Conor Sheehan
Limerick City · Labour Party · Ireland
“If a student does not have access to one of these devices or access to one at home, there is often no alternative and that could leave them excluded. Many families are forced to pay hundreds and thousands, particularly with the rising cost of microchips, for these devices.”
“I thank the Minister for her considered response. We need to get rid of voluntary contributions and move to generic school uniforms. This is something that has been done in the UK.”
“This digital divide is resulting in a severe and growing level of inequality where so many communities, students and families are unable to purchase the devices they desperately need for their children's education.”
“I raise the issue of the community access support team, CAST, in Limerick, which has prevented 133 detentions under section 12 of the Mental Health Act and reduced the number emergency department presentations. It has responded to over 1,000 incidents.”
“Do not worry. We need to have a debate this week before the House rises about the imminent report on Aughinish Alumina. There are up to 2,000 direct and indirect jobs at stake in Limerick. We cannot have a situation where the State is inadvertently complicit in the export of alumina to Russia. Where there is a will, there is a way.”
“It is absolutely reprehensible that planning permission has been granted for apartments on the site of the former mother and baby home at Bessborough. We have 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough still missing. Now 140 apartments are going to be built on a mass grave. We need statements on this next week.”
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“I am a strong believer in the recommendation to enhance and resource local authorities properly, in particular to develop land activation units to deliver housing. I am a former councillor and, far too often, as part of the local government system I felt more like a policy-taker as opposed to a policymaker. Local authorities are not trusted enough by the Custom House to deliver the homes we need. In our general election manifesto, unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, our policies were underpinned by the recommendations of the Housing Commission. They were also premised on the creation of an overall housing delivery oversight executive. That is why I gave a cautious welcome to the Minister's plan for a strategic housing activation office.”
“This must have real legislative powers to tackle the barriers to housing supply and to clear the blockages that prevent the delivery of new homes. I welcome the fact that the Minister and the Government have moved to establish a strategic housing activation office, but this must be independent of the Government. It cannot simply be another body where, essentially, Ministers can mark their own homework. Currently, it takes many years from a plan being lodged to the completion date. There are significant blockages in planning, approval, finances and infrastructure. I welcome more detailed engagement with the Minister on the strategic housing activation office, hopefully at committee, on how it will work, how it will be staffed, etc.”
“We in the Labour Party believe that the State must play a more significant role in driving the accelerated delivery. In particular, we believe that this can and should be done by using the LDA as the primary vehicle. For example, in my city of Limerick, the LDA has six strategic sites and all of them bar one are category 3, which is long-term development viability. Nothing will be built on them for the better part of a decade. That is despite the fact that rents in the city have gone up by 19%, higher than in any other part of the country and that Limerick's house price inflation is the highest nationally. The report is very detailed and deserves serious treatment from the Government. The Labour Party support a number of key proposals in the report, especially the one to establish a housing delivery oversight executive.”
“I very much welcome this debate, which is long overdue. I also welcome the Deputy Browne to his new role as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I wish him well. We should have had this debate months ago, before the election. The Housing Commission's report is as clear as it is stark in relation to the Government's failure on housing. It is abundantly clear that we do need a period of accelerated delivery to eliminate the deficit of up to 256,000 home and that a specialist entity is needed to drive, direct and oversee a programme to accelerate supply. I very much thank the members of the Housing Commission for all their work over the last two and a bit years. I welcome the fact that the Minister met with them recently.”
“Domestic and gender-based violence hit a ten-year high in Limerick last year, with more than 2,500 reports of such violence being made. There have been instances in the past of Members of this House providing character references in respect of individuals convicted of gender-based violence and sexual crimes. This should bring shame on all of us.”
“Women are afraid men will kill them." As former State pathologist Dr. Marie Cassidy said, which goes to the root of this motion: "It is the man in your bed you should be worried about, not the man under your bed." The motion contains a number of practical measures. Many of these were also contained in a motion we brought forward last year, so we are very happy to support the motion before the House. Those measures include ending the practice of victim's counselling notes being accessed and read by accused persons during trials and ending character references in cases of gender-based violence. We also need compulsory training for members of the Judiciary to allow them to gain a better understanding of the harm of rape myths. This is all contemplated by the motion.”
“I thank Deputy Coppinger and her group for bringing forward this important motion. I welcome the survivors are in the Public Gallery. They should not need to come here to see this issue addressed. I pay particular tribute to Natasha O'Brien, one of my constituents, for her advocacy in relation to this work. As a man, I am very conscious of the fact that we are the problem because we are the perpetrators of this violence. I am very clear as a white man in a position of enormous privilege that I want to be a positive role model and an agent for change. This issue permeates society and the fight against this scourge cannot be led by women and women's rights movements alone. This is a global human rights issue. As the author Margaret Atwood once said: "Men are afraid women will laugh at them.”
“We need to see a change here with regard to the pay and numbers strategy to ensure that this type of situation does not occur again.”
“I know of a local speech and language therapist who went to Australia on a career break and could not resume her post when she returned due to the pay and numbers strategy. Last year, the HSE facilitated a group of parents in this school. One parent from Thomondgate, just across the river from King's Island, spoke in glowing terms about the relationship she and her kids had with the speech and language therapist in Ballynanty Health Centre a kilometre away. All of her children had been seen by the same speech and language therapist for over a decade and have now been discharged. A parent who lives in King's Island, across the river, as I outlined, said that her children had yet to see the speech and language therapist, not to mind develop a meaningful relationship with one.”
“I thank the Minister of State for her reply and I welcome it. The community needs complete certainty as to when exactly this post will be filled because there has been a lack of faith here because the post has been vacant, as I have outlined, for more than three years. It is very clear that the HSE's pay and numbers strategy is not working. Officials in the HSE have told me that they were severely impacted by the moratorium before it was lifted and now, because of the pay and numbers strategy, they are simply unable to fill the vacant posts they have, whether that is due to maternity leave, resignations, etc. We know that with the pay and numbers strategy, that posts are essentially disappearing as if into thin air and that clinical staff are being poached by the private sector.”
“The emotional well-being of children in this community is another area of concern. Language difficulties can contribute to frustration and anxiety especially when children cannot express their needs or feelings effectively. We urgently need a full-time speech and language therapist in King's Island primary care centre. This post has been vacant for over three years. The HSE pay and numbers strategy is having a direct negative impact on the provision of primary care services in the mid-west. While approval may have been given to fill this post, will the Minister of State guarantee that the post will be filled before the end of March? In the interim, will the Minister of State please instruct the HSE to ensure that an agency paediatric speech and language therapist will be allocated to King's Island on a full-time basis?”
“I urge the Minister of State to ask the HSE to prioritise the deployment of a speech and language therapist to this community as a matter of urgency. These children and their families deserve equitable access to the supports that are essential for their development and future success. The absence of a consistent SLT service in King's Island for over three years has had significant and far-reaching implications on the children in this area. Speech and language therapy is a critical component of early childhood development and for supporting communication skills that are essential for learning social interaction and emotional regulation. The lack of consistent SLT services means that teachers are left without the necessary professional supports to implement effective classroom strategies for these students.”
“This early intervention is critical and yet children who attend his primary school, St. Mary's National School, are being left behind. This wonderful school in many ways is a victim of its own success with a population that has grown by 70% in three years. With a growing population, however, comes an even greater need for this vital service. The longer this continues, the more children will fall through the cracks and the more issues they will have as they get older. I will give the Minister of State and the House some context. Some of the figures that pertain to the junior infant pupils are quite stark. If one uses the Renfrew action picture test the class average is 34%, the whole class scored below the 75th percentile, and 85% of the class scored below the 50th percentile.”
“King's Island is considered to be extremely disadvantaged - it is widely acknowledged as one of the most disadvantaged communities in Ireland - and has a deprivation index score of minus 31.9, but the King's Island primary care centre does not have a paediatric speech and language therapist and has not had one for a number of years. This lack of essential support is having a devastating impact on the most vulnerable children and families in our community, many of whom are already facing significant social and educational challenges. The situation is now so dire that the local school principal, Eoghan O'Byrne, has been forced go on local radio and literally plead for this post to be filled. This is simply unacceptable for any child but especially for children from poorer backgrounds who cannot access private therapies.”
“I add my congratulations to the concerto of congratulations. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for coming to the House this evening. I am sorry to subject the Minister of State to this at this ungodly hour but let it never be said that she does not work hard. I rise tonight to raise the issue of the lack of a consistent and permanent full-time speech and language therapist, SLT, at King's Island primary care centre in my constituency in Limerick. I do this on the basis that there are 1,257 children in CHO 3, specifically in Limerick, who are waiting two years for speech and language therapy. King's Island is a wonderful community that I am extremely proud to represent, previously as a councillor and now as TD for Limerick City. Like all proud working-class communities it has huge deprivation and many issues.”
“I am disappointed by the lack of any semblance of meaningful engagement. The Opposition comes here week after week and brings forward constructive solutions. We in the Labour Party have brought forward many constructive solutions and we get the same generic response from the Government. It is disappointing and disrespectful that the Minister for housing, for the second week in a row, has not bothered to come to the House to account for the Government's failing housing policies.”
“I am disappointed that we do not have more people here on the Government benches, because the same tumbleweed that blew across the House last week is blowing here yet again. We are clear about what we believe in setting our vision for a State-led approach and greater State investment in housing. We will make no apologies for that, despite the heckling yesterday of my party leader at Leaders' Questions. We are clear about why we decided not to go into government. We knew Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would not and could not offer the change that people need regarding housing and were not meaningfully willing to engage with us about our housing policies. The Taoiseach, frankly, is going to have to come up with a better answer than turning to us and saying that we did not want to sit with the Government.”
“The fact that the solution to this is to shove your fully grown adult child into what I would describe as a glorified wooden coffin at the end of the garden will not cut it. Irish parents have had a clear goal for many years, my own parents included. It is simply summed up as being to get the children out of the house. This policy further seeks to undermine that. The fact that the Government wants to move people out of their houses and into log cabins is farcical and ridiculous. Is this really the best the Government can offer? It is saying it cannot house people properly but will move them into the shed. As I sum up, I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion.”
“The fact is that we have half a million young people living at home and 1 million people stuck in the private rental trap. These people are mostly my age. I am in my early 30s. They are usually young, hard-working professionals who will never be able to have a secure home of their own and now, if you are to believe what is being floated in the media this morning, the Government effectively wants to evict them from the box bedroom and to move them into the garden shed. This sounds like another of Government's famous quick fixes, after co-living, build-to-rent and strategic housing developments. We need serious long-term solutions and not beds in sheds. We have a horrific housing crisis with record rents. People cannot get mortgage approval.”
“We would unlock private savings by developing a housing solidarity bond via State savings, with an attractive interest rate to redirect private investment from vulture funds towards housing development and provide further opportunities for credit unions to underwrite mortgages and invest in housing using surplus savings. I reiterate what I said last week, that we must also retain rent pressure zones at least until a viable alternative becomes available because although rent pressure zones are a blunt instrument, they have slowed the runaway train that is the private rental sector. I would challenge anyone to come into this House and defend the conduct of some of the big landlords and institutional investors in this country, the same landlords and institutional investors that Government rigged the housing market in favour of.”
“It is anticipated the EU may revise state aid rules as soon as next year to enable housing support measures and the Government must be ready to pull every lever at its disposal. The Labour Party believes the State must give builders alternatives to expensive private equity funding. That is why we want to see a State investment and development bank that will provide finance to private housing development using a portion of the €8.4 billion placed in the Future Ireland Fund. We also want to develop a new, long-term financing product for approved housing bodies, underwritten by the State, to provide financing at 3% or less over 50 and 60 years.”
“The European Union can and should play a greater role in solving this crisis. My colleague, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP, as head of the Irish delegation in the influential S&D group, successfully helped negotiate the appointment of a housing commissioner. I would urge the Minister if he were here - he is not - to invite Commissioner Dan Jørgensen to visit Ireland as soon as practically possible. The Government must make better use of existing EU funding streams. I know my colleague Aodhán will be pushing hard for more EU investment and for changes to state aid rules in favour of investment in social and affordable housing. Member states should be allowed to double policy investment in affordable housing, but the Government also needs to play its part and bring forward a working definition of what actually constitutes affordable housing.”
“The Government talks about cutting the cost of building homes yet refuses to even consider implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report to cap the cost of land, something that would actually reduce the cost of housing. Instead, the Government wants a direct transfer of wealth to property developers and institutional investors without any guarantee this saving will be passed on to putative homeowners. The Taoiseach himself called for the implementation of the Kenny report in 2018. He said he thought implementing Kenny was the morally right thing to do. The Labour Party introduced a Bill in 2021 to implement the provisions of the Kenny report, and much like our motion was last week and like this motion will be, it was voted down by Government. I welcome the fact the motion calls on the Government to make use of EU funding streams.”
“The Minister for Finance, on the other hand, is saying clearly that Celtic tiger tax cuts should not and cannot return. The idea that the solution to this crisis is to dust off the best of the Celtic tiger with the bill put on the country's credit card is insane. We know where these policies got us and it is primarily people my age who have had, and are continuing, to foot the bill. The Taoiseach spoke about difficulties activating brownfield sites. That is specifically why we in the Labour Party want to see a land management and land activation unit in each local authority and why we seek to scale up the LDA to meet this challenge. We also need a stick, and that is why we need to see the vacant homes tax at least tripled.”
“We know the housing market in this country is rigged. It is rigged against renters, against first-time buyers and against young people. It is rigged in favour of the vested interests - landlords, property speculators and institutional investors - which this Government, like the previous one, seems intent on bending the knee to. It is very clear this Government is already out of ideas. The Fianna Fáil side of the Government wants to re-erect the Galway tent while the Fine Gael side is determined to plod on in the same manner as before with sweetheart deals for vulture and cuckoo funds. We have had the absurd scenes where the Taoiseach last week and the housing Minister yesterday on the "News at One" said nothing is off the table as far as tax cuts are concerned.”
“Several independent reports flagged that the number of apartments being built in 2024 would fall by more than 50% as early as July and August of last year, so it is simply not credible for the Government to come along in the run up to the election and say it will definitely meet the 40,000 figure. This was caused by the Government's decision not to clamp down on institutional investors bulk-buying apartments and the reliance of Housing for All on these investors to deliver apartments in Dublin. These institutional investors do not only elbow out buyers, they also artificially inflate market rents. We see this time and again with some of the large apartment developments in Dublin city, where management companies offer rent-free months to prospective tenants to keep overall rents high and to work around the cap on rent increases.”
“That means people are barrelling down towards their eviction date with absolutely nowhere to go. When the Government spoke before the election about reaching its housing targets, to say the Government was economical with the truth is the understatement of the year. The Government knew it could not and would not reach the target of 40,000 despite its own repeated use of very selective data. The idea that the solution to this is to open the floodgates to tax cuts for developers and institutional investors is deeply misguided and flawed. We know construction costs have increased but we also know that more than 16% of the cost of construction is made up of the cost of land.”
“We have a situation where, during the recent extreme weather, rough sleepers were turned away from emergency accommodation. There are now 456 people accessing emergency accommodation in Limerick. That is up from 149 in 2024. My inbox, WhatsApp and my clinics are inundated with people who come to me from situations of complete despair. It is very upsetting because in a lot of cases there is very little I can do for people. With regard to the tenant in situ scheme, when will the unit allocation for 2025 be confirmed? We are nearly into March. I am dealing with numerous cases, as I am sure other Deputies across the House are, of people who cannot move forward with their applications because the local authority has not received the circular or the allocation.”
“I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion, the essence of which the Labour Party supports. I have a strong sense of déjà vu. Here we are, another week, another motion that will invariably be voted down, an absent Minister, and a similar generic reply just restating what the Government has already said and offering very little in the way of meaningful change or engagement. I represent the city of Limerick where the average price for a three-bedroom semi-detached house is now €320,000. It is a city where, on Monday, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors amended a very small Part 8 application for a development of housing for elderly people and people with disabilities to bring it down to three storeys, as a result of which the development is now unviable.”
“I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is very disappointing, yet again, that we do not have even a Minister of State from the Department of housing. I tabled a housing motion in the Dáil last week with my Labour Party colleagues. The Minister for housing was, unfortunately, not available last week and did not even have the courtesy to contact me or my colleague, Deputy Bacik, to say he could not come to the House. I understand there was a convention before that when the line Minister was not available, the Minister would contact the sponsor of the motion. I am disappointed about that. We have not had an adequate explanation as to why the Minister is not here this morning either. Perhaps he has been locked in a box by lobbyists or investors.”
“It was wilfully misleading when it knew it would not reach its targets and now that it has completely run out of ideas, it is resorting to the same policies that germinated the seeds of this disaster, which have robbed an entire generation of young people of the dream of home ownership and will only line the pockets of big developers with taxpayers' money.”
“We are also calling on the Government not to leave renters in the cold grip of investors and landlords, and to bring forward a ban on no-fault evictions and introduce a rent freeze until supply improves. The Department of Finance estimated that €11.5 billion of private financing will be required to reach a target of 50,000 homes a year. Builders cannot access affordable bank loans or only have access to expensive private equity financing. The State needs to give them alternatives to vulture funds. This can be done by developing new financing mechanisms for private home construction by deploying the billions invested in the Future Ireland Fund and unlocking private savings through a housing solidarity fund. Housing is the single biggest issue in this country and the Government are not being honest with the people.”
“The Government talks about cutting the cost of building homes, yet refuses to even consider implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report, which has been idle since 1973. Labour has been crying out for it to be implemented to bring down the cost of land and the cost of building homes. We have even done the work to produce a Bill that would implement those recommendations for the Minister of State, but the Government has stuffed its fingers in its ears. Instead, the policy is to continue transferring wealth to property developers and institutional investors without any guarantee that the savings from their proposed tax cuts will be passed onto putative homeowners.”
“Our key message is that the State needs to step up. We want Government to properly resource the Land Development Agency, LDA, to give it power to acquire land and not just from other State bodies, and to assemble land. We in the Labour Party supported establishing the LDA, but it needs to be given teeth. In my own city of Limerick, the agency has not turned, and will not turn, a single sod for many years. That is not acceptable and this is what we in the Labour Party mean when we talk about providing a permanent State capacity to deliver homes. We are not talking about some Soviet quango, as has been alluded to in the media. The LDA must be given the necessary resources to deliver zoned and serviced development land.”
“It is like, "Welcome back Fianna Fáil". It is like Government, or Fianna Fáil in particular, is a mere stepping stone away from heralding the return of the Galway tent. We know where that got us before and frankly, people my age still paying the price. I read the Government’s countermotion and it is as if it could have been generated by ChatGPT. It references the Housing Commission’s report that was published last May, the same report that this House has not even debated. It will not give one crumb of comfort to any renter in the private rented market terrified by what the Taoiseach said at the weekend on radio about rent pressure zones. We need a radically different approach if we are to have any hope of bringing the housing crisis to an end and this motion sets out what we believe that approach should be.”
“We need to create a paradigm where housing becomes the bulwark of our commitment to reinforce our social pillar to allow everybody in this country to live in a secure home. I call on the Minister to meet and engage - well, I would call on him if he were here - with the new EU housing Commissioner as soon as possible and to invite him here, as this is a crisis where the EU can play a role, particularly around economic and state aid rules. If the Government really feels that its housing strategy is working, why did the Taoiseach unceremoniously dump the previous Minister and feel the need to fluff the numbers to get through the general election? The fact is that the Government is making it up as it goes along. Its policy is not working so it has resorted to the old reliable of ill-thought-out tax cuts for property developers.”
“House prices are up more than 25%; rents are up by the same; homelessness is up by 70%; and worst of all, child homelessness is up by more than 75%. All of this is since Housing for All was introduced in September 2021. Fianna Fáil, to be frank, is going to need a better answer than accusing us of being disinterested at the prospect of going into Government to drive on with this failed policy. To lay the blame for the falling number of apartments being built at the door of renters and RPZs is simplistic and disingenuous. We know that ECB interest rates increased every quarter from the last quarter of 2022 until mid-2024. If the Government’s answer is to scrap one of the few protections renters have, then frankly, it is looking in the wrong place. The Government needs to realise that it is time for a complete reset on housing policy.”
“The Government likes to lecture us in the Labour Party, accusing us of populism and irresponsibility when we have consistently and continually put forward constructive, evidence-based solutions to the housing crisis. I find it ironic that the Taoiseach took to the media to float the idea of ending rent pressure zones, RPZs, on the hoof and without setting out a viable alternative to protect renters. That goes beyond irresponsibility; it is reckless. We know rent pressure zones are not a panacea but they are all many thousands of renters in the private rented market have between them and homelessness. The fact is, Housing for All has failed, and it needs more than a nip-tuck. The numbers speak for themselves.”
“Meanwhile, the burden of its failed policies will continue to fall on those who simply want to have a home of their own, and in particular renters in the private rented sector whose narrow shoulders, it looks like, will be forced to bear the burden of more rent increases. We in Labour are clear in our vision. The State must play a greater, more active and more interventionist role to solve this crisis, and when the State does intervene, it should be to increase the supply of social and affordable homes, not to turbocharge already inflated house prices and rents as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done and appear intent and happy enough to continue doing.”
“-----throughout this debate to hear this motion. That is very disappointing and if it is a sign of things to come, it is not a way to start off this Dáil term. Nevertheless, I am delighted to move this motion, the Labour Party’s first Private Members' motion of the Thirty-fourth Dáil. This motion calls for and sets out our vision for the radical reset in housing policy as called for in the Government’s own housing commission report, which it has, by and large and conveniently for itself, ignored. Ireland is not just in the midst of a housing crisis but a housing crisis that is getting worse and worse, and that the Government seems intent on worsening through successive ill-thought-out interventions that we know will only serve to line the pockets of property developers and institutional investors.”
“I thank the Minister of State for being here, although I am quite disappointed that the housing Minister himself did not see fit to come to the House this morning-----”
“There will be record completions in the last quarter of this year"; and — the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both repeatedly claimed in advance of, and throughout, the general election campaign that up to 40,000 homes would be built in 2024; recognises that: — there is broad agreement that at least 50,000 new homes a year must be built, but there is fundamental disagreement on the policies necessary to achieve that; and — unless there is radical change to the existing housing plan and the commitments in the Programme for Government, nowhere near 41,000 new homes will be delivered in 2025, or higher figures in the years to follow; notes that: — the Housing Commission report stated a "radical strategic reset" of housing policy is required to solve the current crisis; — Ireland currently has a shortfall of at least 250,000 homes and the Housing Commission research has outlined how Ireland may require up to 62,000 new homes per year up to 2050, while recent estimates suggest we will require more than 90,000 per year to address the housing shortfall; — in the past year alone, house prices have risen by almost 10 per cent, while rent prices have risen by 8 per cent, and since the introduction of Housing for All - A new Housing Plan for Ireland in September 2021, both have risen by more than a quarter; — nearly 70 per cent of 25-year-olds in Ireland are stuck living at home with their parents; — the number of people accessing emergency accommodation exceeded 15,000 people for the first time in November 2024, including more than 4,600 children, after rising persistently over the course of the implementation of the Housing for All - A new Housing Plan for Ireland plan, and official homelessness figures do not account for the many more people sleeping rough or the hidden homeless, such as those forced to couch surf, live in hostels or adults unable to move out of their family home due to prohibitive rent and house prices; and — the vast majority of people and families accessing emergency accommodation come from the private rental sector, and Ireland's homelessness crisis is exacerbated by weak tenancy rights; acknowledges that: — Housing for All - A new Housing Plan for Ireland has manifestly failed to deliver enough new housing to meet demand and tackle the housing crisis; — the previous Government ignored warnings and advice from the Housing Commission and other industry experts with regards to both housing targets and the appropriate model of delivery; — the private sector developer-led model of construction cannot deliver the quantity of homes necessary to meet demand; and — demand side measures like the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme and the Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme have inflated house prices and will continue to do so, disproportionately benefiting those on higher incomes; agrees that: — the new Government must change course and ensure a State-led approach to solving the housing crisis; and — public housing should be defined as high-quality sustainable housing for all citizens regardless of income that is rented from one's local authority or its nominees Approved Housing Bodies to affordably and securely provide for one's particular housing needs; and calls on Government to: — take a more active role in the delivery of housing by properly resourcing the Land Development Agency (LDA), expand its power to Compulsory Purchase Order private land and assemble sites, and transform it over time into a State construction company to provide a permanent State capacity to deliver direct build homes and rebalance the housing system; — reverse the increasing centralisation of housing responsibilities by devolving more power to local authorities, introduce a single stage approval process and a single set of standardised design guidelines for low-cost energy efficient social homes, and resource the upfront delivery of community infrastructure where new homes are built; — introduce a land price register and bring down house prices by giving effect to the recommendations of the 1973 Report of the Committee on the Price of Building Land (the "Kenny Report"), implement land value sharing, and establish a land management and acquisition section within each local authority to ensure land availability to meet future public housing demands; — grow the construction workforce, starting with a minimum wage for craft apprentices; — develop new financing mechanisms for private home construction and AHBs by deploying the billions invested in the Future Ireland Fund, unlock private savings through a housing solidarity bond, and provide further opportunities for Credit Unions to underwrite mortgages and invest in housing; — phase out inflationary measures like the HTB scheme that disproportionately benefit those on higher incomes and replace them with more income-targeted supports; — ban no fault evictions and significantly restrict the ability of landlords to evict tenants on the basis of moving a family member into the house; — expand the Tenant-in-Situ Scheme and the Housing First scheme, with wraparound supports for those exiting homelessness; and — move quickly to deploy the Apple windfall to build more homes through the LDA, and expand the capacity of the water and electricity networks.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: recalls that: — under Housing for All - A new Housing Plan for Ireland, the failed housing plan of the last Government, a target of 33,450 new homes were projected for 2024 but only 30,030 homes were built, a decrease of 6.7 per cent on 2023, while the construction of new apartments fell by almost a quarter; — the former Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage told the Dáil in October 2024 "I have consistently said we will exceed that target. I still confidently predict … that it will be the high 30,000s to low 40,000s this year.”
“The only reference in the programme for Government is a commitment to continue increasing capacity and opening more beds at UHL. That is not acceptable. The Government must expedite the publication of the HIQA review and commit to providing a model 3 hospital in the mid-west with an additional emergency department.”
“It is beyond clear that the people of Limerick and the wider mid-west need at least one additional emergency department. We did not need a HIQA review to tell us that.”
“The Housing Commission report was clear and we in the Labour Party have been clear that only the Government has deep enough pockets to underwrite the level of housing the country needs. On workers' rights, it is clear from the half page in the programme for Government that this is a coalition of cosy crony capitalism. There is no mention of a living wage in the entire document, no commitment to transpose the EU adequate minimum wage directive and no commitment to a right to flexible work or to improve statutory leave entitlements. In the time available, I will turn to my constituency, Limerick City, and in particular to University Hospital Limerick, UHL, the most overcrowded hospital in the State, consistently breaking its own records.”
“Moreover, we know from Central Bank analysis that these schemes disproportionately benefit people on higher incomes. The Labour Party believes in an active State because the private sector alone does not have the capacity to deliver the homes we need. The Davy report states we will need 93,000 homes per year if the population hits 6 million as predicted by 2031. The programme for Government commits to 50,000 units per year by 2031 but the Government was only able to deliver 30,000 units last year. It is clear that the Government does not even have the capacity to meet its own targets, not to mind to build the number of homes we actually need. The Government must change tack.”
“I am also concerned about the creeping privatisation of social housing and I urge the Government to establish a social housing Act to ensure the long-term viability of our social housing stock. We have become far too reliant on social leasing to bump up the numbers. We need to move away from that model and support local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, to build more homes. This Government is wedded and welded to the same inflationary policies as the previous Government. While the help-to-buy and first home schemes sound good on paper, virtually all independent analysis says that these policies are driving up house prices and the Government's proposal to extend them to second-hand homes will put yet another rocket under house prices which are now higher than at the peak of the Celtic tiger.”
“As a young person, I see nothing in the programme for Government to offer young people hope to get on the property ladder or at the very least to be able to move out of their parents' house to rent without forking out more than half their wages to a landlord. There is no commitment to a rent freeze or a ban on eviction and very little in the way of strengthening renters' rights, such as implementing model tenancy agreements, allowing tenants to rent unfurnished properties and not forcing them to pay more than a month's rent as a deposit. That is something the Labour Party introduced in the previous Dáil in 2021. It was the first Bill that Deputy Bacik introduced.”
“Yet, three years on from its launch, all we have seen is the appointment of a design team for one of these sites and nothing but glossy brochures for any of the others. We have a new Minister, but the same tired policies or lack thereof. They are the same tired policies that added more than a quarter to the cost of homes and rent since Housing for All was introduced and have seen homelessness skyrocket, with child homelessness in particular going up by well over 75%. The new Government - if I can even call it new - appears intent on carrying on the previous Government's legacy of failure, and seems to want to try to go one better. There is no ambition in this programme for Government. There is no imagination. There is no radical reset of housing policy as was called for by the Housing Commission.”