Paul Murphy Slams Council Rent Hike and Calls for Protest

A reference has been made to the possibility of Dublin City Council deciding to increase rents for council tenants. In South Dublin County Council they have already decided to do that. I want to ask the Tanaiste about what is quite an outrageous decision by his party Fine Gael together with Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to support an increase in rents. A cruel increase of €3 a week right across the board regardless of income. And combined on top of that with another additional €10 a week for a set of old age pensioners. It is a heartless attack on some of the most vulnerable people on low incomes. And it is an attack presumably supported by the Tanaiste which underscores the nature of Fine Gael and the Government's housing policy as one being to protect those who have it and attack those who don't. Last Saturday I think the Taoiseach not for the first time declared that opposition to the Government's position on housing or criticism of the Government's approach on housing is ideological, unlike the Government's position. In the Dáil on Tuesday he argued that anyone who is opposed to giving away public land to private developers has an ideological position. Whereas you have no ideology at all, just a bunch of pragmatists doing your very best to resolve the crisis and who have purely accidentally stumbled into a situation where you preside over the greatest level of homelessness and housing crisis in the history of the State at the very same time as the highest levels of rents, the highest levels of profits for landlords and developers. It is an approach to ideology seen by the kings and the queens in the past, who ruled the world but did not say we have a feudal ideology that justifies why we rule. No, they had a divine right to rule, just like you believe that the market has a divine right to rule and that landlords and developers have a divine and constitutional right to maximise their profits. But those who benefit from your ideology are extremely obvious. Landlords received record rent of €13 billion last year, that's up from €5.5 billion in 2009. The largest corporate landlord in Ireland, Ires Reit, paid nothing in corporation tax last year in profits of €120 million. And the developers continued to profit massively, combined sales last year increasing by 25%. And the losers are everybody affected by the housing crisis. The tenants affected by the over €2,000 a month rent in Dublin, the young people who can't afford a home, families stroking to access mortgages. But now there is a new victim in terms of council tenants who on an annual basis will be hit by €156 extra and for those pensioners attacked by €676 per year. Do you agree with this attack? Do you agree with attacking those on the lowest incomes in our society at the same time as protecting the landlords, the developers, etc. Because people won't accept it. People will mobilise onto the streets on 5th December at 12 o'clock at the Garden of Remembrance, where council tenants should participate. And people will hopefully come along to the protest called by Solidarity for Tuesday 9th December at the Council to build a campaign to oppose this attack as part of building a wider movement on the housing crisis. Deputy Deputy, every time you take to your feet in this house you seem to be calling for a new protest for something. I can understand the frustrations and the anger in relation to a housing crisis in Ireland. They are very real. I've been in the Department of Housing and I know that only too well. We have far too many people who are homeless in Ireland, far too many families and children in particular who are impacted by homelessness and I'm sure are being scarred by that. This Government's response to that is to try to prioritise this issue from a funding perspective, from a policy perspective and from a practical delivery perspective. And that is happening. We've changed the planning process. We have increased the protections for tenants. We have included what is effectively a rent cap or rent ceiling. And we are building more social houses now than at any other time this century. This year there will be more than 10,000 additional social houses on our social housing list. We are working with local authorities, particularly in our cities where the pressure is most acute, to try and drive projects. I think in Cork City alone there are 78 projects that the Council are involved in. The City Chief Executive confirmed to the Taoiseach and myself last week that back in 2014, when there was no money being spent on social housing because there wasn't a lot of money available, Cork City Council had one social house under construction. They currently have 1,000 under construction. That is what this Government is trying to do for vulnerable people who need the support of the State to get into a social home. We are now seeing the progression of affordable housing units as well, again focusing in particular on our cities where the pressures are most acute. And we will continue to take action to ensure that housing is prioritised because it is a big, big issue for so many people. This year, or next year I should say, we will spend over 2.6 billion euros on the housing budget, which is a dramatic increase over recent years in terms of what the Government could afford. So Deputy, we are not targeting anybody except trying to help people who are in difficult circumstances, many of them in temporary accommodation, which is not suitable for long term accommodation, to get people into homes that they can have stable lives in with the supports of the State. And we are making progress on that, but there is still a lot of work to do. Thank you. Dr Murphy. You didn't even attempt to answer the question. The question was, despite your talk of not targeting anybody, do you agree with the decision of your Fine Gael colleagues, together with your Fianna Fáil colleagues, together with your Green Party colleagues, in increasing council rents for people in South Dublin County Council? These are people on low and fixed incomes who are hitting with an across-the-board increase of 3 euros a week, on a rent that is based on 10% of income, but now everybody is hit with 3 euros a week, and, in addition, do you agree with hitting old age pensioners with 10 euro a week on top of that? Do you agree with increasing those people's rents by 13 euros a week? And if you do agree with that, then how on earth can you say all this other stuff? And when you come out with the idea that it is going to get sorted, etc, nobody believes you. Nobody believes you. And when you say you are delivering more social housing than ever, that is a lie. It is not accurate. No, because you have reframed what social housing is. You think that giving money to private landlords amounts to providing social housing. Tell us how many local authority housing you are building. Tell us how many local authority housing you are building. And the final thing I will say is, yes, people are right to be angry. Do you know there are over 65,000 people in a Facebook group organising for this protest on 5th December. They are ordinary people. They are not people organised in any political party. Time is up, Deputy. They are angry. They are right to come out and protest. It is the only thing that will force you to do anything to resolve the housing crisis. Deputy, and I accept this anger there. And protest at times is part of democracy. And we respect that and accept it too. And there has been a lot of protests, and understandably, in terms of the need to resolve what has been a housing crisis for a number of years now. And we are responding to that, with a lot more money and policies that are actually working. And you don't have to trust me on that. Look at the CSO statistics in terms of the number of social houses that are now being built, the number of affordable houses that are now being either built or are in planning, and the number of private houses that are under construction as well. Dramatic increases on issues in relation to how local authorities deal with their tenants. That is an issue for local authorities to debate and discuss. And I don't have the detailed rationale around why a decision may or not be made in terms of modest increases in rent. But I think people have a right to ask the question whether or not it should ever be acceptable to ask for a modest increased contribution in terms of rental charges. Thank you. If people are seeing changes in terms of conditions and investment from local authorities and so on. But that is a matter for Dublin South County Council. I am sure you have colleagues and members on that council who are well able to speak up and argue the points as do we. The important thing here is that we are providing significantly more social houses year on year. More than 10,000 extra added to the stock this year, Deputy. They are not fantasy numbers. They are very real. And they will support families in a very real way. Thank you.