Immigration is having a “massive” impact on housing, and is the “elephant in the room” when it comes to the issue, the Dáil heard on Tuesday night.
TDs debated an Emergency Action on Housing and Homelessness Motion [Private Members] as crowds gathered outside the Dáil to protest the State’s growing housing crisis. The Raise the Roof protest was coordinated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions which has slammed the situation as “the greatest political failure of our time”.
A range of factors were brought up by TDs, including the impact of immigration on the availability of housing. Aontu TD Paul Lawless said there
“There is an elephant in the room when it comes to housing,” Aontú TD Paul Lawless said.
“Everyone in opposition and in government is entirely focused on discussions on the supply side of this equation, and the Minister has failed in that regard,” the Mayo TD said.
“We must also address the demand issue and the immigration issue. For example, in 2014-15, the State was issuing in the region of 10,000 work permits a year. However, we are now issuing in excess of 40,000 employment visas in the State. The number of residency permits has also ballooned.
‘WE MUST FACE THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM’
Tipperary Independent TD Mattie McGrath agreed, stating: “As Deputy Lawless mentioned, immigration has a massive impact on housing. I know we need nurses and doctors, and many of them do a great job in our hospitals. However, we must face the elephant in the room.
“I refer to the fact that the huge immigration is adding major pressure, but we are not going to talk about it. We are the great saviours of Europe. We can bring everybody in and find homes for them. Roderic O’Gorman told them all they would have their own front doors in 12 weeks if they came. He sent out a tweet in 13 or 14 languages. In the name of God, when are we going to get real and look after our own. We have a Taoiseach who travels the world and talks about the world’s problems, but he is forgetting about the problems here. Looking after our people here first is his fundamental duty under Bunreacht na hÉireann.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br64Kb9dy_s
The TD also referred to a proposal to relax planning permission to allow people to build modular homes, saying:
“The Minister floated an idea some time ago which gave great hope to people who live in cabins and behind houses in different areas. Something meaningful needs to be done about this. He knows and I know that there are hundreds of these cabins in his constituency and in mine. There are thousands throughout the country. They are one of the prongs to sort out the crisis that exists. They are very suitable as starter homes or whatever, and they are fine.”
Deputy McGrath referred to the case of local man Sean Meehan. The 67-year-old Tipperary man was given a prison sentence for failing to remove his log cabin home, built on his own land, sparking huge public backlash.
“We have people before the courts, including Seán Meehan who is facing jail because of his situation with a log cabin,” the Deputy said. “There are rogue developers who have no interest in humanitarian issues. They are interested in filling their pockets, making them fatter and destroying a village like Dundrum in County Tipperary which has a population of 200 by giving approval for an IPAS centre for 277 people, an illegal development that the council was told it was illegal. The fire officer had the cheek to tell us yesterday that he never visited the site once in the previous 12 months. That is the type of blackguarding you are going on with here. You need to get real.”
A range of other related issues were raised, including by Deputy Carol Nolan who said she welcomed the Bill and the call by others to fully fully restore and increase funding for vital homeless prevention schemes, including the tenant in situ scheme and housing first.
She said: “This issue has arisen at my constituency clinics. People are coming to me after experiencing the desperate disappointment of being told that the council or their landlord could not or would not enter into the tenant in situ scheme.
“I will use the brief time available to highlight once again that we have a serious number of approved housing bodies, AHBs. This needs to be tackled. Is this value for money? There are 437 AHBs on the official register. I doubt that is value for money in that. In many cases, I doubt these entities are contributing a vital and important service, such as offering shelter. They offer shelter to victims of domestic violence. However, I feel they should be contributing more and that there should be value for money.
Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, meanwhile, said he was “not one bit happy that landlords or homeowners are being blamed for what is happening in the rental sector.” It came after his brother, TD Michael Healy-Rae’s property firm linked to housing Ukrainian refugees recorded a profit of €840,000 over two years.
“Every site seems to be pointing at people who own houses and are trying to rent them out. I point out that I do have no house only my own,” Danny Healy-Rae said. “There are many vacant houses. I have asked the Government before to halve the tax or do something with it, such as 50% tax for someone who gets €1,000 in rent for a house. So many houses are idle, and there is no incentive to rent them out. Then people are afraid that they will not get their houses back.”
“In regard to planning permission for those who wish to build their own houses, people in County Kerry have been left behind on this. We have been hard hit by the urban regeneration pressure clause that deprives many young fellows who are four or five miles outside the town. They cannot get permission to build their own houses. Killarney has been in a pressure zone for more than seven years. Houses there are terribly scarce and terribly expensive. I do not see how what is proposed is going to help the housing sector.”
The Deputy also said that “we are housing more immigrants and housing more than our own.”
“I fear no provision has been made for that,” he said. “Reduce the tax and incentivise people to let their vacant houses out. That is necessary to tackle the problem of those empty houses. A vacant house provides no tax for the Government. We should take less tax in respect of such houses and do the same around the country for the other landlords. People would be far more interested in letting out their houses as a result.”
Sinn Fein Deputy Matt Carthy said that the Government was trying to convince opposition that “black is white,” claiming that Ministers had the “audacity” to “come into this House and claim that their housing plan is working – akin to trying to convince people that the Earth is flat.”
“The thousands of people who were outside this House this evening, demanding that we raise the roof, demanding of their elected representatives that we raise the roof on their behalf, know the reality of the record of the parties in government. House prices and rent costs through the roof, homelessness figures beyond anything anybody could have imagined. On every single metric the situation is getting worse, every day, week and year that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in government supported by Independents,” Carthy said.
“In reality, this means the young people who have just finished their leaving certificate examinations do not see a future for themselves in this country. They are well qualified and many of them will go and get the best university education in the world. They will be highly qualified, highly motivated and very talented and they will be in a position to get a job, but they will not be in a position to take that job because they will not be in a position to find somewhere to live.”
Independent Ireland TD Richard O’Donoghue even said he would “offer his help” to build more houses:
‘ATTEMPTS AT CREATING CLIPS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA’
Deputy John Cummins, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, said that the Government said that he and the Minister were “very much aware of the difficulties being experienced by some people in accessing secure and affordable accommodation.”
“I say respectfully that I listened to many of the contributions, some of them genuine. Some Members put forward solutions. The contributions of many others just involved grandstanding, false outrage and attempts at creating clips for social media. The Members in those cases offered absolutely no solutions,” he added.
“The Minister, this Government and I are as aware as anyone else of the difficulties people face. There is no such thing as a monopoly on compassion when it comes to matters to do with the housing sector. For this reason, we are working day in and day out to make substantial changes to increase the supply of social, affordable and private homes throughout our country. While there is still much to do, the Opposition motion this evening does not fairly represent the efforts and progress made to date.
“As a Government, we are committed to delivering 300,000 new homes between this year and 2030. We are targeting an average of 50,000 homes annually over the period.”