Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - speech from 20 Nov 2019

Minister, housing, securing a roof over your head is without question the biggest dilemma facing many ordinary people throughout the state. Indeed the biggest challenge facing workers and families in their daily lives. I was in Cork yesterday and I was greeted by the results of your government's disastrous housing policies. In Fairhill I met a young woman. at her wits end because she earns too much to be eligible for social housing but she can't afford a mortgage. In Blackpool's shopping centre I spoke to one mother whose son faces daily stress because of the rent that he's paying. This young man lives in daily fear of eviction. I also visited Cork Penny Dinners, an outstanding organisation run by volunteers. Once a soup kitchen, but it now provides accommodation services. This is a charity that has stepped up because of the mess that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have created. All across the state people are rightfully angry at the sight of boarded up council houses. They are frustrated with each news report about rents reaching new record highs. They are baffled at this stage by the complete lack of delivery and they are baffled. They are baffled at reports such as the one we hear today which tells us of the huge impact of homelessness on the physical and psychological health of homeless children and babies. People are sick of this housing crisis and yet it still seems to go on and on. We have homes that are affordable homes that are affordable homes that will take families off our housing lists and homes that people can afford to rent but that's not what we are getting. The plan for the site concocted by the Dublin agreement parties is a dog's dinner. A stark example of everything that is wrong with housing policy in this state and it simply won't deliver for the needs of the people. The plan for the families and families and families and families and families and there will be no affordable rental homes. The plan as it stands is a bonanza for the developer at the expense of the local community. Very alarmingly, Minister, the team of Fianna Fáil, the Greens, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party knew that their plan was a dog's dinner when they forced it through Dublin City Council and I believe we need to call a hold to this chance your arm politics that has led to all of this mess in the first place. We need a change of direction and we need a change of plan. Sinn Féin has proposed the right scheme for this site. A third, a third, a third division between social or council housing, cost rental housing and affordable sales. So there will be a meeting on Monday night to decide this matter. I want to call on Dublin City Councilors to do the right thing and to scrap this dog's dinner of a deal. I want them also to support a new deal. I want to put it to you, Minister, that the government would equally support a new scheme for a Daphne Gardens and commit to resource that new plan also. Thank you, Deputy. Minister. Thank you, Deputy, for raising this issue. Just to say that the Taoiseach was in Cork last Saturday and there is a new affordable housing investment there of £300 million and there is £310 million into a new affordable shared housing scheme in Cork. So I have no doubt that that is welcome and there will be affordable homes included in that investment. Just to say that the supply of new homes is increasing. There are 4,920 new homes completed in quarter two in 2019. That is an 11 per cent increase on quarter two 2018. Over 18,000 new homes were built in 2018 and that is a 25 per cent increase on 2017 and the highest number of newly built homes any year this decade. A total of nearly 42,300 new homes have been built since the launch of Rebuilding Ireland in 2016 and this supply of new homes will continue to increase. And a total of 28,970 planning permissions were granted in quarter one. That is up 21 per cent and a total commencement notices in June 2019 were 24,226. So that is up 29 per cent on last year. So the supply of homes is increasing and just to go back to O'Devony Gardens. That is a 100 million investment. On Monday the 4th of November, Dublin City Council, by 38 votes to 19, they agreed to proceed with a proposal by the Dublin City Council executive to develop lands in O'Devony Gardens. Bartrae will now be contracted to build 768 houses and apartments on the site. Currently 50 per cent of the scheme, 411 units has been earmarked for private housing and a further 30 per cent has been ring fenced for social housing with another 20 per cent set to become affordable housing. In advance of the vote, councillors representing Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Social Democrats and the Green Party indicated that an agreement had been secured to purchase 30 per cent of the total units available at O'Devony Gardens from Bartrae. However, the Council voted on 4 November to proceed on the basis of the original plan and the agreement referred to by councillors appears to have no legal standing. Bartrae has simply indicated a willingness to sell private units to the Council at prices it will itself determine. Acquiring homes at the full open market price cannot be a basis for affordable cost rental as the rent which results requires to finance the loans and other costs will be close to market rents. I would suggest that the Taoiseach might go back to Cork and not for the purposes of a photo op with a hard hat on but actually go and talk to the people who have told me and I'm sure no doubt would tell him of their huge anger and frustration because the houses are not available Minister and there's no point in you standing up and trying to bamboozle people with statistics. The lived reality is that people cannot get housed and they pass by boarded up houses to add insult to injury. On the issue of O'Devony Gardens, you see we're left in a situation now where public land will afford to a developer a big big windfall and the community will be left in the lurch. We're caught between on the one hand Finnegal who don't know what affordability means and so their plan brought forward no affordable purchase homes and then Fianna Fáil Labour, sadly the Greens and the Social Democrats also who cobbled together a maria, a dog's dinner of a so-called deal just to get this proposal through Council. They misled Dublin City Council, they misled the general public but most damningly they misled the community that live in that part of the inner city. So I want to put it to you again Minister that these proposals with Bartra be put aside, that we collectively do the right thing, a thing that is absolutely doable and achievable and deliver real affordable homes, affordable rental homes and the much needed Council housing. That can still be done, but we need people to step up and move away from the Fianna Fáil brand of chance your arm on anything, wing it and hope you'll get away with this. This is a disgrace. What is happening on this site is an absolute disgrace and I think the Government is duty bound to intervene. Minister. Okay, thank you. Just to say about affordable, we certainly know about affordable because the houses in Cork that I mentioned earlier, a 310 million investment are certainly affordable at €200,000 is the cost of the affordable houses there. And just to say that, you know, I may give you statistics, but statistics is a new home and that means better figures means more homes for more people. And just going back to the O'Devony Gardens issue, you are right Deputy, we have to be honest with people. I am telling people, giving people misinformation is not, we should not be doing that. And just to be clear on the O'Devony Gardens issue, there is no new agreement. We have the original deal, it is agreed. And just to be clear that any change to the O'Devony Gardens proposal as it stands at the minute, it's set it back another five years. And I don't think people want to wait another five years. Yeah, I think this this this this this this go ahead. Thank you.