Paul Murphy criticises 'Housing for All', urges rent controls
Paul Murphy criticised the government's Housing for All plan, calling it a continuation of a private-sector-led 'trickle-down' model that benefits developers rather than renters. He argued the plan relies on private delivery for headline targets, offers little for renters and called for rent controls and a new rental board.
Main critique of Housing for All
He said the document's name bears no relation to its content and suggested it should be called 'profits for a minority' because its core is a continuation of incentivising the private sector. Murphy said the government's claim to deliver 300,000 homes by 2030 largely rests on estimating what private developers will build, allowing the State to wash its hands of responsibility if the private sector fails to deliver.
Social housing commitments
He acknowledged an increase in promised social housing to roughly 10,000 units a year but warned much of this will come through part five arrangements, refurbishments and private provision. He said the detail shows reliance on the private market and that only a small proportion of private builds will be delivered as social housing.
Sale of public land and local vote
Murphy highlighted a South Dublin County Council vote where Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats approved selling public land to a private developer, with Sinn Féin abstaining. He noted the land was not given to the Land Development Agency and that some plots will be built at market price while the majority will be labelled 'affordable' - meaning discounted market-rate housing that he described as unaffordable.
Renter crisis and government response
He warned there is almost nothing for renters in Housing for All despite record rents, particularly in Dublin, and over half a million households trapped in the private rented sector paying large shares of their income on rent. He criticised the government's plan to extend rent pressure zones to 2024 and to link rents to the harmonised index of consumer prices, arguing this will index rents to inflation and effectively enrich landlords while impoverishing tenants.
Policy proposals from People for Profit
Murphy set out specific demands including statutory rent controls and rent reductions, tying rents to incomes so no one pays a third or more of their income on rent, and creating a rental board to enforce minimum accommodation standards, secure tenancies and reduce existing rents to below 2011 levels. He said People for Profit is campaigning for those measures as the real response to the rental crisis.
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Housing for All, it's a good name, I will give you that for a policy document, it's a name, that's I think borrowed from the housing movement, but it obviously bears no relationship to the actual content of what is in it and the strategy of the government. If you were to name it accurately, it would be more something like profits for a minority, profits for the few, profits for developers, because the core of the so-called housing for all plan is simply a continuation of the same failed reliance on incentivising the private sector to deliver housing, effectively it's like trickle-down housing, that's the model of the government. And it really takes some level of gumption by the government to say we're going to deliver 300,000 homes by 2030, that's the blaring headline that they want. When actually, I did find it quite astounding, and I'm used to a lot from this government, but when actually the majority of those homes, it's simply the government estimating what the private sector is going to deliver. That's it. The government doesn't have any hand or part in it, it's simply saying the private sector is going to deliver that. So if they do deliver it, well then the government gets to say, okay, great, but if they don't deliver it, well then the government washes its hands of it, they have no responsibility in relation to it. It's the same model of incentivising private developers to build, and hoping some of that trickles down to ordinary people. I want to focus on a couple of different points. One is in terms of what are relatively significant increases due to the pressure from below in terms of the amount of social housing that is promised on a yearly basis, something like 10,000 a year. But what is emerging in terms of the details of this is that you're including part fives in that, so these aren't separate, like, driven by local authority bills taking place. You're relying on the private market and then hoping that you get 10 to 20 percent of those. We know that you're also, that they aren't all new bills, that they're also including refurbishments. And we know, of course, and we debated this, I think, last week, that you bowed to the lobbying of the private developers in accepting that many of them would be exempt, and that will go for a long time into the future. The other point is that, like, literally a week or so after Housing for All came out, the same government policy continued in terms of the privatisation of public land. And in South Dublin County Council, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Greens, Labour, Social Democrats, all voted to sell off public land to a private developer, and unfortunately Sinn Féin didn't vote against, they abstained. And strikingly, like, the land was not given to the land development agency, the government's gone on and on and on about the LDA and how we're going to give the land to the LDA and the LDA, no, it was given to a private developer. And some of the land will just build at market price houses, and a majority of the land will be used for so-called affordable housing, which in reality is just at a discount to the market rate and will be unaffordable. What I want to focus on, though, is the area where there's the most glaring emissions in Housing for All, which is for renters. There's almost nothing for renters in Housing for All. Rents in Ireland are at the highest on record, and Dublin has amongst the highest rents in the world. Over half a million households are trapped in the private rented sector, their lives blighted by housing insecurity and unaffordability. Those renters are commonly paying 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent and more of their income on rent. They have little, if anything, left over after rent to pay for the essentials. We're looking at a crisis in terms of fuel prices, and yet they're going to have to continue to pay these levels of rent. We know almost half a million young people are trapped living with their parents because they cannot afford to rent a place of their own. And how does Housing for All respond to this unprecedented crisis of affordability? It states that the government will extend rent pressure zones to 2024 and will link rents to the harmonised index of consumer prices. So we have amongst the highest rental costs in the world, and the government's big, great idea is to ensure that they increase with inflation. And this is just when inflation is taking off. Inflation reached 3 percent last month, and it looks set to go higher. And the government has had the neck to refer to this as a rent value freeze. It was the Tornishte who commented last week that we need to balance that one person's rent is another person's income. Won't somebody please think of the corporate landlords and their need for their income? It is balanced all right. It's balanced at a level that index links the enrichment of landlords, many of them in this chamber, and impoverishes renters. Once again, landlords will be toasting their peers in government. Instead, we need rent controls, we need rent reductions. Rents should be linked to income, with nobody forced to pay a third or more of their income on rent. People for Profit is campaigning for those sort of real rent controls to bring rents down to affordable levels. And we're arguing for the establishment of a rental board with responsibility to maintain minimum accommodation standards, secure tenancy leases, and reduction of existing rents to below 2011 levels. Thank you.
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