually being applied. Why does the Government not try that when its policies are so obviously failing?

I will ask a very straightforward question, which hopefully can get a straightforward response. What does the Taoiseach believe is an affordable rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Dublin? This week, South Dublin County Council announced that people will shortly be able to apply for its first affordable rental scheme. Rents for a one-bedroom apartment will be approximately €1,000 a month. Ten years ago, the average market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the area was less than €750. We now have this so-called affordable option for €1,000. If the Government's definition of "affordable" is not actually affordability but instead taking a completely sky-high unaffordable market rate and then chopping 30% off it, it is still unaffordable. It does not make it affordable for ordinary people. Does the Taoiseach think €1,000 is affordable or does he agree we need to build genuinely affordable housing with rents linked to people's incomes and not to the market?

I want to ask about investment funds buying up homes. By the way, apartments are homes. Figures published today by PNB Paribas Real Estate show that institutional investors paid up to 32% more per home compared with individual household buyers. This is pushing up house prices and rents. While the number of homes being built is increasing each year, the number of homes available to buy is not increasing and remains stuck at only 7,500 homes a year. The share of new housing available for individual households to buy has decreased from more than half of annual output in 2017 to just one third last year. Will the Government end favourable tax treatment for investment funds to give individuals a fair chance to buy their own home? Is the Taoiseach concerned that the number of new-build homes available for individuals to buy is not increasing?

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael present themselves as parties of the free market. In many ways both parties have skewed the housing market significantly. A young family looking to buy a house needs to compete with an institution that has a tax regime not comparable to the young family's. It may pay no tax, but certainly pays a very small amount compared with the family it is competing against. It is getting an interest rate on international markets of 0% or a little above compared with what the young family must pay here. Those institutions are also basing their investments on the rental income that will be achieved. The Government is standing over a market that is stacked against young families being able to purchase homes at the moment.

In response to a parliamentary question this week I found out that the number of social houses being leased by local authorities has doubled in just three years. Last year, €100 million was spent on leasing social housing from institutions. When this is added to housing assistance payment, HAP, hundreds of millions of euro are going into the pockets of private developers when the State could be building those homes for these people and getting a rental income from it. It is wrong.

The Garda had to be called to Blackpool, on Cork's north side, this morning when an attempt was made to physically disrupt the start of the working day at Múin Preschool on Brocklesby Street. The disruption took the form of the erection of a blockade comprising a van and cones at the entrance to the site where the school is based, the diagonal parking of a car on the site where the school staff normally park their cars, and the parking of a truck extremely close to the entrance to the school. The actions involved the owner of the site and the school building, who wants to sell the site for development and apartments, which would involve knocking the school building. The school has legal rights as the tenant of the site. It is under no obligation to vacate in the immediate future. Will the Taoiseach join me in condemning these bully-boy tactics employed against a group of female teachers and the young children they teach?

Everybody accepts we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. As for housing, we all know that a major issue is delivering on supply. That will not happen straight away, no matter whose policies are implemented. The difficulty we have at present is that there are people paying huge and disgraceful rents to the extent that I just do not understand how they could have operated before this cost-of-living crisis. There is something we can do. We need to revisit a ban on rent increases because, obviously, the 10% increase in rents shows that anything that has been done, including rent pressure zones and caps, has failed to deliver. It is as simple as that.

I am also making a call in respect of regeneration schemes in Dundalk, particularly one in Muirhevnamore that needs to be revisited. I will contact the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage about that. It may be that projects that were shelved or put to one side need to be looked at. There are huge maintenance issues, and that is part of the retrofitting scheme.

I note that Questions Nos. 11 and 12 are to be taken separately. Maybe, because of the number of questions in this grouping, we could take an additional five minutes, a Thaoisigh, if that is okay. That would give you seven minutes to deal with the questions. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The first question was about the TEN-T and was from Deputy Kerrane. It related to the western rail corridor. The western rail corridor is now being considered in the context of the all-island rail strategy that the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has agreed with his counterpart in Northern Ireland. Through the shared island initiative, we have agreed to fund an overall strategic review of the all-island approach to rail. The majority of funding for infrastructure in the next ten years, be it rail or roads, will be Exchequer funding through the national development plan. I take the Deputy's point about the review that is under way involving the EU and the work on the TEN-T, but all the representatives of the west of all parties, including mine, have been very clear to us about the importance of the western rail corridor. There were earlier feasibility studies, as the Deputy will be aware, so we decided to have this as part of the broader all-island review, which is important to do.

Deputy McAuliffe raised the situation in Ballymun and the need for housing development on land owned by the local authority. I met recently with a range of community leaders and representatives of various organisations in Ballymun with him. Their presentation was very important insofar as they highlighted the enormous challenges facing the community across the board and the need for a range of initiatives to be undertaken from early education to education to employment and, in particular, to making sure we can accelerate the construction of housing on those sites. I said to the community leaders, and I would say to the Deputy and to the council involved - the city council, I think, in this instance - that they should move at all speed to develop plans and designs for those sites for housing. As I said earlier, we need supply. If we have State land available, it should be used. There should be no excuse for delay in the utilisation of State lands in the possession of local authorities. We have been asking other State agencies to provide land for realising the objectives of Housing for All. Where the council owns lands, that should be pursued.

Deputy Murnane O'Connor is a very active and persistent public representative and has pocketed one TII development with the southern relief road for Carlow and its proceeding with the preliminary business case. There are Deputies across the House who would like that news for other projects in which they are involved. I take Deputy Murnane O'Connor's point about the N24 and the N25. I am glad that the Minister for Transport is meeting with the Deputies concerned. The NDP has limits, but this is still an enormous sum and there are huge challenges in getting all of it spent in a proper way. Very significant increases are being given this year in respect of the adaptation grants. There was a lot of delay because of the Covid lockdown, but I hope we can get some progress. I hear what the Deputy says about the gaps, given the increase in the cost of materials and so on, which is leading to construction inflation.

To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, we have rent controls here.

They are not working.

The Minister brought them in in December, to be fair. The 2% limit was introduced by legislation in December. It will take some time to bed in. The rent control board will carry out its own engagement with landlords to make sure that the legislation is adhered to. The rent pressure zones have been around for quite some time and are similar to the measures in France that the Deputy suggested. The overall point I will make is that this comes back to supply. We need cost-rentals, private rental and private homes but we also need very significant social housing provision, which we are doing. We need to support affordable housing to get to 33,000 units of mixed tenure type per annum. A lot hinges on supply.

I would make the same point in response to Deputy Murphy. Rents are too high in Dublin, but cost rentals are well below the market rate.

Are they affordable, though?

I have no issue with linking people's income to rent. In fact, our social housing programme is quite good in that respect. Likewise, HAP is a support to many low-income families in getting access to housing. Our preference, however, is to build more houses and to build social housing through the approved housing bodies and the local authorities in order that people can get access to social houses rather than having to rent at excessive rates. Our preference is also to get more private rental supply. If we inhibit private rental supply, rents will go even higher. There simply are not enough apartments or houses being built. The good news is that in the past year there have been 30,000 commencements. We have to maintain that right throughout 2022.

Does the Taoiseach think rents will come down with all this supply?

Is the Deputy saying we should not build?

Does the Taoiseach think rents will come down?

There is no doubt but that the absence of supply is driving rents at present.

That is not the question.

As for the issue Deputy Cian O'Callaghan raised, of course apartments are homes - I know that - but we have had an issue with the building of apartments in recent years. We have been in government for one year and a half and we have been endeavouring to deal with the issue of viability. Builders are saying they cannot build apartments and get a return. There has been a particular absence of compact growth. We want to build more in the city centres, where the services are. The Housing for All strategy has developed the Croí Cónaithe fund to see whether we can trigger greater investment in cost-rentals and greater apartment building. As for houses and housing estates, owner occupiers are no longer competing with funds because there are planning regulations and additional taxation measures there to prohibit that.

To respond to Deputy Tóibín, Fianna Fáil is not a party entirely of the free market. Fianna Fáil has always believed in State development and State involvement in the economy from its earliest days, from establishing State bodies and investment in public housing right across the board. We also believe in development and enterprise and the individual entrepreneur and entrepreneurial spirit. That is important. Likewise, however, there has to be a strong State in respect of health, education, childcare and so on.

I referred to a doubling of leasing on social houses.

Yes. We will reach 9,500 this year. That is the maximum.

But the leasing of social houses in Dublin-----

Please, Deputy. You have asked the question and we are out of time.

Leasing is not the big story anymore. The Deputy knows that. We will directly build 9,500 houses.

To respond to Deputy Ó Murchú, as I said, the 2% limit on rent increases came in last December. It is now February. It will take some time to bed in. I take his point that supply will take time. I appreciate his candour and honesty about that. There were 30,000 commencements last year. We need more than 30,000 every year for the next ten years.

Will the Taoiseach address the issue of the school in Blackpool?

I apologise; I do not know the detail of that. I do not know the background so I do not want to make any comments. However, I will say that no intimidatory actions or actions of the kind the Deputy has described should occur when children or teachers are in school or in an early education setting. Nobody should be endangered by any actions. There are better ways to resolve issues.

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