Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators for their contributions. I will address some of the points raised by Senators before my closing remarks. An overarching thing to say, which goes back to the point raised by Senators Warfield, Gavan and Boylan, about the notion that the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, dismissed the commission’s work, is that is certainly not the case. It is simply not the case. He is giving active consideration to it. As Senator Fitzpatrick said, it is an incredibly important piece of work. It is a hefty piece of work and it takes time to give consideration to it. Many of the recommendations in it are well under way in the work of the Government. Regarding the reset, it is happening. It is called Housing for All.

I refer to issues raised by Senator Warfield specifically around home ownership. There are a record number of mortgage drawdowns - some 34% of all new homes purchased in the up to year March 2024, which was up from 25% in 2020. Senator Warfield also raised affordable housing. There were some 4,000 affordable home supports in 2023, which is a 128% increase; 1,600 cost rentals homes; funding to deliver 4,097 affordable homes through cost rental by local authorities; Project Tosaigh - 2,500; transferring public lands to the LDA – 256 in Cork and 219 in Naas; and STAR – the secure tenancy affordable rental investment scheme. There is very significant progress in affordable housing under way.

I dispute the comments made by Senator Gavan on the over-reliance on the market. It is quite the opposite. The recalibration that has happened under Housing for All is moving towards supporting local authorities and AHBs to deliver housing at scale as well.

Regarding the referendum, it is important that the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, has already stated that recommendations on the wording will go to the JOC. The Oireachtas consensus is important for that.

A number of points were raised that people cannot see a future in the country. However, many young people are opting to return to Ireland because of the job opportunities here.

I agree with Senator Fitzpatrick and thank her for her consideration of the report. It is quite a lot to digest and it is something we as Government want to give active consideration to.

I refer to Senator Cummins’s points on rebuilding the housing sector, which happened under Rebuilding Ireland on former Minister, Eoghan Murphy’s watch as well. It has taken time but we are starting to see the merits of that now.

I give credit to Senator Wall for at least bringing proposals here this evening, which are most welcome from the Labour Party.

I take on board the points raised by a number of Senators on Croí Cónaithe, the draw-down and staged payments. We will take that back to the Department and, separately, the housing adaptation grants, that review and recommendations from DPER on that.

I think that is pretty much all of the issues that were specifically raised, but many of them are in the closing statement anyway.

I thank and reaffirm this Government’s commitment to tackling the housing crisis. We know these challenges are having a real impact on people’s lives and the nation as a whole. We understand the urgency and the need to ensure that people have safe, secure and affordable homes. We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge and are working day in, day out to address these challenges and implement policies to steer this country out of this crisis.The Sinn Féin motion argues for a strategic reset of housing policy. It argues for a change of Government and for a new housing plan in line with the scale of ambition as set out in the Housing Commission report. Of course, no sooner had the details of the report made its way into the public domain than members of the Opposition began to use the report as a political tool without examining it or having regard to the comprehensive analysis or detail within. This motion does not take into regard the step change we have seen in housing delivery since 2020. Any objective analysis would agree that we are clearly on the right track and the measures in Housing for All are having a positive impact.

The Government's countermotion reaffirms the progress being made under the Government's Housing for All plan. It clarifies the remit of the report of the Housing Commission and it details the Government's next steps in terms of considering the report, as well as factoring the commission's recommendations and proposed actions into the Government's long-term housing policy. The Government has placed an unrelenting and unwavering focus on addressing the significant challenges in the housing market, and significant progress has been made. More than 109,000 homes have been built since the start of 2024, continuing the significant uplift in supply seen in 2022. A total of 33,000 of these were delivered in 2023 alone. This included a record 12,000 new social homes delivered through a mix of new builds, acquisitions and leasing, again building on the increase seen in 2022. Moreover, the Government provided more than 4,000 affordable housing supports in 2023, more than twice the delivery in 2022. It is worth noting that the delivery of affordable housing was from a standing start prior to 2022, with the Government providing the first affordable homes in a generation.

Critical measures implemented by the Government, including the development levy waiver and water connection refund, have boosted acceleration of the pipeline of new housing, with an extraordinary surge in new home commencements to some 53,000 in the year to the end of April and more than 18,000 in April alone. Our ambition is to build on this progress and deliver more in 2024 and beyond. It is supported by €5.1 billion in capital investment, the highest level of funding in the history of the State. Forecasts suggest we will meet our targets this year, with a massive bump in commencements in the 12 months to April, suggesting we will continue to build on the significant recent increase in supply in 2025 and beyond. All of this suggests that a radical policy reset is already in train.

More specifically to the report on the Housing Commission, I sincerely thank the members of the commission on behalf of the Government for their work over the past two years. The report's conclusions and recommendations will no doubt contribute to a healthy, informed and robust policy debate and will help to shape the direction of housing strategy into the future. The Housing Commission has delivered what it was tasked with. It considered the long-term housing policy post 2030 and put forward proposals to build on Housing for All and other policy initiatives. The report was submitted to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, only three weeks ago, and yet it is already being noted by the Government and has been published in full. The Minister also published the commission's referendum reports, which will be formally referred to the joint Oireachtas committee on housing in the coming weeks for its consideration.

Notwithstanding the Minister's prompt action, now is not the time for a rushed, knee-jerk or uninformed debate. As the Taoiseach noted in the Dáil last week, it is in fact a time to reflect on the comprehensive suite of 83 recommendations and 540 actions. It is time for a measured consideration of more than 400 pages of detailed analysis and conclusions, the culmination of two and a half years of dedicated and committed work by the commission. In this vein and ensuring as full consideration as possible, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, now asks the Housing Agency to analyse the costings, implementation timelines and prioritisation of the commission's recommendations. These were not included in the report, yet there are crucial for a full and proper consideration of the recommendations.

The report and the Housing Agency's analysis will help to inform the Minister, Deputy O'Brien's, proposals for next steps, the next Housing for All action plan update and the revised housing targets to be brought to Government and published in the autumn. Importantly, as would be expected, not everything in the commission's report is or will be accepted or agreed. In some areas significant work is already under way while other areas may not be feasible or practical to implement. For example, while outside the scope of the original terms of reference, the commission considered and made recommendations on planning reform. Its considerations in this regard have already been superseded by a significant planning reform programme already under way, including the Planning and Development Bill and the national planning framework revision. The Planning and Development Bill was brought forward by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Minister and I and other colleagues brought it through Committee Stage a number of weeks ago and it will find its way here as well. Similarly, work is already advanced on a refresh of the Government's housing targets from 2025 onwards, as planned. The Government will publish the revised targets in the autumn. While this work will have regard to the commission's conclusions, it will be informed first and foremost by independent peer-reviewed research by the ESRI based on long-run population and housing demand projections. It is worth emphasising that the Government's targets will be the only targets informed by such robust and transparent evidence.

It is too early to say with the final targets will be but they are likely to be somewhere in the range of 50,000 to 55,000, on average, per year. Neither planning matters nor housing targets will be considered by the Housing Agency. Instead, the work already advanced by the Government in these areas will continue apace. It is also important to note that many of the commission's recommendations are already implemented, under way or partially under way. Indeed, initial assessments suggest some 65 or so of the 83 recommendations may already be in train to some extent, some significantly more so that others but under way nonetheless. Allied with the significant progress since 2020, this suggests a significant shift has already occurred in housing policy and the development of a sustainable housing system in this country. Rather than set to nought what the Government has achieved in the past four years, the commission's recommendations instead provide a set of options for the period post 2030, helping the Government to build on the significant progress achieved in recent years.

The continued implementation of Housing for All, albeit refreshed and informed having regard to the report of the Housing Commission, represents the most appropriate response to the housing challenges Ireland is now facing. It is working. There has been a step change since 2020, evidenced by more than 60,000 new homes delivered in the past two years, increasing numbers and share of homes purchased by first-time buyers, and more social homes delivered last year than in any other year in a generation. Nobody in the Government believes that everything is perfect or even close to it, but it is clear by any metric that significant progress is being made. It will be sustained this year and undoubtedly built upon in 2025 and 2026, all underpinned by the Government's Housing for All plan. That said, we must continue to strive to achieve more. With a policy direction guided by the Housing Commission's recommendations, we will do this.