Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the point about the need for a national housing plan. Any such plan must be ambitious. We must think differently from how we have thought in the past. There is a real chance that we will go back to doing everything that we did before which caused all the problems. There needs to be a far larger rental sector with a far greater public emphasis in order that people can rent a home for as long as they wish to live in it, rather than rent a property, which is more a temporary thing.

There is some element of law that gives them a certain period of time to vacate but this is not stacking up in that people are being pressurised out of private rented accommodation.

The housing waiting list is at 89,000 and the very large number of repossessions coming down the tracks will add to that list. It should be noted that the list is not uniform in all parts of the country. Six local authorities - three in Dublin, two in Cork and Kildare local authority - between them make up 50% of that list. When the housing associations are considering locations for building houses, do they take into account locations where rents are highest and where Department of Social Protection rental caps exist?

Dr. Michelle Norris appeared before the committee recently. She told us there was €500 million available and that there had been an approach made by the European Investment Bank to draw down more money. She spoke about the key issue not necessarily being the availability of funding which to me was a real bolt out of the blue, but rather it is a question of the right structures being in place. She talked about the capacity of the housing association sector to avail of that funding.

What role can the housing association sector play in the short term to help in the current crisis and to contribute to a national housing plan in the medium term? On the issue of the ratio of funding from the State along with drawing down money from elsewhere, what examples are available from elsewhere with regard to drawing down funding from that kind of source? Will the housing associations have the capacity to increase the number of units if funding was available or funding in the right mix was available? If it was a question that there would have to be some sort of a guarantee or the Government would have to underwrite it, would this introduce a new impediment in terms of drawing down money from the European Investment Bank?

I have a couple of other questions and I will put them now so that delegates can respond to them. I refer to the significant issue of void houses. The problem is that the new procurement policy by local authorities is making the turnaround of voids very lengthy. It can take many months if a contractor has to be appointed. Is that same impediment an imposition for the housing associations or do they function under a different set of rules?

The Department of Social Protection will be moving to HAP, housing assistance payment. What role will the housing association sector play in this regard? That is one of the issues the committee is to address. This meeting was not organised to respond to the legislation the heads of which have just been published but it is timely that we can respond to it and it would be useful to hear the views of the housing association sector.

The housing associations say that there is not sufficient national funding provided for a take-up of the mortgage to rent scheme. The scheme is available in theory but the delegates maintain it is not available in practice. Is that because sufficient national funding has not been set aside?