Today is a significant day in terms of housing policy in Ireland. It comes after a number of decisions the Government has already taken. This plan today needs to be seen in the context of the national development plan published this summer, where we significantly increased the level of investment directly in house building. After listening to people across the country, local authorities and people who build our homes, we also significantly increased the funding for the enabling infrastructure, investing more than €50 billion between water, transport and energy to enable housing supply. The plan also needs to be seen in the context of a piece of work that will conclude at the end of this month, which will speed up the delivery of infrastructure. Something we can all agree on is that we need to accelerate the delivery of infrastructure. There are too many communities in which it is taking too long to deliver vital projects. We were very clear during the election that fixing this would be a key priority for the Government. It is also important to say that, yes, we are living through a housing emergency, and the purpose of the plan today is to make real progress and deliver 300,000 more homes during the lifetime of the plan, but it is also important for people watching at home to know there are some encouraging signs too. In the first half of this year, we saw the completion of new homes at the highest rate since 2008. We saw the number of new dwellings completed in the first three quarters of this year increase by 13% on the same period last year. These are additional new homes completed compared with the same period last year. For quarter 1 to quarter 3 of this year, we saw the highest completion figure of apartments for any time since 2011 when data started to be gathered. Something that is never said in this House from the Opposition benches is that we have seen the highest number of first-time buyers draw down their mortgage since 2007. We have seen more than 11,000 properties being approved under the vacant property refurbishment grant. The scale of challenge in relation to housing and ramping up housing supply is real and acute, but these are also real statistics that are having real benefits in the lives of people across our country. The Deputy said today, as I expected him to say, no matter what was in the plan - I could have said it for him - that there is nothing new in the plan. Of course, that is not true. There are many new things in this plan, including a new €1 billion infrastructure investment fund to help to de-risk the development of sites in towns and cities to maximise their potential opportunities. There are measures to enable developers to deliver new stand-alone wastewater treatment plants in rural Ireland. Across my constituency and the country I have heard of parts of our country where it has not been possible to build any homes because of the inability to allow a developer to deliver a wastewater treatment plant, albeit to an Irish Water standard. There is a new fund, which I presume the Deputy will welcome, of €400 million over the next three years for small developers. I do not think he does welcome it.
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That is welcome news.
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There is also an additional €100 million, specifically in 2026, to get families out of emergency accommodation, particularly children-----
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-----and into homes. It is new money of €100 million that has not yet been spent in 2026. Do not mislead the people. The Deputy will accept it is €100 million for 2026 that has not yet been spent. That will need to be repeated each year during the lifetime of this plan. There is a new performance fund to incentivise local authorities to exceed their annual own-build social house targets. Targets are not the ceiling. They need to go further, drive on and do more. There is a starter home programme delivering an average of 15,000 affordable home supports per year for families, including many schemes which, quite frankly, the Deputy would scrap. Under Sinn Féin, the help to buy and first home schemes would be gone, first home owners would be abandoned, restrictions would be applied to the vacant and derelict property grant, the Land Development Agency would be abolished despite the fact it is now delivering real homes for real people across our country. Restrictions Sinn Féin would put in place would mean a garda married to a nurse in the fourth year of their jobs would not be able to access supports under Sinn Féin’s so-called affordable home scheme. We had the election and Sinn Féin’s proposals were rejected. We are getting on with the job.
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I have.
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They are.
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I agree there is certainly one fundamental difference between Sinn Féin and the Government when it comes to housing. Sinn Féin wants this plan to fail because it believes it will do well if our housing plan fails. We intend to work every night and day to build housing but Sinn Féin thrives on the misery-----
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-----and exploiting the intergenerational anxiety of others.
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It needs this plan to fail-----
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-----so it can exploit the challenges people face. Of course, the Government is not going to fail because the Government has already delivered. The Deputy talks about my record in government. We delivered over 137,000 new homes during the lifetime of Housing for All.
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We will deliver 300,000 homes-----
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You will not shout me down.
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You will not shout me down. You will not bully me.
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You will not shout me down. Let me speak, please.
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No, you are shouting me down when it is my time to speak.
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The people at home actually want to know what we are going to do and what we are going to do is very clear. We are going to deliver a plan that has a record level of funding, that breaks down silos, that puts a new focus on starter homes, and that sets targets for local authorities. The Deputy tells people there are no targets; that is simply untrue. The target is over 300,000 homes in the lifetime of the plan.
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When we had an action plan on jobs, we did not set an annual target-----
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-----but we exceeded that target, delivered jobs and got our country back to full employment.
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We will exceed the housing target as well.
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Your plan was rejected-----
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-----and you want this plan to fail so you can politically thrive.
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First, I want to extend my deepest sympathy to Deputy Sheehan's colleague Deputy George Lawlor on the passing of his mum, Betty. I understand he delivered a very heart-warming tribute to her yesterday and I join Members across the House in extending my sympathy to him and all of his family at this difficult time. I thank Deputy Sheehan for raising these issues. I accept that he does not want the plan to fail. I also accept that generally our engagements in relation to housing are constructive. We have different perspectives and different views on occasion but I appreciate that point. I have to reject or disagree with a number of the assertions the Deputy has made. Yes, the State needs to do more in terms of direct building but there is no way the State is going to build all of the homes that our country requires. I think the Deputy and I can agree on that. There is a target of delivering 300,000 more homes over the lifetime of the plan. Roughly speaking, from memory, around 162,000 of those homes will either be social homes, local authority homes or will be homes that are part-funded through a variety of Government schemes. That is a very significant proportion. In fact, I would argue that this country is investing more Exchequer funding relative to the market than many, if not most, other European countries. Even doing that, I think the Deputy and I will also agree that we are still going to need the private sector to build more homes as well. That is where we are going to get the bulk of delivery. To do that we have to open up sites and listen to those who build homes and the local authorities in terms of the feedback they are getting as well. That is why I reject the assertion that there is nothing in this plan that is going to make a material difference. We are investing hugely in the enabling infrastructure around water and wastewater. We are enabling small developers on small sites to put in their own infrastructure which will help rural and regional communities right across the country. In relation to the targets, just to be clear on this, the target is very clear. It is 300,000 more homes over the lifetime of the plan. When we were in government with Deputy Sheehan's party, we had a target for the action plan on jobs of 100,000 new jobs. We did not break it down every year, and the Labour Party did not look for that either, but we exceeded the target. We have got to be clear here. I do not accept this idea of arbitrary deadlines, whether something is finished on 31 December or 1 January, or the idea that somebody can sit back and say they have done their bit for this county for this year and will wait until next year. We need a constant pipeline over the lifetime of this plan and we need people hungry to do more. That is why, as the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and the Minister, Deputy Browne, have made clear, we are putting a fund in place to reward and incentivise local authorities that go above and beyond their so-called target in terms of either social or starter homes. In relation to children, and child homelessness in particular, we are taking two very significant steps. One is the fund to help get families out of homelessness, with €100 million next year to be ring-fenced. I am being clear that this is going to need to be repeated each year. That needs to really ramp up, to resource and fund our local authorities in a ring-fenced way to help to get children out of homelessness and get a roof over their heads. The second step - and I have heard Focus Ireland and others seek this - is changes to the social housing allocation scheme to prioritise homeless children. That is also in the plan.
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Some of them are, and some are better than others. I do not think it is uniform across the country. I have got to be very honest. I have a league table that the Minister for housing has published, which shows some local authorities well exceeding their council targets for social housing, including the county of Wicklow that I represent, and others making a paltry contribution. When national targets are missed, they are not missed at a national level. They are missed by local authorities. I do not believe that every local authority is doing everything possible. I do not believe there is a consistent approach, whereby every hospital equally performs and every council equally performs. That is why we should incentivise good behaviour, good practice, good policy and political courage to do more and deliver more in communities. I do not agree with the assertion around the Land Development Agency. I have just come from Donore, a site here in Dublin city, where we are delivering with the LDA, in partnership with Dublin City Council, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. I would ask the Labour Party to reflect on this. We are trying to make changes to apartment standards so we can have flexibility to deliver more accommodation and one of its elected representatives-----
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-----is going to court. One of its elected representatives has rushed to the courts to try to block those changes to apartment standards.
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I ask Deputy Sheehan respectfully, as his party's spokesperson on housing-----
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-----to pick up the phone to his councillor and tell him to stop weaponising the use of the courts to try to delay changes we need to make to apartment standards. There will be students in Limerick who need more apartments and student accommodation to be built and the Labour Party councillor is actively delaying that in my respectful opinion.
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I always think phrases such as "donning hard hats" are a bit pejorative. People put on hard hats when they visit building sites because of health and safety. It is the law of the land. Ministers go out and about to meet people who build homes. I am proud to do that and to listen directly to the people who build homes, including at the LDA site I visited with the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, the Minister, Deputy Browne, and the Taoiseach this morning, where more than 500 homes are being built, which will come on stream in 2027. It is a real partnership between Dublin City Council, a developer and the LDA, making a real difference. We will not be prisoners of ideology. We will work in every pragmatic way we can to increase the amount of housing and, as a practical example of that, I will always wear a hard hat on a building site. The Deputy said it was the fourth housing plan. Of course, it is because the housing plan needs to be replaced every few years. It has a deadline. He also suggested that Fine Gael and Fine Gael alone wrote the last four housing plans. Fine Gael has been in government during that time with Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Green Party and Independents. Many political parties in this House have had an opportunity during that period to feed in their constructive suggestions to the housing plan and this is the latest instalment. On the one hand the Deputy criticised us for having a fourth housing plan while on the other he said it was delayed. I am genuinely intrigued by the Deputy's political position on tax. Perhaps it is his view that tax should not be used as a viability measure in housing. I disagree but it is a legitimate political view to have. Perhaps he believes that when we look at the ledger we should only use the spending side. We in the Government do not. We believe we should use the spending side to invest massive amounts of the people's money in building infrastructure, whether it be for water, wastewater, electricity or the transport projects that are needed in all our constituencies to open up sites, and directly in housing, including social housing that is being built at record levels. However, we also believe we should use the tax side to reduce the cost of building and there have been encouraging signs since we made that change only a few weeks ago in the reaction of the market. I value the market. It has an important role to play in the delivery of an increasing supply and I am encouraged by what I heard from those responsible for building apartments; that the decision we took, which we voted for and the Social Democrats voted against, will make a real difference in reducing the cost of building an apartment. If we are to reach or exceed 300,000 units we need a lot more apartments to be built. I am also encouraged by the fact that while we have a long way to go, we have seen the highest completion figure for apartments this year so far between the first quarter and third quarter, in any time since 2011 when my party first came into government in the midst of a financial crisis. On targets, let me be clear. All the data points will continue to be published.
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Deputies will continue to see the quarterly commencement figures, the completion figures, the planning permission figures and the mortgage drawdown figures, which show there are more first-time buyers now than at any point since 2007. However, just like the approach we took on the action plan for jobs, we will provide an opportunity for a pipeline over the lifetime of the Government and we will be judged on that. We have been clear in our commitment for 300,000 homes over the lifetime of the plan. That is the target. It is the commitment and it is not the ceiling.
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We will be judged on the delivery of this plan. It is a good plan and it is only part of the jigsaw. The national development plan is an equally important part in which we took the decision this summer to significantly increase investment. From memory, there will be over €50 billion extra for the enabling infrastructure such as transport, water, wastewater and energy. That will be key. The next instalment will be at the end of this month, when the Minister, Deputy Chambers, will bring forward proposals to accelerate infrastructure delivery. I hope the Deputy will support proposals that require emergency powers to deliver critical infrastructure more quickly. There is too much running to the courts. People have a right to access the courts. It is not a natural extension of the planning process. There is a thing called the common good or the public good and we need to deliver infrastructure much more quickly and I look forward to debating those points.
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The Minister for housing is attending an event. He will look forward to having a debate with the Deputy because he looks forward to hearing how the Social Democrats will build all this stuff.
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It is easy to come in here and say they are against everything.
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What does the Deputy think I am, his secretary? I do not know where the Minister is going.
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I have missed Deputy Gould's interruptions. He was very quiet. I was wondering why he was so quiet.
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Perhaps it has been a tough day at the Sinn Féin office.
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Sinn Féin TDs were a bit quieter with the heckling today.
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I do not know who trains Deputy O'Callaghan but he would want to get well trained before the next debate on housing.
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As is often the case, I agree with the Deputy on some things and disagree with him on others. I will try to take him through that. Rents in this country are too high. That is why we have taken a number of measures to try to increase supply. I am of the view that when you increase the supply of housing, there is a demand-and-supply effect. I also believe that we need to do other things in the here and now. That is why we have taken the decision in the budget to extend the rent tax credit for the next number of years. It is also why we rolled out the rent pressure zones nationwide. When this Government came to office in January, parts of this country were not covered by rent pressure zones. Donegal comes to mind in that regard. We fixed that as well. I do not think many people thought this Government was going to do that. However, that was the decision we made. The Deputy referenced a variety of statistics. I am not disputing them, but, of course, it is a case of lies, damned lies and statistics. The Deputy picked some areas of challenge in the context of the statistics. He referenced planning permissions and the like. I can reference the fact that completions are up and that we saw a huge number of commencements happen when we made the changes to development levies. Our job now is to work with industry to make sure that these are converted into actual homes for people to live in. The number of first-time buyers is also up. The Deputy will accept that as a statement of fact. The cost of a home is expensive, but we have seen the highest number of first-time buyers this year since 2007. I agree with the Deputy about the planning issue. Again, I would point to some reforms we have brought in that are bearing fruit. If we were having a debate in this House on this matter not that long ago, we would have been talking about huge backlogs in An Bord Pleanála, as it was then. We are seeing real progress with An Coimisiún Pleanála. There is real progress in decision times and the reduction in wait times. I am hearing that, and the Deputy must be hearing it.
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I am not saying that we are there, but the position is much better than it was. I am putting the House on notice that this Government intends to bring forward legislation in respect of the delivery of critical infrastructure in an emergency manner. I remind people at home that we did that before. We did it in relation to Brexit in the context of port infrastructure. We did it in Rosslare and at Dublin Port. We certainly did it for temporary gas storage. It can be done, and we need to do it. Not everything can be classed as critical infrastructure, but there are major projects, such as those the Deputy referenced, that clearly are critical in nature. We will bring proposals to Government before the end of the year. We will bring proposals to leaders by the end of this month as well, because we need to make sure that where there are projects that are of national significance and there is common good, we speed up delivery. I have significant concerns about the use of judicial reviews and environmental law. I cannot understand environmental law being used to slow down the delivery of wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants improve our environment. In Ireland and in Europe, there is overregulation in this regard. We need to make sure there is not a brass plating or a gold plating of regulation in this country. We also need to ensure that people cannot have an each-way bet with judicial reviews. The Deputy can expect changes from Government in that regard. Uisce Éireann has made progress. It ran a successful public relations campaign in the context of looking for significant additional funding. I have said this directly to it. We provided that funding on the proviso that there will be a link between it and housing supply. Uisce Éireann cannot be the answer to everything. It has to empower developers involved in small or reasonably small developments in rural and regional areas to put infrastructure in place once it is to the Uisce Éireann standard. That has now been agreed and it will be in place by February.
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Yes.
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I am only smiling because the Deputy is the first voice from the Opposition that has actually suggested-----
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I really appreciate that because this united Opposition thing gets presented a lot, but there are different voices and different perspectives. The Deputy is the first Member of the Opposition who has critiqued the Government for not going further with our VAT reduction measure. The rest of them have slated us for doing anything at all in respect of it. That is a point of difference. When you are in government, you are trying to get these balances correct. We made a decision that the acute viability issue related to apartments. We had to make a balanced decision about the composition of the overall package of what was available with regard to tax, and we continue to monitor that. We are encouraged by what we are seeing and by what the industry has said to the Government and to the Oireachtas housing committee in recent weeks. On the issue of serviced and zoned land, with the residential zoned land tax, which has not been without challenge by farmers and others, issues which we are working through, as the Minister, Deputy Heydon knows, we have seen a significant increase in transactions. In other words, people are not sitting on residential zoned land. That is encouraging. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, with the Minister, Deputy Browne, has issued section 28, which is basically to instruct our councils to zone enough land for at least 83,000 houses. This is not rocket science. You have to over-zone because, obviously, not every zoned site converts into homes. It took a little too long for some local authorities to get that point. That is why the Taoiseach, the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, the Minister, Deputy Browne, and I are meeting each of the local authorities' chief executives in small groups. We have met four so far.
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