Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Recently, local authorities have been sidelined by the approved housing bodies because the Government is trying to get everything off balance sheet. The local authority in my area has had to hand over housing left, right and centre to approved housing bodies. It has hardly built anything for five years in Blanchardstown. I believe nothing has been built by the local authority in approximately five years. I have nothing against approved housing bodies but believe their role has been way over-emphasised for political, ideological and financial reasons.

I have nothing against approved housing bodies, but their role is being greatly over-emphasised. That is being done for political, ideological and financial reasons. It seems strange. It is not like the local authorities are sitting on pots of money, or are the witnesses saying they are?

The problem with rapid-build housing is that it is not rapid. The witnesses said it themselves. They have to wait for them for a long period of time. If it was rapid, I would probably be a bit better disposed to it, but I do not believe it is that much more rapid than the provision of more permanent housing.

There is not a great deal of information in the submission on the cost rental model Simon Communities of Ireland says should be piloted. Reference is made to Cork. I raised this earlier with a previous witness from Social Justice Ireland. What I have read about the model sets the alarm bells ringing. What is being put forward now is that we should scrap the differential rent scheme in local authority housing, which is usually between 10% to 15% of people's incomes, in order to raise this money. If a special purpose vehicle is set up, the money has to come back in. There was a discussion earlier around getting rid of the differential rent scheme basically to make the rents pay more. We could get more rents in if the threshold was raised for social housing. A lot of people would like to go on the housing list who might not have seen themselves on it before and one would then have more people working with the result that there would be an increase in overall rental income. What I have seen of these cost rental models is that they involve approximately 70% of the market rent. Even 70% of market rent is far too high because what people are paying now in terms of their income and the impact on their families and their lives is outrageous. I do not like the idea that the money has to come from the people who get the houses. There should be ways of taxing wealth to bring in extra revenue to build social housing. I am not saying Simon Communities of Ireland is advocating that as the only way, but the witnesses might elaborate in that regard.