Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Irish State has never really embraced a full role in the area of housing. Instead, we have seen successive governments allow the private sector have free reign in this area, even to the extent of selling off social housing schemes to occupiers in some instances, rather than introducing longer term rental schemes and so on as they did in Europe. We have the examples of other European countries which heavily invested in social housing over decades, such as Britain and Holland, and as a result these countries have quite a high level of standardised socialised housing stock, although that too is currently being eroded in the neoliberal march across Europe that we see everywhere. However, Ireland always had a low level and a poor approach to social housing, and that is why we are now paying a higher price than some of the countries.

We have to call this what it is, which is a crisis. It is a crisis because we do not have a sufficient stock of social housing. The attempts by the Minister of State to address that are minuscule given the extent of the overall problem. Other Deputies have referred to the huge numbers who are on the waiting lists, with figures having tripled over the last few years. We should note that those waiting lists occurred at the same time as the housing boom. We should remember that RTE used to dedicate whole programmes to encourage young people to buy property, get on the housing ladder, scrimp and save, or take out 100% mortgages. Now we have the irony that some of the people who did purchase those properties in a massive panic, thinking that they would never get a roof over their head if they did not, have found that they bought a two bed or a one bed apartment in an area which they wanted to be a starter home, got married and had children and they are now stuck where they are and cannot get rid of it. In many instances, they have had to go and rent somewhere else themselves while they rented out their own property, and they have only become landlords because they cannot live in the house they bought as their home as it does not meet their needs. We have a complicated situation arising out of that mess.

Other Deputies have spoken about some of the tragic cases that come to our doorsteps but we must recognise that there has been a huge change in recent times. What was initially a trickle has become something of an avalanche at this stage. Not a day goes by without some horrendous case landing on every Deputy's doorstep, and we must respond swiftly, but that is not being done. I will not give all my time over to this, but Deputies know that there is a great number of people on waiting lists for years. The fact that we have to tell people who are on the list for five years that they must wait another five years tells its own story. It is not that the State is not spending money on housing; the State is spending a massive amount of money on housing but again it is going into the private sector. That is not good and it is not sufficiently regulated.

We carried out a search on www.daft.ie yesterday, which examined properties for rent in Swords, which is where I live. There were 37 properties for rent, and 31 of those offers stipulated "no rent supplement accepted". This is becoming a hallmark of our housing situation. It is not good enough because the Government, like its predecessors, has been prepared to abdicate responsibility for housing to private landlords, who are then free to discriminate as they see fit. That is unacceptable in a modern society, as if being in receipt of a social welfare payment is some sort of a character flaw when it reality it is a flaw of our economic system which needs to be addressed. It is not good enough that this situation is being allowed to prevail.

Threshold carried out a survey which showed that more than 50% of people receiving rent supplement from the State are topping up those payments. Threshold is a great organisation and does good research. We all know its finding are true. I am surprised it is that low, because nearly everybody with whom I deal is paying over the odds and is topping up their rent as the rent supplement being allowed by the State is not anywhere near enough for the market rents that landlords are getting. I appreciate what has been said before and that we do not want to be contributing to driving up rents but the only consequence of the way in which the Government is dealing with this is that it is driving people into homelessness and into hostels, which is a nightmare for families. We met a couple who were on the council housing list for five years and there was a change in the ownership of the property in which they were staying. The couple, one of whom was working, and their three children had nowhere else to go. They were moved from north County Dublin into a hostel on the south side of the city. Every morning they had to bring the children to school in Swords. On the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, the hotel was booked out as it would be for tourists, so the family had to go somewhere else. These stories are being replicated all over the place and the State is spending a huge amount of money on this. Driving people into a scenario like that, which is expensive for the State and not good for those families, is madness.

People are being driven out of the areas in which they live and in which their children are in school and they are told to move somewhere else where the rents are cheaper. We must deal with this issue. The Minister of State said recently that the rental market in Ireland should be regulated along the lines of what happened in other European countries, and suggested that the price of rented accommodation should be capped in line with the cost of living, which would be of some benefit in the short term. However, we need a much more longer term solution which must involve providing more housing stock. That means construction, which is not in the right places where there is a need, is essential. There is a pool of properties, which are currently owned by reluctant landlords, which are those who bought their property as a home and are only keeping it as a rented property in order to be able to pay the bank back some contribution for it. They would happily give back the keys if they thought they were not being left with a debt. The State needs to evaluate the number of such properties and whether a collective scheme can be undertaken where they are taken into the ownership of the State. Let us remember that many of the banks are in our ownership and much of the rent that is being paid on those properties is being paid through rent supplement to people who do not want to be landlords in the first place. We need to be creative and we need to look at that whole area as well.

The issue of rent controls must be considered in this scenario, so that at least rents are affordable for everybody. Many examples have been given about the experience in other countries, such as Germany, where rents have been regulated since the early 1970s. The German rent index takes in a lot of different and very good factors, such as the age and condition of the building and the quality of the facilities and the locality. The tenant has much better rights than they would have here. As a result, rents in Germany increased slower than anywhere else in Europe. They have a rent oriented real estate market, which makes it very easy for people to get rented properties. Only 43% of Germans own their own homes, which is the lowest rate in Europe because the rental market is so attractive, so secure in terms of its tenure, and the rents regulated and controlled. We must move in that direction if we are to deal with the horrific cases of which we are all aware.

It is unacceptable in this day and age that families are being driven out of the communities in which they live, that they have been put in inadequate, temporary accommodation and are dealing with the stress and heartache that this has caused. It is the cause of so many problems now and it is not good enough for the Government to state that it was a crisis caused by Fianna Fáil. That is old news. Things have deteriorated substantially within the last three years in the lifetime of this Government, and while some measures are welcome, they are way too little, far too late and not in any way substantial enough to address the housing crisis. We need new start-up builds, we need rent controls and regulation, but we also need to deal with the mortgage crisis which is driving people into the social housing need bracket without the housing stock being there to address it.

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