Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a crisis in the provision of social housing in Ireland. It seems to stem from an ideological debate that is going on at the moment concerning what care must government provide to citizens. Sinn Féin believes that everyone has the right to a roof over their head regardless of their financial situation. We believe that this is a right that should be enshrined in law. A safe and warm home should be a fundamental right and not a concession that can be granted or withheld at the whim of government or local authority managers.

There are roughly 90,000 households on the housing waiting list across the State. In a country of our size this is a terrible indictment of the way we do business. There have been reports of people waiting on the housing list for 15 years or longer as they wait to be placed in social housing that is just not being built by this Government and was not built by previous governments either.

There are 95,000 people on rent supplement and around 30,000 on the residential accommodation scheme, RAS. I call it the residential accommodation scam. While successive governments have failed to embark on any form of housing projects, private landlords have been benefiting from rent supplements paid from State coffers. It seems more than bizarre that a Government would hand over finances in the form of rent supplement and RAS to private landlords instead of building our own social housing.

Local authorities are constrained in what they can do to upgrade social housing. Conditions in existing social housing, as well as private rental accommodation are deteriorating, and problems have already been highlighted in Dublin after a raft of inspections in the city centre. A shocking result was that 90% of flats failed the basic standards test. Local authorities cannot adequately restore and upgrade housing to make it suitable for social housing unless they are given funding from central Government to do so. Without funding, the hands of local authorities are tied when it comes to making more social housing available.

The Celtic tiger left us with a legacy of ghost estates and empty houses across the country. Without proper Government investment and regulation these buildings will remain empty for the foreseeable future. I know that there are legal and cost complexities involved but it is shameful that we have thousands of NAMA-controlled homes, paid for by Irish taxpayers, which remain empty and unused while 90,000 people are on the housing waiting list.

NAMA promised 2000 homes for social leasing at the end of 2012. This scheme is not the answer to Ireland's social housing crisis. Very few homes were put in place and in 2013 the Government announced a special purpose vehicle to speed up the delivery of these properties. In addition, these properties would be rented through local authorities and voluntary bodies, and returned to the developer when the lease ran out.

Homelessness is also an issue that has to be addressed. Every day, when we walk the streets of Dublin, we can see homeless people around us. It is a sad fact that within a few metres of this building, our national parliament, people are sleeping rough. This should not happen in a country that has wealth resources such as ours. According to Focus Ireland there are about 5,000 homeless people in the State. The number of people sleeping rough increased by 88% in 2013. Ireland is not a densely populated country and we are not at risk from over-population. Why is it that we find it so hard to house so many people in this country? This is a question the Government must ask itself. It must commit itself to tackling the housing crisis.

The rent supplement threshold is totally unrealistic. It has the effect of causing people, including landlords and their agents, to tell lies. We should not be encouraging people to tell lies through a State-supported mechanism.

I receive many complaints about the complexity and bureaucracy of the housing application process. It seems to be designed to get people to give up half way through. Therefore, the housing application process should be re-examined.

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