I will respond first to the comments of Deputy Matthews, the chairman of our committee. These amendments would not stop private investment in any housing project. It would stop a particular type of developer-led development, exactly as the Minister said. It would stop PPPs and joint ventures. Almost of all of the AHB sector, for example, is financed either directly by private finance from banks or with private finance funnelled through the Housing Finance Agency. That would continue if these amendments were to pass…

My amendment in the group speaks to section 6 and the reference to open market dwelling, and that term is only fully explained in section 8. This is a significant innovation in the Bill that, from memory, I believe was not raised at the pre-legislative scrutiny phase or in the general scheme of the Bill. It is not clear what the Minister intends to do and my fear and that of Deputy O'Callaghan - we share an amendment - is that this would allow a local authority to use the serviced sites fund, or the affordable hous…

I thank the Minister for that. I want to tease it out. I am genuinely open to the proposition in front of us. I have spoken to representatives of a number of smaller, more rural, local authorities who have indicated that even with the serviced sites fund, the delivery of affordable homes within the price point I would like could be difficult. In his second response I would like to pin the Minister down a little more. Is he saying that this provision would not be usable, for example, for an individual or a couple in…

I will be brief, as there are only four minutes left before the guillotine falls. I support the amendments, but given that we will not have time to discuss the Minister's significant amendment to Part V of the Planning and Development Act, I ask that he send a briefing note to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage providing more detail on it. I also ask that his officials appear before the committee at the earliest opportunity to answer questions. It could be a private briefing session.…

Sinn Féin is not opposing these amendments. I will not repeat the broader debate we had on whether this is the right policy as we had that debate during Private Members' time this week. However, I will raise a number of concerns I would genuinely like the Minister to consider following the enactment of the amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act he has just outlined. In the press release announcing the change from the 4% RPZ cap to linking rent reviews to the harmonised index of consumer prices, the Minister sa…

This is a very bad way to make planning law. I am saying that as somebody who agreed, albeit reluctantly, to waive pre-legislative scrutiny because I understood the motivation of the Minister was to resolve a number of very important problems, which we wanted to help him resolve. My comments, therefore, are not being made in any opposition to this legislation, but planning law is complex. If planning law is rushed, not properly scrutinised and the decisions we take tonight end up being inadequate, two things will h…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am sharing time with a number of colleagues. The first legislation I introduced following my election to the Dáil was the Rent Certainty Bill 2016. At that stage, rents had been already rising sharply for two years. The purpose of that Bill was to link rent reviews to an index such as the consumer price index. As CPI was at virtually zero at that stage, that would have constrained rents and given renters a break. Unfortunately, on that night, on the floor of the …

I thank all the Deputies who spoke in support of the Bill. It is five years since I introduced a Bill to constrain rents in the private rental sector in this House. At that time, the Minister of State's party supported the Bill to link rents to inflation. All of the arguments that I have heard tonight are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael arguments, even when they are made by Green Party Deputies, and they are the same arguments that were used five years ago not to take the kind of action that I proposed then. Since Fianna…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 (as amended) to provide for a prohibition on rent increases for all existing and new tenancies for three years. Rents are simply far too high. There are more than 300,000 registered rental tenancies throughout the State. Three-quarters of a million people live in the private rental sector. Over recent years, rents have continued to spiral out of control. In the dying days of 2016, the then Minister with res…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I support this group of amendments. A grouping list has not been circulated. Not that it is essential but if there is one that could be made available to Members, it would be of great help. One of the perplexing things about the Land Development Agency is why, under its Fine Gael proposition and now under the proposal in front of us from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, it is proposed in the way that it is. There is no doubt we need public agencies to build increasing numbers of social and affordable hom…

I will stick to discussing the Bill and the amendments in question. For four decades, housing policy expert after housing policy expert has been calling for an active land management agency, a strong State agency with a significant budget and comprehensive CPO powers. The job of that agency would be to amass land holdings and, working in partnership with the appropriate State agency, assist those being developed. That is what we should be debating here today. Unfortunately, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as parts of go…

We are happy to support this group of amendments. It seems to me from listening to a number of Government backbenchers that they just do not understand the reason we need an active land management agency, despite the fact that for 40 years, report after report, including Government reports, have explained why it is needed. Unless there is an active land management agency whose sole function is in the public interest to acquire strategically important pieces of land, either from other State agencies who are not usin…

My big fear is that, just like NAMA, in years to come-----

-----we will be sitting at a Committee of Public Accounts with serious controversies-----

-----because of the bad way this was developed.

Dublin City Council's strategic development zone, SDZ, master plan for the Poolbeg lands was approved in 2019. The SDZ will provide a much-needed 3,500 new homes on the site, as well as economic opportunity and social amenities. Thanks to a very determined campaign by the Irish Glass Bottle Housing Action Group, the SDZ plan includes a commitment to deliver 15% of these homes at affordable prices. As I am sure the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, knows, that is in addition to the 10% social housing required under Part …

Both Dublin City Council and the local community need the Government to get more directly involved to resolve this dispute. There is approximately €80 million of public funds earmarked for infrastructure in the strategic development zone. Of that, €15 million is from the Minister's own Department, which is co-funding the bridge to complete the south docks. There is up to €20 million in funding from the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, allocated to the Seán Moore bridge and roundabout. The Minster is a…

The programme for Government promised an examination of the issue of defective housing in the first 12 months. The programme states that the examination will have "regard to the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing report, ‘Safe as Houses’." As the Minister knows, that report called for the introduction of a latent defects redress scheme for affected homeowners. The working group on defective buildings was announced by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O…

I specifically ask about the collation of data relating to domestic and gender-based violence. As the Minister of State knows, it has been almost two decades since a landmark sexual abuse and violence in Ireland report. Following a very lengthy campaign by advocates and front-line service providers, agreement was reached between the Department of Justice and the Central Statistics Office by way of a memorandum of understanding in 2019 on the undertaking of a comprehensive State-wide survey on the prevalence of sexu…