Ciarán Cuffe's Housing

Speeches: Ciarán's Dáil speech on Housing Provisions: Motion

26 May 2004

Mr. Cuffe: Anyone would think from the contribution of Members on the Government benches earlier that the Government cared deeply about providing social, local authority and affordable housing. However, that is not the case. The people calling the tune in Fianna Fáil are those developers and builders who profit from the rapid increase in house prices. On the inside of the front cover of the volume prepared to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Fianna Fáil one sees advertisements from Dunloe Ewart, a house builder, and on the side of the back cover, there are advertisements from Treasury Holdings, another house builder. That almost umbilical link between Fianna Fáil and the development lobby must end. Until that happens we will not see a strong or real commitment from Fianna Fáil to providing affordable, social and local authority housing.

At the end of that volume to commemorate 75 years of Fianna Fáil, a rhetorical question is asked. As the unfettered power of 21st century consumerism, devoid of any social conscience or value beyond credit references, seeks global dominance, Ireland faces a truly uncertain future. Can even the practice of politics compete with the allure of branding and the power of the market? I would like to answer that question. If it is left to the politics of Fianna Fáil, the answer is "no", the market will decide.

The wisdom of Fianna Fáil was displayed earlier when speakers said that we need to rezone more land. For God's sake, they need to get real and realise that we must build more houses for people who cannot afford them rather than cave in to the stupid rhetoric of developers who think that zoning more land is the answer. We need to build more local authority and social housing and give more funding to the voluntary housing agencies to enable them to provide more housing. Fianna Fáil has clawed back on the many of the real advances made in recent years. It left Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in shreds. It pulled it apart and left it on the floor. That facilitated developers but not people seeking housing. That appalling retrograde step was a dark day in Fianna Fáil's commitment to social housing.

The retrograde measures in regard to rent supplement have done the same. We were given a real example at a meeting of the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government yesterday of a person with a crisis pregnancy who might move to Dublin. Were she to do so, she would not be able to claim rent supplement until she would be resident here for six months. That is one of the hard cases that must be addressed. The Minister, Deputy Coughlan, has not addressed those cases in the regulations. There are exceptional cases, but the case I outlined is a common one that should be catered for in legislation. Despite this the Government has failed to do that. It has been moving in the wrong direction regarding housing. The output of local authority housing units has fallen behind what was achieved in much less prosperous times.

The Green Party believes that a few other measures are necessary. We need to restore the original provisions of Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 which were filleted by the Government, but there are also other measures. The All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution made excellent recommendations regarding the taxation of development land. The Minster responsible should implement them rather than wait until another generation is barred from the housing market as a result of the increase in house prices. The tax burden should be changed from labour to smarter taxes on the site value of land. That measure in itself would increase affordability of measures.

The Central Bank should be instructed to draw up new guidelines for the lending institutions limiting the amount of money they can lend for house purchases. Things are fine and rosy when times are good, but if interest rates increase, many young people and couples will be left in a dangerous financial position. The Minister has the power and can use it to instruct the Central Bank in this regard.

The Minister could promote environmentally sensitive techniques for building through the building regulations and the planning Acts, yet we do not see much sign of that coming on stream. We want the Minister to ensure that 10,000 social housing units are built every year until the waiting lists are clear. Unless he can deliver on the kinds of promises his party made and that he inserted in the national development plan, we cannot take for real the commitment he pretends to be making towards delivering on housing.

We must get delivery in this regard from the Government. We must restore the decent measures that were taken out of the Planning and Development Act and we must ensure that more housing units are delivered in the right places to ensure that future generations benefit.

Page last updated 13 March 2006

Ciarán Cuffe is a TD for the Dún Laoghaire Dáil Constituency. Ciarán can be contacted at Dáil Éireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 2 or 96 Patrick Street, Dún Laoghaire Tel. 284 6060 or 618 3082, Fax 618 4341, Email Ciaran CiaranCuffe.com, or Text Ciaran on 087 265 2075.