Eoin Ó Broin
Dublin Mid-West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“It is disappointing that, when several journalists have contacted the Government and the Department looking to confirm on the record that HAP and RAS tenants are not included - we know that they are not - and set out why and if that will be reconsidered, instead of giving a straight answer that, yes, they have been excluded, and explainin…”
“Will it try to remove survivors when they chain themselves to the gates in protest, as they have said they will, or will it finally listen to them and hear their calls for respect, justice and truth? Will it buy the Bessborough site and stop this outrage from happening?”
“According to the latest summary of social housing needs assessments, 61,000 households are on council waiting lists, although we know a large number of them are single people. About 49,000 households at the end of last year were on HAP, while there were about 7,500 private sector RAS recipients of the 14,000.”
“We are setting out five specific sets of circumstances where that would be permissible. Under our scheme, the person moving from Youghal to Clonakilty would have to have a specific reason like taking up a job or education in Clonakilty or accessing long-term medical treatment, etc.”
“First, importantly it would be for both people on the list and people in receipt of social housing support, such as HAP and RAS. It is not just the 61,000 households on our council lists but also the 55,000 or so households in HAP or private sector RAS.”
“Sure. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My natural disposition as a person is to treat people at face value, but ten years in this House has made a bit of a cynic of me.”
The complete record
Every one of 837 lines we hold for Eoin Ó Broin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 16 of 17.
“When we finally get the figures from the Minister by way of parliamentary questions, we will be able to definitively prove that. Dublin City Council is already telling its elected members that the total acquisitions allocation the Department has given them for this year is €22 million less than last year. That is the local authority with the highest levels of homelessness. I agree with colleagues on the new restrictions the Minister has introduced by way of the relevant circular. He uses the phrase "focused and targeted", which means that fewer people will get it.”
“It does not include rough sleepers. It does not include any of those people with refugee status, with subsidiary protection or with leave to remain who are trapped in direct provision and are essentially using it as homeless emergency accommodation. The real figure is now in excess of 20,000. What is really important about the motion is the call for the Government to have an emergency response. Not only are we not getting that, the Government is doing things to make the situation worse. On Monday, the Minister made a number of very important announcements. He announced the capital allocations for social housing acquisitions, including the tenant in situ scheme. That represents an actual cut on the money that was spent by local authorities on acquisitions, including for tenants in situ, last year.”
“I thank Deputy Healy and his colleagues for tabling this important motion and allowing us to have a crucial debate. Sinn Féin will be fully supporting the motion. While we may have some differences on elements of the detail relating to the policy proposals, we fully support the intention behind all of them. Last Friday, the latest homeless figures were published. As the Minister knows, a record number of people are living in emergency accommodation funded by his Department. The figure is 15,378, some 4,653 of whom are children. The Minister also knows that this does not reflect the true level of homelessness. It does not include women and children in Tusla-funded domestic violence shelters. It does not include men and women in religious institution-funded homeless shelters that are not in receipt of State funding.”
“I welcome the new Deputy's strong opposition to the introduction of this unjustified charge. I just want to let him know that in a matter of weeks we will table legislation - to be debated in this House - to remove Part 2 of the Water Services Act 2017 to ensure that neither this nor a future Government can introduce such a charge. I very much look forward to the Deputy's and the Minister's strong support for removing that Part from the original legislation. We simply do not trust his Government on this issue. However, if the Deputy puts his money where his mouth is when we introduce the Bill and votes for it, we might take a different view on the matter.”
“This project has been the subject of considerable debate in this Chamber and of strong cross-party support since it was announced in 2018. There will be further delays. Those delays will be as a result of the imposition of the four-stage approval process by the Department. The four stages include unnecessary design approval, cost appraisal and lengthy procurement. We argued with Darragh O'Brien previously that this could be used as a pilot to run those approvals in parallel with tendering and procurement. We stated that we would work with the Department to try to achieve that. The latter is something that Dublin City Council would like to see. Is that something the Minister is willing to explore? Will the Minister confirm if the loan approval sought by Dublin City Council been sanctioned by his Department? If not, when will it be granted?”
“In a scheme in Newcastle West, advertised by Limerick council only this week, the lowest entry-level price of a so-called affordable home is €361,000. If someone wants to own the home outright, it will cost €435,000 rising to €455,000 for some of the properties. That is more than double the actual price paid by people in Newcastle West, according to the property price register, for all homes sold last year bar one. Surely the Minister has some concern at the rising cost both of the so-called affordable rentals and the so-called affordable purchases.”
“Obviously, we will debate that matter when those figures are finally published but given that the Minister is operating from such a low base, to have the best year to date is hardly something to celebrate. Let us look at the affordability in two cost-rental projects, both on public land. In O'Devaney Gardens, the cost of the so-called "affordable" rentals there will be just under €1,500 a month for a one-bed, just under €1,700 a month for a two-bed and almost €1,900 a month for a three-bed. That is substantially above the rents being charged for existing renters in the private rental sector. Oscar Traynor Road is not much better. Let us consider the increased price of the so-called affordable purchases.”
“Likewise, the first home scheme, which, of course, as the Minister will be aware, I do not believe is an affordable housing scheme but which is recognised as such in the legislation, was to deliver 6,000 purchases over three years but, in fact, has missed that target by 50%. There is also a real concern about the increasing cost to buy and to rent. Is the Minister not concerned by the low delivery rates, the missed targets and the increasing cost of these so-called "affordable" homes.”
“Unfortunately, the facts, as provided on the Department's website, flatly contradict the Minister's assessment of the success of these schemes. The target for affordable purchase and affordable cost rental in 2022 was 2,100 units. The Government missed that by 52%. For 2023, the target was 3,500. The Government missed that by 61%. For this year, the target for affordable homes to be delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the LDA is 4,400. At the end of quarter 3, only 1,297 had been delivered and it is highly likely the Government will miss its target again this year.”
“Can the Minister tell us, if he has the figures, the final outturn for the affordable housing schemes delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency in 2024? Does he share my concern about the low output of these schemes to date and the increasing unaffordability of both the cost rentals and the affordable purchase units across the State?”
“It was the first time that had happened in my time tracking social and affordable housing delivery. It has caused huge difficulties, including potential damage to relationships between approved housing bodies and building contractors. It has caused enormous frustration in local authorities. There is a real fear it will impact on output, maybe not this year, but in terms of Government targets for social and affordable housing next year and the year after. Will the Minister provide absolute clarity that all of the delivery agencies, local authorities and approved housing bodies will be fully notified of those 3,000 approvals within a matter of weeks?”
“The additional €450 million of capital approved by Cabinet still means the total capital expenditure for social and affordable homes this year is less than the total outturn last year. It is an improved situation but it is not a better situation. To be clear, is the Minister telling me that a majority of those 3,000 units have completed all of the processes with the Department and the relevant local authorities and approved housing bodies have been notified? Is he also saying that all of those 3,000 units will have the formal notification to the local authorities and approved housing bodies within a couple of weeks, as he said? I appreciate the Minister is new in the Department and getting his head around this. At the end of last year, there was an exceptional situation.”
“The Minister sought and secured approval for 3,000 social and affordable homes at Cabinet. Of those, how many notifications have been passed on to local authorities and approved housing bodies so that they can get working on them? Of the remainder, how many are still awaiting approval? These are reasonable questions. I got a poor reply from the Minister to a parliamentary question over a week ago when he refused to provide me with the information. We should not have these kinds of rows, so please will the Minister address the question I have asked?”
“The Minister's predecessor had a terrible habit of refusing to answer very reasonable questions from the Opposition during Priority Questions. I had hoped that the Minister would not repeat that pattern. Unfortunately, he has done so just now. He has failed to address the question. There was not a perfectly normal situation at the end of last year. We know that because the local authorities, approved housing bodies and building contractors and developers have told us that. There was a huge delay in anything up to 5,000 units of social and affordable housing. That was caused in part by a significant overspend in the Department because there were challenges around the operation of the cost rental equity loan as well as the social housing investment fund.”
“A significant number of social and affordable housing applications were delayed in the Minister's Department at the latter end of last year, pending approval. We do not have the final figure but it could be anywhere in the region of 5,000 units. At Cabinet, the Minister got approval to progress 3,000 of those. However, my understanding is that the vast majority of those have yet to be formally approved with the relevant local authorities and approved housing bodies. Will the Minister confirm the status of the approvals for those 3,000 units, in particular the communication with the local authorities and approved housing bodies? Will he tell us the total number of homes that were delayed pending approval last year and how many are still awaiting approval?”
“A short-term letting platform like Airbnb or an estate agent should be required under the planning Acts to secure clarity on planning compliance from the host. If that is not available to the planning authority on request, every single day that property is advertised, an administrative fine that does not require court sanction is applied. That would clean up the Act. 2026 is too far away and if the planning changes were done earlier, they could have huge effect, particularly in areas with a significant rental and homelessness crisis, such as Dublin city, Cork and others.”
“Unfortunately, many of us warned of the challenges of enforcement when the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, was introducing the 2019 regulations. There is a solution to this as regards the platforms, that being, to amend the Planning and Development Act to allow planning authorities to apply administrative spot fines to platforms like Airbnb for every day they advertise properties that are not in compliance with planning law. I strongly urge the Minister's Department - in parallel with the Minister, Deputy Burke's work on the short-term letting and tourism Bill - to look at parallel changes to the Planning and Development Act to do exactly that. This would remove the onerous requirement for local authority planning sections to have to go to the courts to prove something very difficult. It is a simple requirement.”
“There is still a need, however, to introduce penalties on platforms such as Airbnb and estate agents that are currently facilitating and profiting from widespread breaches of planning law. I am interested to hear more on what the Minister means by penalties on platforms in his response. He might provide a little more detail in that respect.”
“It has been a decade since the issue of unregulated short-term lets in high rental demand areas was raised on the floor of the Dáil. Significant work was done on a cross-party basis in the Oireachtas housing committee in 2018. An all-party report was agreed and we worked with the Minister's predecessor, the former Deputy Eoghan Murphy, on the 2019 regulations. The problem with the regulations is they are now virtually unenforceable. As I am sure the Minister knows, our party is willing to work with him on the short-term letting and tourism Bill and we agree there needs to be an appropriate response that addresses unregulated short-term lets in rent pressure zones in a way that does not negatively impact tourism product in more rural constituencies.”
“As the Minister knows, the overwhelming majority of short-term lettings within the State are operating illegally and in clear breach of planning law. In 2022, the House dealt with legislation to strengthen the enforcement of the short-term letting regulations, specifically within rent pressure zones. Is this a proposition the Minister and his departmental officials are currently considering in parallel to the ongoing work for the register for short-term letting, which one of his Cabinet colleagues is working on?”
“Please, between now and when he signs off on the circular, do not make these changes, do not make more people homeless who otherwise would not be so. Do the right thing and scrap these proposed changes.”
“If I call a local authority today as a landlord, I will be told no new applications are being taken until the Minister has made his decision and the circular has issued. Hundreds of applications made last year are awaiting a final decision and cannot be processed. I do not know what definition of the word "suspended" the Government operates on, but for me, that is a suspension. All I am asking the Minister to do is, if he is not willing to listen to us, to talk to the people on the front line. Talk to the people preventing homelessness in the statutory and voluntary sector and ask them if they think this will make the scheme better or worse. They will tell him it will make it worse. I am urging him to reconsider.”
“Prioritising one group of vulnerable homeless people inevitably means deprioritising and ultimately excluding another group of very vulnerable homeless people. They are both equally as deserving of prioritisation. Currently, they receive that and that should not change. The two-year rule makes no sense. There seems to be a suggestion that somehow, somebody somewhere is gaming the system. I am not saying the Minister is saying that, but some of the people advising him may believe that despite the fact that there is no evidence. The very rigid adherence on a notice to quit rather than the slightly more flexible approach that has been in evidence over the past period is regrettable. The Minister says the scheme is not suspended. On the ground, that is not the truth.”
“The concern - and it is a genuine concern - that has motivated us in bringing forward this Private Members' motion is that the capital funding announced by the Minister's Department to date, and the new restrictive eligibility criteria, will result in fewer tenant in situ purchases this year than last year, even if the demand is the same. That is the central concern here. The total capital allocation of €325 million, as the Minister said, is across four acquisition streams. That funding, at current average acquisition prices, will deliver fewer homes this year than last year or the year before. That is simply a fact. The restrictive criteria the Government is introducing make no sense. Reasonable refurbishment costs are a vital element for this scheme to work, and without it, many properties will go unbought.”
“He should ensure, hopefully as a matter of urgency, that when he makes the final decision on capital allocation and signs off on that final circular, our local authorities have the money and the flexibility to ensure no household, family, single person or couple without children will be forced into homelessness because of a bad decision by the Minister and his colleagues. He can do the right thing but it is not in his amendment. I urge him to reconsider.”
“The scheme is working and we are urging the Minister, as are front-line service providers in local authorities and homeless charities, not to make the wrong decision. Here is the thing. If he makes the wrong decision, and if people who would otherwise have been prevented from going into homelessness end up in emergency accommodation because of his decision, that is on him. Everything else we talk about at this point is the responsibility of his predecessors. The Minister, and he alone, will ultimately make the decision. Despite the fact that the wording of his amendment is deeply disappointing, I urge him to take time to reflect before he signs off on that circular. He should listen to the people on the front line, who we trust to tackle the issue of homelessness, and listen to his own backbenchers, who know this scheme is working.”
“They are telling him that if he does not, at a minimum, provide the same level of funding this year as last year, specifically for the tenant in situ scheme, local authorities will run out of funding before the year-end. If the Minister allows the specific restrictions that we have listed in our motion to make their way into the circular that he will sign, fewer homes will be bought and more people will be at risk of homelessness. This is one of the first big decisions that Deputy Browne is going to have to make as Minister and it is going to say a lot about the trajectory of travel in his tenure over the time ahead. There are occasions when we will have political rows across the Chamber but this is one where we are telling him that a decision of the Government two years ago was the right one.”
“If adequate funding is not provided alongside the new restrictions, then real people - families, children and pensioners, who would otherwise have got access to this scheme if the rules remained the same, will be denied access to it this year and will be at greater risk of homelessness. I appreciate that the Minister is new to the job. I appreciate that he has a huge learning curve to meet and that he is listening to many different views on this. However, I urge him not just to listen to his officials but to talk to the front-line homeless service providers in local authorities and read carefully the letters that, I understand, he has been sent by some of our leading homeless charities.”
“There are some who think the State should not be using any of its capital funding for acquisitions. I have heard people suggest that, somehow, local authorities are taking the easy option by buying these homes when other options are available for people at risk of homelessness. While there is no evidence to support any of that, there are two very significant problems right now, and the Minister knows what both of them are. The failure of the Government last year to set the capital ceilings and targets for this year means the scheme is paused and there are hundreds of applications pending a decision across the State. More worryingly, the memo that was sent by the Department to local authorities a number of weeks ago set out a series of new and significant restrictions to the scheme.”
“In April 2023, under pressure from the Opposition and front-line homeless service providers, the tenant in situ scheme was properly reopened and local authorities, in particular, were given the flexibility they needed to ensure they could buy homes to prevent families and singles becoming homeless. While we do not have the final figures for last year, somewhere in the region of 2,500 households have been prevented from the problem of homelessness because of that scheme. This scheme is working very well. The parliamentary questions that the Minister signed off on today with respect to the scheme, which came from Deputies of all parties, Government and Opposition, show this. Unfortunately, the scheme has always had its opponents, both in the Government and the Civil Service.”
“As the Minister knows, last year, more than 16,000 eviction notices were issued by landlords to tenants in the private rental sector and more than half of those eviction notices were on grounds of sale. The sale of property is the single largest driver of homelessness for families, couples, singles and pensioners. As a consequence, in the past year alone, the number of people in emergency accommodation funded by the Department has increased by a significant 13%. We have never had as many adults and children, single people, couples, families and pensioners in emergency accommodation since these records began.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — under significant pressure from the Opposition, the Government reopened the Social Housing Tenant in-Situ Scheme in 2022, and, following further pressure from the Opposition, provided much needed flexibility in the operation of the scheme in 2023; — since April 2023, more than 2,500 households have been prevented from becoming homeless because of the scheme; — 16,546 notices of termination were issued to private rental tenants last year, with more than half of those on the grounds of landlords intending to sell the property; and — the number of people in Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage funded emergency homeless accommodation increased by 13 per cent in the last year to 15,286 people, including 4,603 children; expresses concern that: — the Social Housing Tenant in-Situ Scheme has been suspended since the end of last year, due to the failure of Government to agree the funding and targets for 2025, with hundreds of applications left pending without a decision due to lack of funding; — there is a concerted effort by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to reduce the funding for, and restrict the operation of, the scheme; — Approved Housing Bodies are effectively excluded from the scheme, arising from an inability to access Capital Advance Leasing Facility funding for acquisitions; and — the result of these factors is that greater numbers of people are being put at risk of homelessness, and landlords are disincentivised from engaging with the scheme; and agrees that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage must: — ensure that local authorities have the maximum level of funding to be able to operate the Social Housing Tenant in-Situ Scheme at the same level as 2024, and that the funding levels allocated for 2025 will be reviewed mid-year; — provide local authorities with the maximum level of flexibility in the operation of the scheme, in line with its operation in 2023 and 2024; — reject the new restrictions being proposed by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to the scheme, including: — the strict requirement for a Notice of Termination and Residential Tenancies Board registration; — the exclusion of reasonable refurbishment costs; — the de-prioritisation of single people and couples without children; and — the two-year rule, whereby the owner of the property must be in receipt of a social housing support payment for a period of two years; and — provide local authorities with their capital allocations and targets for 2025 as a matter of urgency, to allow them to process all outstanding applications and reopen the scheme to new applications.”
“If, however, he wants to implement the radical reforms of this report and other recommendations from those of us in opposition, we will work with him.”
“The Oireachtas housing committee has done work on some of these areas before and we would like to continue to work with the Department and the Ministers in the future. In the final few seconds I have, I will say that it has not been possible to do justice to this report in the 15 minutes I was allocated. The Oireachtas committee needs to be allowed to do more. I urge the Government to let us do that. Unless it listens to what the commission is saying about targets, the delivery of social and affordable housing and structural reform of the system and unless it introduces the radical reset of policy that is required, it will be more of the same and more tinkering around the edges and the Minister will not achieve the things he says he wants to achieve. If that is the case, we will hold him to account.”
“They must trust, empower, fund and staff our local authorities and approved housing bodies to work with building contractors to build the homes that people need. With respect to cost rental, if the Minister does not understand by now that cost rental is in a deep crisis and that the increasing unaffordability of those units is going to be his main challenge alongside delivery, he needs to think again. Sections 9 to 11, inclusive, are really important. Section 9 relates to on rural housing. Of course, until the Government publishes the rural planning guidelines, we will be no further on. There is also a need to provide supports for people to build sustainable homes in rural communities. Section 10 deals with inclusion and section 11 relates to environmental sustainability. Again, these contain many good suggestions.”
“Not only does the section require a dramatic increase in overall output but, exactly as the Minister has said, it also requires a really radical structural reform of how we finance, deliver and maintain our social housing stock. Again, if I am to take the Minister at his word and if he is interested in those proposals, there are areas where we could work together. Crucially, if it is his proposition, as per the programme for Government, to deliver an average of 12,000 new social homes a year, that will not cut it. It is nowhere near what the Housing Commission has said is required. It is also crucial that we get the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and the officials at the Department of Housing out of the micromanagement of project delivery.”
“The problem is that this does not address the issue of the inflationary impact of such measures or bring costs down. Our alternative housing plan sets out in great detail better ways to derisk the private residential development sector by removing barriers and reducing costs to allow far more good quality homes to be built. It details a range of measures including HBFI, HISCo, planning, master planning, a targeted development levy and water connection waiver for SME builder-developers who are building homes for people to buy or for self-builders. The section on social housing is one of the strongest. It has the largest number of recommendations, 16 in total, with many of these in alignment with our own party policies.”
“There are better ways to attract the capital required for private home building than allowing landlords to either increase rents in existing tenancies or to increase rents between tenancies. I warn the Minister against any such proposition because I believe it would be counterproductive and result in little extra supply. What it will do is punish already hard-pressed renters who are paying rents that have never been higher. Section 7 relates to affordability. In some respects, this was one of the less satisfying aspects of the report because the focus needs to be on how to bring the all-in cost of development down to achieve greater affordability. It is interesting to note that the commission recommends phasing out the help-to-buy scheme, something the Government is not willing to do, and wants it to be replaced by an equity scheme.”
“While I think there was an attempt by the commission to reach consensus, as a consequence of that it is quite an ambiguous section. I think we can all agree there are some good suggestions. The reference rent depends on the detail of reference to what, and how it operates. However, we are still of the view that we need to see a temporary ban on rent increases. We need to link rent reviews to an index made up of issues including wage inflation and there needs to be the use of reference rents for new rents and properties coming into the market. We have proposals in respect to that. The Minister indicated that it is possible to protect renters and attract institutional investment. What is not possible is to allow rents continue to increase in order to attract that investment.”
“Again, these are hugely important in terms of the standardisation of our standards, condition surveys and surveys of existing stock, particularly public housing stock, and building workforce capacity. I welcome that the request has gone in for planners to be put on the critical skills list, but how long will it take? That is something that should be happening as a matter of urgency. I know Deputy Cummins agrees with me on that but let us get it across the line as quickly as we can. Much of these sections of the Housing Commission’s report we agree with, and they are contained in some detail in our own alternative housing plan. With respect to the private rental sector, I think this is one of the weakest sections of the commission's report. There was clearly a deep division as referenced in the footnotes.”
“They are saying €18 billion of that needs to come from the private sector, which means only €2 billion of State investment being used for housing delivery despite the fact that the State's capital commitment is between €4 billion and €5 billion. Of course, the reality is that the State has to do more. We need an annual capital investment by the State on social and affordable housing in the region of €8 billion, but far more of that needs to go into direct capital investment and not acquisition through turnkey, Part V and others. On the private side the issue is not whether we need more private sector capital or not. It is about what kind of capital to deliver what kinds of homes and in what manner. I will come to the detail of that later. The next two sections of the report relate to cost, quality and capacity.”
“I would again like to know the detail of what the Minister is proposing and when, but that is something on which he could have the support of this side of the House. There is then a cluster of recommendations on infrastructure, land and finance, all of which are key to increasing and accelerating both public and private sector supply. I turn to the issue of finance, because if I hear another Government Minister telling us that the public sector cannot do it all I really am going to pull my hair out because nobody on this side of the House has ever said that. That Department of Finance report the Minister referred to talked about an annual requirement of €20 billion.”
“I am not yet clear as to whether he is fully embracing the idea of an independent body of people who know how to deliver housing in the public and private sector and other agencies. If he does that and it is fully independent of the Departments that often act as a constraint on delivery, it could be interesting. However, we obviously need to see the detail of what will be involved. There are interesting propositions about establishing high yielding housing delivery zones and enhancing the powers of our local authorities, which is something the outgoing Government was doing the opposite of. The land price register is one of the few elements of the commission's recommendations that is in the programme for Government.”
“I look forward to the debate on the national planning framework review, but if the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, does not get those numbers right then he will be failing from the beginning. I again urge him to engage with the experts on this matter, so we do not end up having a row about the underlying numbers. With respect to section 4 and delivering supply, the housing delivery oversight executive is one of the most important ideas in the commission's report. It is one of their emergency actions. Of course, as the Minister knows it was rejected by his predecessor and is not in the programme for Government. It is interesting that the way in which he describes this, both in his interview at the weekend and today, is a bit different.”
“In fact, when a number of high-profile members of the commission read the programme for Government, they commented publicly that the Government was not addressing the deficit and that it was therefore going to grow. The Government should please listen to them and what they are saying and revise its NPF targets upwards. Likewise, they said policy needs to be based on assessment of actual housing needs. The idea that you would wait until 2027 to do a review of those already inadequate targets in the NPF review document makes no sense. It should be done annually. It should be fully independent of Government. It should utilise the best expertise in the country and be published for us all to respond to.”
“As the Minister stated, there are 11 sections and 83 recommendations. I will focus on some of the key ones in the time available. In section 3, on meeting housing requirements, the issue of the deficit is absolutely crucial. It is wholly absent from the NPF review document. We had an exchange with the officials before the general election and they could not answer our questions on how they got their figures. What is important to understand about the deficit is that if you do not address it, it grows each year. The deficit they talked about was the mid-range of 235,000 units. If you do not adequately increase overall output to meet that year on year, it grows.”
“The commission recommends hitting 60,000 units by 2027. That is an enormously challenging task and different to the Minister's proposals. The implication of its comments on social and affordable housing was that the delivery would need to be at least doubled to at least 20,000 units per year on average. None of that is in the programme for Government or the current draft of the NPF. Nor was it mentioned by either the Minister or the Minister of State. It is important to remember that the commission produced not just one report, it produced two. There is no comment of course on the recommendations to hold a referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. At least now we know the Government is not going to do it and the charade of the previous programme for Government is dispensed with.”
“It used the phrase, which the Minister will hear from other members of the Opposition today, that, "Only a radical strategic reset of housing policy will work." That means not more of the same, and not tinkering round the edges, but something fundamentally different. That involves tackling the housing deficit, which I will come back to in a moment. It will require, as it said, emergency action. It will also require, crucially, the increasing of social and affordable homes to 20% of housing stock, something that has so far been absent from any Government commentary. What does all this mean? First, according to the commission, it means we need an output of an average of 60,000 new homes per year every year for the next five years. Not only do we need that output, but it needs to be front loaded.”
“One of the most damning criticisms was that there was a "failure to successfully treat housing as a critical social and economic priority" and that the outgoing Government and those which preceded it had "one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing, yet one of the poorest outcomes". These are damning criticisms. I genuinely hope that the Minister will absorb those criticisms because the commission did not make them lightly. The good news is that the commission went on to say in the opening section of the report that there are clear solutions if there is a commitment to address the issues.”
“It is interesting that the most important part of the commission's report - its devastating critique of not just the previous Government's record on housing but also of those which preceded it - was absent from the Minister's and the Minister of State's comments. Let us remind ourselves of what it said. It spoke about systemic failures and "ineffective decision making" in housing policy. It said that policymaking was reactive and that "risk aversion dominates". They are its words, and not mine. It said that all of this is "undermining affordability".”