Richard Boyd Barrett Calls for State Builder to Solve Housing Crisis

Thank you. That's Count Corle. Now, in some ways, this is a formality that we go through at the end of each year. But it is, as I understand it, this sort of final authorisation of the expenditure of money that has been spent throughout the year and then money that will be carried over that is not spent. And it is an opportunity to just dwell a little bit, to spend a little, take a little look at the issue of the expenditure of this enormous amount of public money, 86 billion euro, which is a huge amount of public money. It is the public's money. And it is an extraordinary fact that with this record level of expenditure that we can still be in a situation, first of all, where we have more than 100,000 people on housing waiting lists, that we have huge numbers of people who aren't even eligible to be on social housing lists because their income is too high or also can't access affordable housing. We have nearly a million people on hospital waiting lists, people crowded in trolleys in our public health service. We have 110,000 children waiting for therapies and services in special needs, children with special needs, vulnerable children who need those services waiting years. So, and you could go on about the failures to actually deliver with all this enormous amount of money for very, very many people on basics, like housing, like health, and like vulnerable children with special needs and those with disabilities. Now, some of that is about having to spend more money. But some of it has to be questioned about are we getting the best value for the money that we are spending. And I certainly want to take this opportunity to make a point to the Minister and to anybody serious about trying to address some of those big problems. The government themselves produced a report, I think it was done by people in the housing agency, came out at the end of September, the Minister may be familiar with it, about the construction costs of housing. And it made for sober reading, in that it showed that currently an estate house, semi-detached house, is being delivered at €450,000, new build, apartments, €550,000, apartments in suburban apartments, €590,000. Now, that is a very, very high price for something we absolutely need, but it is clearly unaffordable for the people who need them, for huge numbers of the people who need them. And to my mind, that is a demonstration of very significant market failure, or the inability of the market to deliver housing at an affordable level. And this is very, very relevant to the expenditure of public money, because when you look at the housing that the state itself has delivered, a huge amount of that has been purchased from private builders. Now, to address an existential and urgent housing crisis, I have actively campaigned to say you should do that. You should buy houses when you haven't built them. I'd prefer if you were building them, in the numbers necessary, but I'm in favour of us buying them to make up the deficit, because we need the houses, we need social and affordable housing. But it should be obvious we could be getting a lot more social and affordable housing, if we could deliver the houses cheaper than the private market is capable of delivering. And to my mind, that is why there is a very serious, I am absolutely convinced of this, but I'd like to convince this house, whatever government comes in, is that we need a state construction company, and that it can deliver housing cheaper. Why? Because even the biggest builders in this country don't have the scale necessary to deliver the sort of housing output that now the government is accepting we have to get to. Right? Double what Housing for All originally proposed. 50,000 to 60,000 houses, maybe 70,000 a year. The private sector, even if it wanted to, or it was able to, is clearly doesn't have the capacity. Cairn and Glenvay, between them, deliver 2,500 houses in a year. They're the biggest builders. They have about 350 people working for them. It's just not big enough. They don't have the scale to do what is necessary, and they're clearly not able to deliver them at the prices that are affordable, either for the state or for the individual buyer. But if we had a company of scale that controlled the land bank, so that the land bank wasn't subject to speculation, driving up, because a huge part of the cost, when you break down the construction cost of housing, a very large part, I think about the study I mentioned, estimates about 70,000 euro of the cost, that enormous cost I mentioned, is land costs. And a lot of that is because of the speculation by private developers who own that land bank, speculating on it, flipping on it, flipping it, and so on. Right? You strip out that. They also estimate about 40,000 euro of the prices I mentioned are from the profit margin of the developer. They also add in a significant cost from the cost of finance, which is, in other words, the profits of the banks. You add in also sales and marketing. Often, again, consultants and so on brought in, charging large amounts of money to do the sales and marketing for these things. Right? You strip out all those things, and you get the economies of scale that a construction company on the size of, say, the ESB, the ESB has 8,000 workers. Right? State enterprises can work. Right? And it's a world-beating company. It's charging too much for its electricity, but that's because of deregulation. But historically, it's been a success story of state enterprise. We should have a state construction company on the scale of the ESB, building on a not-for-profit basis, with a land bank, with its own construction capacity. We could slash the cost of housing and consequently get more housing for the money that is being spent, the billions that are being spent, in order to deliver the housing we need. So I really think the government should seriously think about that. That's how we electrified and transformed this country, was with the ESB, with a state not-for-profit enterprise. We need to do the same on the issue of building social and affordable homes, and indeed doing the retrofit of homes that are necessary, and indeed on putting in the water infrastructure that is necessary. I mean, I'm amazed, in my area, and this is replicated all over the country, there are sites with zoned land in public ownership, in my area, in Rathmichael, O'Connor, and this is happening everywhere else, owned by the state, they haven't even put in the water infrastructure yet. It's absolutely insane. Right? So we need our own capacity to do this. We could do it cheap, and we could do it with the urgency that is required, and with the focus required, if we controlled, you know, or had some control over the land bank, and over what, when we built, and what we built. So that's my pitch, Minister, for a state construction company, and we will be very actively campaigning on that, because we think you cannot solve the housing crisis unless we begin to move in that direction, because we are facing massive market failure when it comes to housing. In the numbers, they're capable of delivering, but also at the price. Because even if they deliver them, the price is just too high. And there's no sign it's going to come down. Last couple of things I just want to say. The overrun in sports, 24 million, not spent. Now, this is the year, we had a fantastic run out in sports, at the Olympics, in my area, our whole borough, is just full of pride, for Jack Marley, who fought in the Olympics, in the heavyweight division, and got to the quarterfinals. We have a young woman, Robin O'Reilly, got to the European Championships, in boxing also, and we have had a fantastic new involvement in sports, in soccer, in GAA, particularly because of young women getting involved in sports. There's a fantastic growth in young people getting involved in sports. But every single club I know is crying out for all-weather pitches, for clubhouses, for basic facilities, there's just not enough of them. And while there's been some new stuff, it is not nearly on the scale necessary, to meet the demand of our young people, and sport is so important, and when you look at the success in the Olympics, and in the Paralympics, you can see, what our young people can achieve, if we provide them with the facilities. And it might indeed help, the Irish soccer team, you know, improve its fortunes, if at the grassroots level, we put the money proactively into providing the facilities, the pitches, the clubhouses, and all the other equipment necessary to facilitate our young people in excelling in sport. So, that 24 million, you know, that could go a long way. We should think about that, but we also need to significantly increase, in my eyes, the amount of money that we're putting into grassroots sports for young people, and in local communities. Thank you very much, and thanks to all the deputies for the contributions that they've made. Just to respond back to a number of the matters that have been raised in this debate. Firstly, the issue here of accountability in relation to the huge amounts of money that I'm asking the Dáil to vote on this afternoon, and I thank deputies for recognising the importance of the passing of this legislation, but I would emphasise to them that in order to get to this point, there's revised estimates and supplementary estimates that have to be passed in order for this bill to be passed. And those individual estimates are all debated by the Oireachtas in their relevant Oireachtas committee. So, before we got to the point of doing the appropriations bill here today, supplementary estimates have been passed, and those supplementary estimates involved ministers bringing those supplementary estimates into their Oireachtas committee and be scrutinised at that point. So, yes, it is custom that this piece of legislation be dealt quickly with by the Dáil, and as Deputy Conway Walsh acknowledged Deputy of Snoddick, it does normally happen during the month of December, later in the year. We know that it's not happening now for other reasons, but it is still important to emphasise that even though the timing is different, in order to get to this point of the appropriation bill being in front of the House, estimates will be discussed by the relevant Oireachtas committee, and that is the point at which the scrutiny happens. The second point I'd make is in relation to the carryovers that we've discussed here this evening. Two points in relation to that. Firstly, the capital carryover here in this particular appropriation bill at 207.21 million euro. I take the point that is a very large amount of money. it's still 1.6% of the total capital allocation that was available to government departments for 2024. So even though it's a very large amount of money, it's a comparatively small amount of the total capital budget that was available to all government departments. And because the money has been carried over it, it does not mean it's been handled. back. It just means it's going to be spent at a different point. So Deputy Boyd Barrett, when you were talking about the 24 million euro, that money's not been surrendered back. The money's still with the Department of Sport. What it means is, as opposed to that being spent in October, November, or December, it'll be spent in January, February, or March, or at some point next year. and the point that you were making and other deputies did, but the money's not lost. And the point that was being made or suggested is that because this is a carryover, the money's been handed back. That's wrong. Because it's a carryover, it's been retained within the Department, but spent in a different year. And the absence of a carryover would mean the money is not being spent in the Department. But the presence of a carryover means that it is. And there's a real fundamental misunderstanding regarding what a carryover is here. The money is being spent, but just spent in a different calendar year. And then, in relation to the different charges that are made in relation to waste and mismanagement, and they were made there strongly by Deputy McGrady, there a moment ago. You made the point about accountability. I'm here in front of the Dáil and in front of Venerbahce's Committee very regularly regarding the use of the taxpayers' money as it should be. And I'll be the first to acknowledge that there are a number of areas in which things should have been done better. And I've acknowledged that in the past. But I'll still make the point to you that for the vast majority of the spending of our country's money, particularly when it comes to capital expenditure, it is being used in the way the country would want and does deliver projects that are either on time or broadly on budget. And I make the point to you broadly about costs going up. Just because a cost goes up doesn't mean it's the same thing as a cost overrun. And we've just gone through a period in which the cost of building anything within our country has gone up for reasons that are beyond our control. The price and you know this as well as I will do price of concrete, wood, metal, energy, all the things that we need just as the private sector needs to build a home, to deliver a wastewater treatment plant. The cost of those projects have all gone up. Much of that is because the cost of the raw materials, the cost of energy has gone up as well. So the cost of something going up is not the same as a cost overrun and isn't in many cases due to any alleged incompetence or inefficiency. It's just as the private sector is having to spend more to deliver certain projects. The state and no government is immune to those changes in the price of raw materials that we need to deliver very big projects or indeed any projects at all. And then finally in relation to the point that was made by Deputy Boyd Barrett there in relation to a state construction company and look forward to having the debate with you in the coming weeks in relation to that but it's still worth emphasising that the state does deliver homes and does build homes. It builds it through local authorities and as I noted there in my speech there a moment ago in 2023 11,938 social homes were delivered. I know that's not the same as built. I know many of them were purchased but the majority of them were built by the state. They were built by local authorities which as you know as well as I are units or parts of the state. So while there is definitely a discussion to be had regarding a state construction company and I'll have that debate with you I am right I know I'm right about it and I'm weary of making points with absolute certainty but the point I'm making to you is the state is directly involved in building homes it does it through local authorities and out of that 11,938 homes the majority of them would have been direct builds by local authorities which is the state. That's the argument that I'm making to you and to suggest that the state is not involved in directly building homes would be wrong but even if that state body was set up that you're referring to it would still have to buy concrete it would still have to employ people at rates that are comparable to what is in the private sector otherwise those people won't work for the state. So it may well be the case that in the argument the organisation that you're making the case for there wouldn't be a profit there wouldn't be a marketing all of which you acknowledge there but they're only a comparatively small part of the cost of building a home at the moment and the state would have to deal with all of the other costs that any private sector company is dealing with at the moment and our local authorities are currently dealing with. So as I said at the very beginning I just want to thank all deputies for the recognition of the importance of passing this legislation to acknowledge that this debate is comparatively short given the amount of money involved in this bill but just to emphasise again last year and Corle that all the different strands of this funding have been debated elsewhere within the Oireachtas and thank you for your cooperation.