We need to see a major influx of funding and investment in housing and particularly in affordable, cost-rental and social housing. Right now, thousands of people are without secure, affordable housing and they are crying out for solutions. They are looking for the Minister and this Government to bring forward solutions. Cost rental is a good idea - it is one of the things we can all agree on - but why then has it not been delivered at the scale it needs to be? Last year, only 2,027 cost-rental homes were delivered across the entire State. In Cork alone, 1,200 people applied for 73 cost rentals in one unit. That tells us the demand. The supply being delivered, though, does not meet what is needed. More than half of those homes were delivered by AHBs. They are telling us they have the capacity to build and deliver more. Why is more not being done with these organisations? The problems they are telling us about include the bureaucracy, the red tape and the barriers. There are also barriers in relation to cost-rental equity funding. It is holding the AHBs back. Additional funding would help them to deliver, but there is a need to get rid of the red tape and the bureaucracy. This is about delivery. Everything should be done to speed things up. Last week, the Minister announced tax breaks for people building apartments, but some of these are being built and are nearly ready now. We have a lack of funding in some areas, but then the Minister has set aside €640 million over the next two years for tax breaks for building apartments. It is more than double the budget for affordable purchase homes in the next two years. That is €640 million being spent on apartments. These apartments are viable. As a TD and a former councillor and in my position as my party's spokesman on local government, I have met with developers and builders. They do not go into a development unless they know there is a profit at the end of it. Why is the Minister giving them more money to increase their profits? It just does not make sense. It is costing the local authorities on average €31,000 to renovate a vacant house and that is according to the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, report. It is estimated it would cost €13 million to renovate and repair every boarded-up and vacant county council property. These are properties owned by the State. That €13 million is a drop in the ocean. This is at a time when councils are crying out for funding. They want to do it, but they are not getting the funding from central government. They are not getting it from the Minister. Right across the board, we see these issues. Just to let the Minister know, according to an answer we got at a meeting of Cork City Council last night, the council has spent over €250 million boarding up houses and putting up these metal shutters. It is an absolute disgrace. What a waste of money to spend €250 million boarding up houses that families should be living in because the Minister will not give the money to the local authorities. If that is happening in Cork, there are 30 other local authorities doing the same thing. This does not even include every house being boarded up, because sometimes houses are left to look like they are being lived in and they are not. Families are crying out for housing and somewhere safe to raise their families to live. They are looking around communities where there are boarded-up houses. Who is responsible if the Minister is not responsible?
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I am delighted the Minister said that. This is the pass-the-buck Government, blaming local authorities, which are not being funded. Deputy Browne is the Minister for housing, not the local authority.
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Deputy Browne is the Minister in charge and the man with the purse strings, but he is blaming everyone else. He is like Pontius Pilate; he is washing his hands. If Deputy Eoin Ó Broin or I was the Minister for housing, we would stand up and be counted. We would accept our responsibility and we would deliver the housing. It would cost €13 million to fix every boarded-up house in the State and the Minister will not give it. Will he commit to giving that money to local authorities?
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The Minister is shaking his head. I do not know if anyone is watching, but the Minister is shaking his head saying no, that he will not give money to repair boarded-up houses, to get families out of emergency accommodation and get families out of-----
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The Minister shook his head and said no.
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Ah, Minister.
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I will give the Minister another figure if he wants to burn money instead of building houses. It costs on average €87,500 to keep a family in a hotel in emergency accommodation. That is what we are spending, and it is only €31,000 to repair a boarded-up house. For years I thought the Government was over-smart, saying the market would solve the problem. I am now fully convinced that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not want to solve the housing problem because they are more interested in keeping the banks profitable, the rents and mortgages high and keeping everything high. What about ordinary people? What about ordinary people who cannot pay their rents or get mortgages? I will give the Minister one example. A lady contacted my office on Monday. I have a clinic on Mondays and it is not possible to get in the door of my office for four hours. Afterwards, I have to do a phone clinic for people who cannot come in. She is a 68-year-old lady who is facing homelessness in February. She is going to be homeless when she is 69 years old. Who is responsible? It is the Government's policy. We are seeing more older people become homeless than we ever did before. She is worried that when she is in her seventies she will be homeless. Another lady contacted me. She has been living in emergency accommodation since 8 January with a small baby. The Government is putting hundreds of millions into tax breaks and now people with young children and pensioners are effected. I had a couple in with me the other day. They have four children and cannot get a mortgage because every time they go to buy a house, the prices are being driven up. They do not qualify for social housing-----
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They do not qualify for cost-rental. What is the Minister going to do for them? What is he going to do for families who have nowhere to go and cannot find anywhere to rent or to buy? They are trapped in the middle and the Government let them down in the budget.
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Once again, the Government is leaving out ordinary people.
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These are facts. I will send the Minister the details if he wants them.
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