Speech by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the launch of Housing for All

Check against delivery

Good afternoon.

As I have said before, in my view Housing is the single most urgent and important social issue facing our country at this moment in time.

And it is one I am determined that we as a government get to grips with.

Access to housing is not just about the immediate material need for a roof over your head, although the absolute tragedy of homelessness is one that we are determined to eliminate by the end of this decade.

It is about much more than that.

Access to housing is fundamental to our security, stability, health and progress as a nation.

When a family has secure tenure in a safe and comfortable home, children have the peace and the potential to do better at school and develop their wider personality and sense of identity.

Parents have the freedom and the confidence to engage with, and help develop their local communities and build sporting, artistic and cultural connections.

Communities of secure, engaged and confident households are safer, more enriched and happier places to live.

A country of engaged and contented communities is a more attractive place to visit, establish a business, or invest in.

And greater prosperity means more investment in education and healthcare, more opportunities for our young people and better outcomes for everyone.

It all comes back to housing.

And right now, we are in a housing crisis. There are not enough homes being built and a generation of people are demoralised and close to despair on the issue.

There is scarcely a family in the country untouched by the crisis and if we do not recognise the scale of the challenge and respond in kind, it has the potential to be profoundly destabilising for our country.

The plan we are presenting today recognises the scale of the challenge.

Housing for All is unprecedented in our country’s history, in terms of its scope, its scale and its ambition.

It is supported by the largest ever housing budget in our history and represents a direct and radical intervention in the housing market by the Irish State.

Housing for All addresses the challenges facing first-time buyers, renters, low income households, people experiencing homelessness, people trading up and rightsizing, people starting again in life.

It has tailored plans at community level, addresses the particular challenges and opportunities in towns and cities, and has a tailored and specific approach for rural Ireland.

It includes some of the most fundamental changes to our planning and land use system in the country’s history.

And it addresses the needs of the women and the men who we need to build new homes.

My colleague Darragh and his team and department, working with colleagues throughout Government have put in an extraordinary effort over the last year, in challenging circumstances, to bring this together and he will set out the detail of the key pillars of the plan shortly.

But first, I want to sound a note of caution.

No plan on its own can solve our housing crisis.

There is no easy or immediate fix.

How I want Housing for All to be differentiated is the entirely new focus on and demand for DELIVERY that is built into it.

Solving this problem requires hard work.

I worry sometimes that ‘Whole of Government’ is one of those phrases that have become so overused and hackneyed over the years as to have become almost meaningless, but the fact is that the social emergency that is our housing crisis cannot and will not be solved by any one department on its own.

If, as a government, we are to meet this challenge, we must all be invested in delivering Housing for All.

For that reason, a new Housing for All Delivery Group is being established.

It will comprise the Secretaries General of all relevant government departments and will be chaired by my department.

It will be responsible for all aspects of delivery of this Plan.

Quarterly Progress Reports will be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Housing and to the government setting out performance against the targets and actions set out in the Plan, prepared by a dedicated unit in my department.

These progress updates will include dashboard statistics that will provide a transparent overview of performance in all major aspects of the Plan.

A new Programme Delivery Office will be located within the Department of Housing to support implementation of the Plan across the department as well as local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies.

There will be nowhere to hide.

I am satisfied that with this Plan, the resources being allocated to it and the unflinching focus on delivery within it, we have come up with a strategy that is equal to the scale of the challenge we face.

But the hard truth is that the scale of the challenge is such that National Government on its own cannot fix it.

As an entire society, we need to understand the challenge and internalise the threat to our way and quality of life that failure to provide housing will represent.

We all need to get out of our comfort zones.

Too many developments are being rejected by all political parties and none across the country.

Too much of the discussion about housing is dominated by pointless rhetoric and sterile, circular political bickering.

The bottom line is that if we want to safeguard and further build upon the prosperity and stability that the Irish people have achieved over generations, the State needs to build homes and the private sector needs to build homes. At scale.

This plan gives us the tools, the resources, and sets out the path to make that happen.

It states, as a central aim, that ‘Everyone in the State should have access to a home to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high standard and in the right place, offering a high quality of life.’

That is our standard.

As a country, over the last year and a half, we have shown that when we’re faced with a fundamental threat to our wellbeing we have the ability to do whatever is necessary to organise ourselves and re-orient our priorities to meet that threat and protect ourselves from it.

What I am saying today is that the housing crisis is a fundamental threat to our nation’s wellbeing, cohesion and social progress and that we are prepared and have the plan to do what is necessary to meet it, and to beat it.

Go raibh maith agaibh.