Rory Hearne
Dublin North-West · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I thank you, a Leas Cheann-Comhairle, for your work and support during the year and thank all the staff here. I wish my colleagues in government the best of luck over the summer and respite from our robust engagement. We look forward to going at it again in the autumn.”
“The Dublin public will be very upset when they realise their fire fighters and emergency response service are at risk of being split and downgraded.”
“I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. It is important to have a discussion about the context of education costs and back-to-school costs. Of course, the context is massive inequality in this country.”
“However, what it is actually doing is throwing families into even more stress on top of not being able to pay the basic bills. In my constituency to respond and support families struggling with back-to-school costs, the Finglas voluntary food and family support service, Feed Our Homeless, last year organised help for families with a pop-u…”
“A second tier of child benefit would lift 55,000 children out of poverty but the Government will not do it. It costs the same as what it has given in tax breaks to developers, investor funds and large fast-food giants. Childhoods pass quickly. No child should have their future limited by poverty.”
“The Government is ramming through planning legislation this week that will exempt sheds out the back without proper scrutiny. It is satisfied with handing our young people to vulture landlords. The Government is now offering a future of renting a shed out the back with no rights whatsoever.”
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“Yes, we can. He was a CEO who oversaw the eviction of thousands of people from NAMA receiver properties. He contributed to the housing crisis. The Government will now appoint him as a housing fixer. The only doors that will be battered down, as the Minister said, will be the doors of people who are facing eviction. It is absolutely inappropriate. The Taoiseach can shake his head. He should shake his head in shame at the level of homelessness in this country and not put his eyes up to heaven about me raising this issue.”
“It is clear that Dublin City Council and other councils across the country do not have the funding for the tenant in situ scheme to prevent families like this mother and her children from becoming homeless. How does the Government think it is appropriate that we allow this scale of homelessness? Will the Government fund the tenant in situ scheme properly? Does the Government feel it is appropriate that a person who caused homelessness and stood over the evictions of properties - the Taoiseach can raise his eyes to heaven-----”
“The housing crisis is an absolute disaster. The Taoiseach spoke about homelessness earlier. I want to raise this issue. It is very clear from the data that the main cause of homelessness is evictions from the private rental sector. There is no lack of clarity in the figures on that. Some 30,000 households have been evicted since the Government lifted the eviction ban in 2023. However, one of the key measures in response to that is the tenant in situ scheme. I have been contacted by constituents from Dublin North West, including one from Santry, a mother with three children at immediate risk of homelessness. She has lived in her home for the past seven years with her children and is in receipt of the housing assistance payment. We contacted Dublin City Council, which did not mention tenant in situ as one of the responses to this case.”
“We need to be very clear here; this is an emergency. The housing crisis is an emergency. Uisce Éireann has to be given the funding, it has to be made accountable and the Minister has to take responsibility for ensuring Uisce Éireann delivers that infrastructure. Whatever changes are needed to make that happen need to be made.”
“That needs to be changed, whether it is by legislation or by direction from the Minister. Uisce Éireann needs to have a very clear mandate to deliver the necessary infrastructure for housing development. This is absolutely critical. Of course, it is not a new issue. Uisce Éireann has not suddenly had this crisis where it does not have the capacity to deliver for housing. In 2023, a spokesperson for Uisce Éireann was quoted as saying that it can take five to seven years for projects to progress through panning to completion and even longer when difficulties arise. Last year, there was a plan for 126 homes in Dunmanway in Cork that was halted due to overcapacity with a wastewater plant. Last year, Uisce Éireann said €500 million was needed on an annual basis because of the increase in construction costs.”
“I am not sure how we get around this in terms of the Ceann Comhairle, Standing Orders and making Uisce Éireann accountable under the Minister for housing. The chairman, Jerry Grant, spoke two weeks ago at the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and said that the new higher targets for housing would not be met without a new approach from the Government and leadership from the very top. Where is the new approach, what is it and where is the leadership? It links back to this taking of responsibility. We cannot leave the provision of critical infrastructure to a State agency that is not accountable to a Minister and the Minister taking responsibility for that. Mr. Grant also said that Uisce Éireann had no mandate to provide for future housing growth. That Uisce Éireann has no mandate for future housing growth is untenable.”
“It is very clear from everything we are hearing in the debate, from what has been said to us and from what we are hearing around the country, there is a huge issue around Uisce Éireann's accountability on a local level in terms of its working, although there are clearly lots of projects working well. Uisce Éireann has to be accountable - it is a State-owned company - but the Minister for housing also needs to take responsibility. The housing crisis is an emergency. Uisce Éireann is absolutely critical to us solving this housing crisis. If Uisce Éireann is not delivering the infrastructure, we cannot deliver the homes. Why is the Minister for housing not taking this responsibility instead of fudging it around?”
“I put in a parliamentary question asking the Minister for housing and local government how many housing developments have applied to Uisce Éireann for the provision of water and wastewater infrastructure, the number of developments that have yet to commence because they are waiting for the delivery of this infrastructure and how long they are likely to wait for the delivery of this infrastructure. I received a letter from the Ceann Comhairle's office stating that the Minister has no official responsibility to Dáil Éireann for this matter under Standing Order 45 and it is a matter for Uisce Éireann. I do not think we can continue with this situation that Uisce Éireann is not accountable to this House and to the Minister for housing. We need clarity on that and I ask for the Minister of State to give clarity.”
“There are a couple of things I want to raise in this very important debate. We know we have a housing crisis and a housing emergency. The first one is the issue of responsibility and accountability. We have a fundamental problem here in that water is clearly on the Department of housing's website as one of its core five competencies, along with planning, housing, heritage and local government. Irish Water is a State-owned company. Its shareholders are the Minister for public expenditure and the Minister for housing, and the Minister for housing appoints the board.”
“We can invest in things like housing, healthcare and renewable energy. We can support workers and working families with their incomes, which can sustain our economy, and not make the mistakes of austerity.”
“A report from Bank of Ireland economists issued yesterday states that as a result of the tariffs we could see private supply fall off and reduce in terms of the ability of people to buy. This is quite clear. Some people might say house prices might fall as a result. In fact, the failure to increase housing supply might leave house prices still maintained at a high level but workers facing a situation of reduced income and a reduced ability to borrow and, therefore, a continuation of the housing crisis. What we need is the State to intervene. We need support for the delivery of affordable housing and investment in infrastructure so that we can create a sustainable economy. We cannot blame everything on what happens in the global economic situation. We have our own economy. We have our own population.”
“We can see this in housing and basic grocery foods. In what is likely to be another situation of rising costs for working people, the Irish Government has to look at how we can intervene and keep costs low and how we can support employment. One of the areas is housing. Unfortunately, the Government's housing policy, just like its wider economic policy, has left us more vulnerable than we should be to this economic catastrophe that is hitting. The over-reliance on institutional investors has meant we are seeing institutional investment fall off in terms of housing supply. It was core to the Government's Housing for All plan. This has left us vulnerable where housing supply is reducing.”
“What is very clear is that Trump does not care about working people in the US. He does not care about working people in Europe or anywhere. What he is doing to the world economy and the US economy is sending it into freefall. As my colleague said, Trump's new world order will require a shift in our economy and our economic model. This will result in a shift globally. The question is how do we respond. How can we sustain employment? How can we support business? Importantly, how can we support workers? If we look at the level of working poverty and food poverty, we have been in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis for more than five years. One of the key parts of this cost-of-living crisis is what has been termed "greedflation", whereby in the context of rising prices businesses push up the cost because they know they can do so.”
“The one scheme that is working - the tenant in situ scheme - is being restricted and already we are hearing that local authorities will not have sufficient funding to implement it this year. Will the Taoiseach commit to allocating emergency capital funding to Uisce Éireann, to the not-for-profit bodies and to local authorities to ensure they can deliver homes? The Taoiseach also said during the election that the target for housing delivery for this year is 41,000 homes. Will the Taoiseach confirm that that is the target and if he expects to deliver it, or is it another misleading claim like he made during the election?”
“Young people are despairing. They are giving up hope that this country will ever provide them with the fundamental need and human right of a home. The people we need - nurses, teachers, doctors, tradespeople and therapists - have emigrated because of the lack of affordable housing. At a housing summit yesterday, Sherry FitzGerald said it is likely that just 25,000 homes will be built this year. That is only half of the minimum of 50,000 homes needed. Rather than turning a corner on housing, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are driving us in circles on a roundabout that is going nowhere. We have yet to see an emergency response from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to this disaster.”
“There is a real issue and concern in this situation of economic turbulence that there will be a return to austerity. In that context, we support this Bill to rule out any potential introduction of excessive use charges and call on the Minister to go into Uisce Éireann, take responsibility for it and look at what is needed in respect of investment in wastewater infrastructure and water infrastructure to ensure quality water is delivered to people's homes, is in our seas and rivers and, importantly, to ensure we can deliver the housing that is needed.”
“There are also frequent sewage spills across the country while water bills are rising steadily in the UK with an average annual price of £287 and this is expected to continue to rise. A child poverty charity reported in February that 15% of households in England and Wales are in water poverty, spending more than 3% of their income on water. Slightly further afield in Spain, the situation is as dire. We have to rule out the privatisation of our water system and service. That is why we are calling on the Government to enshrine the public control of water in the Constitution in order to safeguard against this future. Without constitutional protection, the Government cannot guarantee fair water pricing or equal access to water for all.”
“It is a pity because we have an incredible natural resource in our waterways and seas around our coast and yet, we do not do what should be done, which is protect that water as a public good and natural resource. It is also important that we look at what has happened in the UK with privatisation. It is important that the Government clearly rule out any potential introduction of charges, even excessive charges, and enshrine water as a public good. It is about keeping water public because when we look at what has happened in the UK with privatisation, we see that since the UK privatised water in the 1980s, water companies such as Thames Water have faced debt and insufficient investment. This time last year only 14 rivers in England had good ecological status and none had a good chemical status.”
“It is not delivering it as a human right, especially in respect of that issue of quality. The question then comes: if Uisce Éireann is not doing that, what needs to change? Clearly there is a need to look at how Uisce Éireann is functioning and how it is delivering and responding to services. This is part of the emergency response to housing that we need to see. In particular, is the area of wastewater, which, as others mentioned, is flowing into our rivers and seas and polluting the water that is not just for leisure activities such as swimming, but is also for consumption. In that leisure use of rivers where people swim, it is causing illness to people who use it.”
“The potential charge for excessive water use has the potential to put families under further pressure. All households should have equitable access to water. Those with higher usage should not be penalised across the board, because some will be able to pay the higher cost and some will not. We heard in the public discussion in recent weeks examples of people with additional needs and families and households with disabilities who have significant water usage and how bringing in water charges would potentially impact on these vulnerable groups and families. The model of water we should have should not be based on two-tier access to resources and services, but on access to water as a public good and a human right. Currently, Uisce Éireann is not delivering that. It is not delivering water of the quality it should.”
“She has been renting for more than ten years. She now spends at least 35% of her monthly income on rent and that is before she pays for utilities. Other energy costs are soaring. The cost of childcare is eye-watering. Families have to go to the private system to get care and assessments they need for their children. Against this dysfunctional backdrop of a high cost of living and a lack of public services, we have to completely rule out the possibility of bringing in water charges. The Minister can blame Sinn Féin for raising it, but it was in the note from his officials, as he referenced himself. Therefore, it is clearly not completely off the agenda. The Minister can say it is politically off the agenda and I welcome that commitment, but there needs to be a clear commitment and supporting this Bill would show that.”
“I remember being very inspired by many of the protesters who pointed to the international experience. They were not just protesting about water charges; they were protesting for water being a public good and for us having a public infrastructure. On that basis, I again call on the Minister to enshrine water in our Constitution as a public good. This was previously sought by the Right2Water campaign and others. I wish to talk about the potential impact of charges if they are brought in. Theoretically, there is a need for sources of funding for Irish Water such as water charges and that has been debated and discussed in the media. We also need to talk about what would happen if water charges were brought in, even for excessive use. For example, I recently received an email from a constituent who has been working since was 18.”
“It is important to engage seriously with the discussion on this motion and with what is being brought forward. I welcome that because of the opportunity to discuss the nature of Uisce Éireann and water as a public good and a human right. I remember working alongside people in the Right2Water campaign and marching with them. The concern was about water charges, but it was also about water as a public good and as a resource. Ordinary people across this country see the importance of clean water. As has been mentioned, they are living with poor water quality, a lack of wastewater infrastructure, and a lack of public water infrastructure. Looking to the likes of the UK, they understand what happens when you privatise water and when it is not a public good.”
“As the economic winds again change, he could also forgive people for being deeply concerned that we will see the reimposition of austerity in the form of cuts to public services and charges for services like water. That is the reason it is more important than ever now that we rule out the possibility of water charges in any form being brought forward. We could take the Minister at his word that he is not going to introduce water charges, but it is very clear from Uisce Éireann's strategy that there is a need or it is pushing for water charges in some form under its corporate management plan. We hear in the public debate that others also think there should be water charges. Fine Gael introduced them initially, and I am sure it has not completely gone off them.”
“The Minister's responses to Sinn Féin on bringing forward this motion were a bit glib and petty. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion. It is important that we are very clear on the issue. I am disappointed to hear the Government is not supporting the motion. It is understandable that people are extremely concerned about the potential return of water charges. I remember the massive devastation that happened to people in communities due to the Minister's party's policies ten or so years ago, at the time of austerity. Those policies are what brought us there. He could at least have a bit of humility about the impacts of austerity and how it devastated this country.”
“You would want to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the parents of children with additional needs who spoke to us last week. They broke down telling their stories of the failure of the State to provide them with appropriate school places and services. I am supporting parents in my constituency whose children are locked out of education. In area CHO 9 more than 3,000 children are waiting for an initial contact from children's disability services. We are organising a public meeting on that this Thursday. What is the Taoiseach doing to ensure each child in north Dublin will have access to an appropriate school place by this September and access to assessment of need and proper adequate services from the children's disability services? This is not moving quickly or adequately enough.”
“Part of the reason we are in this crisis is because housing is treated as an investment asset, as a commodity, rather than a home and a human right, which is what it should be. It should be underpinning all our policies and approaches.”
“In May 2022, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, said it was important to hold this referendum, as it would underpin people's housing rights. In May 2024, he announced that an interdepartmental group would be set up to consider plans to hold referendum on the right to housing. Why has the Government moved away from treating housing as a human right? There was not one mention of housing being a human right in the programme for Government. There has been no response to the Housing Commission's very clear recommendation that a constitutional amendment should be brought forward to enshrine housing as a human right. Why is the Government not moving on that referendum? We need to treat housing as a human right.”
“Why is he limiting what the Government can invest in housing? There are billions of euro of a surplus. Why are we not putting that into local authorities and not-for-profit housing bodies to deliver more affordable homes? Why will the Government not treat housing as a human right? Why has it done a U-turn on Fianna Fáil's commitment to deliver a referendum to guarantee a right to housing? In 2021, Fianna Fáil brought forward a motion in the Seanad to amend the Constitution to ensure that every citizen had the right to housing. It was noted at the time by the Fianna Fáil housing spokesperson, Mary Fitzpatrick, that the right to housing was about the State making a permanent commitment to every citizen that he or she would have access to a secure and affordable home.”
“The result is that, instead of regulators serving the public interest, they serve the special interests. To me, it is very clear that, in housing policy, the Government and the Department of housing have been suffering from a classic case of regulatory capture by different property and financial interests for a long time. From the Celtic tiger boom, to the crash, to institutional investors, it is a clear case that housing policy has been driven by what will make housing sufficiently profitable for the market, developers and investor funds rather than what is the way to deliver affordable housing for the people. There are many ways to deliver affordable housing. We set out in our manifesto a way to deliver 15,000 additional genuinely affordable homes. The Minister said we were doing all we could.”
“I discussed the potential impact of the removal of rent caps on RTÉ radio last week when I said it was clear that, if the rent caps were lifted, it would lead to a wave of evictions, rent rises and, inevitably, higher rates of poverty and homelessness among renters. The representative from the landlords' organisation, the IPOA, said in response: "I suspect poverty and homelessness would increase" as a result. Does the Minister agree with that response? Does he accept poverty and homelessness will rise if the rent caps are removed? I am not sure if the Minister is familiar with the term "regulatory capture". It is a concept in public policy that refers to the excessive influence of special interests on regulators' operations and decisions.”
“The collapse in apartment development is because institutional investors have decided it is not sufficiently profitable to invest here. This is not just the case in Ireland, but also in the US, Germany and the UK. Build to rent as an investment has become less profitable because of rising interest rates. It is not about our rent regulation system, but the wider macroeconomic situation. When institutional investors are such an unstable, unreliable source of financing for housing, why does it seem that the Government will remove the very rent caps that are protecting renters to try to incentivise more of this investment? Why is the Minister speaking about tax breaks for institutional investors? Why are we not taking a different approach?”
“They were brought in by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the past ten years to buy up, fund and build rental housing. A core policy of Rebuilding Ireland and Housing for All has been to bring in institutional investment. Department of housing representatives attended the global real estate event in France recently, again. The Taoiseach said earlier this year, very clearly, that we needed to look at rent caps and rent pressure zones in order to make investment in rental housing viable. We know it was code for what the investor funds and institutional investors had been pushing for, which is getting rid of rent caps. The Minister has also spoken about tax breaks and about how we need tax incentives and tax breaks to make investment in apartments viable.”
“We saw an emergency response during Covid when the private health system was brought into the public sector and told that we needed to put everything at our disposal into solving this emergency. We do not do that currently. The Minister has not brought in the entire private sector and asked what we are doing, where is the housing being delivered, where are the hotels being built, where is our construction capacity and how we can ensure it is actually delivering homes. Why are we building aparthotels when we need homes to be built? We have capacity in this country but it is not being put to use building affordable housing. I will also highlight one of the policy narratives being developed. I have been analysing this policy for many years, that of global real estate investors and institutional investors.”
“They are deeply upset and traumatised by the loss of their dreams of having children because they could not get homes of their own. The Minister is new, but he has to accept that this situation is completely intolerable, unacceptable and an emergency. I challenge his claim that we all need to agree on the continued success of Housing for All. If this is success, I would hate to see what failure looks like. I do not think the Minister should just repeat words the civil servants are putting to him. The Minister needs to challenge the Department of housing and say that this is not good enough, where we are at is not acceptable and we are not making an emergency response.”
“I understand that the Minister is new and is bringing his own experience and perspective, but I am concerned that I do not see any major change in direction or any major reset of policy, which the Housing Commission called for. I do not see any emergency action in response. The problem is that the housing crisis has become normalised. The level of homelessness we see has become normalised. The generation stuck as adults infantilised in their childhood bedrooms has become normalised. We have a generation who have lost hope of ever having homes of their own. They have lost hope in a future of being independent or of starting a family. We see people delay getting married and having children, sometimes to the point at which their dream becomes impossible. People have contacted me to tell me that.”
“The housing crisis situation is an emergency and I ask the Minister to take this motion on board. I thank its proposers for tabling it. There are many ideas in it that we in the Social Democrats have put forward. It was ten years ago, when I was involved with trade union groups and housing campaigns, that we called on Fine Gael, which was in government at the time, to declare the housing crisis an emergency. Every year since, homelessness has risen, except of course during a Covid year, and we have seen house prices and rents rise to record levels. Why have this and the previous Governments never treated the housing crisis as an emergency?”
“Why are we relying on and seemingly orientating policy, such as on rents and tax breaks, towards institutional funds, which are a deeply unreliable source of finance, when we have the finance available?”
“Figures for house prices came out yesterday. We are now seeing astronomical house prices and the highest rate of increase in inflation for eight years. The median price of a home is now €420,000. What nurse, garda or bus driver can afford these house prices? What is the Government doing by way of an emergency reaction to the housing crisis, particularly in the area of affordable housing delivery? It has not met its own affordable housing targets. We have a significant budget surplus available. What is the Government doing as an emergency response to allocate additional public capital money to not-for-profit housing bodies to deliver affordable housing that is genuinely affordable for sale and rent?”
“At a European Union level there appears to be a desire for the creation of a European army and the European arms industry which Ireland is going along with rather than standing up for our neutrality. We can be different. There is nothing wrong with being different and standing up for our principles which Fianna Fáil said it stood for and went to the people and said it stood for. However, as my colleagues mentioned, it is one more promise being abandoned. Fine Gael did not mention the triple lock at all during the election. Fianna Fáil promised to reform it at some level. It can frame its proposals as reform but by removing the UN mandate, it is removing the triple lock.”
“What has changed? How is it no longer the core of our neutrality? He also criticised Fine Gael for having an out of touch, ideological obsession and that making changes to the triple lock would undermine our neutrality. It is a U-turn on his position and that of Fianna Fáil and it appears it is just one more example of how Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are indistinguishable from each other and how this Government is just rolling along with the drum beat to war which is being pushed at a European level and ditching our history of peacekeeping and peace making. We are moving from peace makers and peacekeepers to adding to this drum beat to war to bring Europe, the European Union, to war. We cannot get away from it. We should not pretend otherwise.”
“It is very clear that this Government is taking us away from the cherished neutrality we have had as a country and as a republic. Our neutrality is something that is core to what it means to be Irish today. It is not a passive thing but something that needs to be chosen and protected. What the Government is doing is shattering that neutrality. Arguably, it is making this decision without a proper discussion of its significance. We have brought forward this motion today because the people have the right to have a say on whether or not we are changing neutrality. The Government should put it to the people. This is an abandonment of neutrality. In 2013 Micheál Martin said the triple lock was “the core of our neutrality”. I will repeat that. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, in 2013 said the triple lock was "the core of our neutrality".”
“Ireland needs to be stronger in how we challenge that on the international stage. The Government rolling back on its determination to implement the occupied territories Bill is completely wrong. The Government is saying that the Bill is still there but Micheál Martin told that group in Washington that the Bill was effectively going to be dropped and would not be implemented. We need to see the Bill properly implemented within its true meaning. When we see what Israel is doing, we need to see sanctions against that country to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing. Ireland can do more. We can inspect the planes passing our airspace. Where are the inspections to ensure that Ireland is not complicit in genocide?”
“The European Union is creating a fund of €800 billion that will go into the profits of the European arms industry, yet when we look at the figures on poverty, we see that almost 100 million people in the European Union are living in poverty. The war we need in Europe is a war on poverty, not the weapons of destruction pumping the European arms industry. What is Ireland's role in this? Where are we shouting "Stop"? This will not make Europe safer or improve the quality of life of our people. We need a war on poverty, with billions of euro invested in housing and healthcare across Europe, and not this approach. I want to speak briefly on Gaza and Palestine more widely. What we are seeing there is genocide. We need to repeat that it is genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
“It is my daughter's sixth birthday today. I think about the world and the Europe we are creating for her and all the children, living and those to come. It is incredible that the project of the European Union, which was supposed to be about peace and improving quality of life for the people living there, now appears to be about to become a project of war. This will not make Europe safer or improve the quality of life of its people. It is incredible when we think back to the austerity cuts that devastated Europe but that the European Union said were required to meet the fiscal rules only to see that now, when it comes to war, there is no limit on the availability of funding.”
“It is not true that the tenant in situ scheme is being continued as it was. There has been a change to it. In the context of the removal of the funding for refurbishment, will the Minister reconsider this and, in the context of the circular that is to be issued, allocate local authorities funding for refurbishment under the scheme?”
“I know, but prioritisation means local authorities will have to decide. Local authorities will have a certain budget and will be able to purchase properties and keep some people in their homes, but not others. We are in this system of prioritisation rather than a general ability to apply the scheme. That means restricting some local authorities in their ability to do it.”
“While I appreciate that the Minister is committing to continuing the scheme, will he provide the evidence to back up why he is targeting it? Why is it not being provided on a general basis in order to give local authorities the flexibility and funding to respond to whatever household is facing eviction or homelessness? Why does it have to be only families? Why is the Minister saying-----”
“This question relates to the tenant in situ scheme, which we discussed last night. Will the Minister reconsider the framing and limitations he is putting on the scheme? While it is welcome that he is committing to continuing with the scheme, this will not actually involve a continuation of the scheme that has been in place because the new limitations will change the nature of it.”
“What they have in France is a state saving scheme that creates a fund that funds affordable housing directly. Why can we not do that? That is private finance but it is not the speculative private finance that the Government seems to be obsessed with.”