Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Mathews. I will take six minutes and Deputy Mathews will take four minutes. I also welcome the opportunity to contribute briefly to this debate on the supply of social housing and the Government's homelessness policy. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State is here to listen to the various contributions because, as Deputy Doyle stated, it is a cross-party issue and every Member of this House deals with multiple issues regarding the lack of supply of social housing on a weekly basis. We are all interested in trying to get this issue resolved.

There are substantial concerns regarding homelessness and the increase in the number of people sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin. There was an increase of almost 50% in the number of people sleeping rough between April 2013 and December 2013. Recent figures show that six additional people are becoming homeless in the Dublin region every day, which is worrying. In the news this morning, it was stated that 98 people were sleeping rough on streets at 3 a.m. this morning so there is a lot of work to be done here. The system is broken. It is definitely not working when 98 people have no roof over their heads. No doubt the Minister of State is working hard to resolve this issue.

We know from the homeless accommodation services that over 4,600 people presented themselves to these services last year. Worryingly, 1,958 - almost one half of the cases - were newly homeless. There are difficulties and multiple reasons, as other Deputies have said, as to why people find themselves in this stark situation. More needs to be done to tackle homelessness and to achieve the Government's very honourable goal of ensuring that long-term homelessness is eliminated by 2016.

I welcomed the decision by Dublin City Council to reverse plans to make cuts to homeless services in January. Instead, it increased supports for the homeless by €400,000 to address the increasing numbers of homeless people on the city's streets. This additional funding will ensure that more homeless people can secure permanent accommodation. We know there are insufficient resources to deal with emergency accommodation.

More affordable housing and social housing are needed to deal with these issues in the medium to long term. Another option is that landlords could reserve a portion of their housing for low-income tenants. That should be encouraged, possibly with tax relief at which the Minister for Finance could look in the budget. According to a report by Threshold, a major reason for the increase in the homeless count is the direct pressure in the private rented sector with fewer landlords accepting rent allowance. This is resulting in more people presenting themselves as homeless. The Department of Social Protection is not helping matters by decreasing the rent allowance by 28% since 2011. We know the property market in Dublin is recovering rapidly and that there is a lack of good quality housing. The fact that the rent allowance is not matching increased rents traps people into this bad cycle so, no doubt the Minister of State will be looking at this with her colleague in Government.

We know from the Daft property website that the supply has drastically reduced. For example, the number of advertised rental units in Dublin has declined from 6,700 in 2009 to under 1,500 at the end of 2013 so it is an issue of supply. When more people are looking for housing and that housing is not there, it drives up rents and creates more problems. We are looking at another property bubble, particularly in Dublin and other cities, if we do not do something to deal with the supply side of things, particularly given the large amount of land banks that surround this city. Those banks must be made available and the only way to do this is through punitive taxes on the owners to get them to free them up and build social and affordable housing.

The shortage of social housing is a legacy issue. Like my colleagues in this House, I am inundated week in, week out with housing queries. There are people in my constituency who have been on the housing waiting list for more than ten years. The severe shortage of social housing is very worrying. People are being put into hotels and bed-and-breakfasts as an interim measure, which is very expensive and costs extra money. This should not be the case. I thank the Minister of State for visiting Darndale in my constituency to introduce that news about 35 new units, which is very welcome in the area. There is much work to be done here and no doubt the Minister of State will continue to work hard with her colleagues in Government to ensure that the supply of housing comes on stream for people who need it badly.

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