Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Is the repair and lease scheme operating in all local authorities now? My understanding is that the uptake is not as good as it should be because of the criteria that must be met. I mentioned the criteria that were causing trouble last time, which is a concern.

The Minister has sought a report on vacant properties from local authorities. Has he said to each local authority that there is a timescale on the funding? It concerns me that the Minister has said today that funding is not a problem. In my home town, there are people in receipt of the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and others applying for mortgages, and they are worried. If they are in receipt of HAP and the house they are renting is sold, they are told to find somewhere else but they cannot find something in their budget. Will the Minister examine the cap for Carlow County Council? I also ask him to examine rent pressure zones. I want everything to be accountable. It should be across all the local authorities, that is important.

There has been an increase in mortgage approvals since the new proposals. Borrowers can have a 90% mortgage and 10% deposit. However, the timescale is a problem. The number of people applying for mortgages in my own area has doubled. I have made representations for many of them. By the time applicants have all the information such as the bank statements, wage slips and so on, they have to be submitted and processed, then one must go to the underwriter, and if that fails the application must return to the credit committee. We are not a bank. There are people who are looking for a mortgage from their local authority and waiting so long that they are not even getting them, because the houses they were looking at have been sold. It is a good system, I am not saying that it is not. It is great that there is a mortgage and the Minister has changed the criteria but can he speed it up so that applicants are not waiting for periods of eight months or a year?

Has the Minister changed the tenant purchase scheme?

I want to compliment the Minister. Carlow County Council got its grants for elderly people and so on, and received a 3% increase. I thank him for that. However, I have concerns. The Minister has said of approved housing bodies, AHBs:

Over the lifetime of Rebuilding Ireland, approximately one third of delivery is to be secured through AHBs. Partnerships between AHBs and local authorities have been delivering well over the first two years of Rebuilding Ireland.

What is the criteria for this? In my years working in local authorities, we never had so many bodies giving out so many houses through the AHBs. I know that the Department has to work from the council lists but it seems to be a different scheme. Does the Department have a programme in place through which the AHBs work with local authorities, so that we might know what the criteria is? I do not know what the criteria are. There is no programme in place. I have been monitoring this in recent months. Can the Minister put something in place? I know that a successful applicant must be on the local authority housing list. This plays such a major part in Rebuilding Ireland and these AHBs have a great deal of funding and have been buying many houses for which I must compliment them so we can have some criteria to work with.

I meant to say that I spent five years as chair, not ten. I put ten years on myself. The other thing is that I have never seen so much uncertainty in my time as either a councillor or a Senator. There is a fear of the unknown, a fear that when one is in a house, one might lose it and a fear of not being able to get a mortgage. There are also my fears for the homeless. The Minister is saying that there is so much funding. Will he let everybody know what is happening? I do not want to read in the newspaper next week that he has announced another programme about which I do not know. In such instances, I have to tell people that I am sorry but that it is the first I have heard of the matter. Can the Minister address the committee first? Can he reassure us that nobody has to worry because he has the funding? People are worried. In my area, we have two fabulous institutes of third-level education, which means that a lot of our housing is rented to students. That is fine; it happens. The Minister needs to address the lack of supply, the difficulties of people trying to find houses and the insecurity individuals feel when they do not know what is down the line. However, there is also one other thing. There are 31 local authorities and they need to have the same policies across the board because what is working for one is not working for another. As a Senator, it is very hard to tell people that something can be obtained in another local authority area but not in theirs. That is unacceptable. I thank the Minister for the increase in the grant.