Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O’Sullivan, to the House. I thank her for coming to deal with the motion on homelessness. I commend my colleague, Senator Aideen Hayden, who drafted and proposed the motion. I commend her on her great work with Threshold on the issue of homelessness and housing policy. Some people from Threshold are in the Visitors Gallery. I acknowledge the presence in the Gallery earlier of Councillor Dermot Lacey, the leader of the Labour Party group of councillors in Dublin City Council. I know he has a particular interest in the topic given that Dublin City Council councillors recently reversed proposed budget cuts to the homelessness budget in Dublin, a welcome move. That was an initiative led and championed by the Labour Party group and I welcome that.

We all acknowledge the immense difficulty of the problem of homelessness. Senator Mooney put it fairly when he spoke of it as an endless problem. Previous Governments in times of economic boom sought, with the best will in the world, to tackle the problem but were unable to eliminate homelessness. This Government has an ambitious policy objective to end long-term homelessness by the end of 2016. I welcome the fact that the Government has remained committed to that even in the face of economic difficulties. The Government homelessness policy statement from last year states that homelessness:

...has proved to be an enduring and difficult problem for many of the people affected, and for society as a whole. Central and local government and the voluntary sector have devoted considerable resources and effort to the issue and real progress has been made.

It is particularly frustrating because all of us can see - it has been referred to by several colleagues - the increased numbers of people presenting as homeless and the increased visibility of homelessness in the greater Dublin area in particular. We are all conscious, as the motion notes, that there are multiple factors for this but one particular factor in Dublin is the emerging shortage of affordable rental accommodation. This is leading to upward pressure on rents which is driving people into homelessness and they are seeking to access homelessness services.

I welcome the fact that the Minister of State has announced a €100 million construction programme to enable the building of approximately 600 new social homes. We all recognise that is not enough and that other initiatives must be taken as well. Those on the Opposition side who have been highly critical of the Minister of State should acknowledge the progress that has been made and the policy steps that have been taken. I referred to the homelessness policy statement of February last year which was published to set out the objectives of the Government's response to homelessness. That has been superseded by the Minister of State's oversight group which reported in December. The Minister of State will update us on progress on the recommendations of the oversight group for meeting the target of ending long-term homelessness. A social housing assessment has been carried out and the Government has announced the new scheme for housing assistance payment to replace the current system of rent supplement for those with a long-term housing need. These are different parts of the strategy to tackle homelessness which has multiple causes and must be tackled, therefore, with a multi-agency and multi-factored approach. The housing assistant payment scheme has the benefit of seeking to ensure that it will not disincentivise people from taking up employment. Anyone who has examined the matter will be aware that this is a real problem at present. People who had been in receipt of rent supplement have lost the benefit on commencing full-time employment or if their partner commenced full-time employment. It is a poverty trap and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, has spoken of the need to ensure that social protection schemes do not operate in this counter-productive manner, disincentivising people from entering work and amounting to deactivation rather than job activation measures. The proposed new payment will remove that difficulty because it will ensure that people will be able to retain eligibility for housing support even when they have taken up employment and I welcome that.

We all acknowledge that there are other factors and measures that must be adopted. I have spoken with the Minister of State's officials about the issue of construction of local authority housing. Senator Landy has spoken of the need to ensure an increase in the budget for construction of local authority housing. However, we also need to examine the way in which we target or focus resources on construction of housing. Construction costs have reduced and there are new ways of building houses, particularly with new technology, to ensure rapid build of housing.

Housing can be built elsewhere, transported and put into place. For example, we have seen a relatively recent development of what are strangely called permanent prefab structures for school construction. There are new ways of building that may be more cost effective and we should be harnessing these new technologies to try to ensure greater availability and supply of housing.

I know the Government's strategy has been housing led. We welcome that in our motion. The housing-led approach seeks to ensure that people can access permanent housing, and that is the primary response. There are several different ways in which this has to be done. The supply of NAMA housing stock is undoubtedly one of those, and that aspect of the Fianna Fáil motion is right, but we have also addressed that in our own motion. We have spoken about the need to progress other social housing support measures, including securing additional units via NAMA and the roll-out of the housing assistance payment. Our motion recognises the broad challenge that faces us in trying to tackle homelessness, and also acknowledges that there are many different ways in which this must be done.