Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 September 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 pm

Photo of Eoin Ó BroinEoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The homeless figures are on the website but the report on the reclassification is not. I am not going to ask any questions about that because I have not read the report. I ask that the Minister gives the committee a commitment that when we have had time to read and digest that report he will come back to us to deal with that issue specifically, because he knows that we are very concerned about it.

I welcome the Department and the Government's continued commitment to Housing First. It is the correct approach, and is one of the things we agree on. I also believe it is good that we have a strategy, and that somebody is leading it. There is a target to have approximately 600 Housing First tenancies over three or three and a half years. We know there are approximately 3,500 single individual homeless people. Housing First is not appropriate for all of those people, and I accept that. I have read and understand the methodology that is used to identify the 600. It seems to me that 600 over three years is a very low target. Clearly, those 600 identified individuals are those with the greatest level of need and who have been in emergency accommodation the longest, and therefore should absolutely be prioritised. Does the Department have a figure for how many more Housing First properties will be required, based on the knowledge we have of single people currently in emergency accommodation? Can the Minister tell us why the targets are as modest as they are? Notwithstanding the fact that it is good to have them, they are nonetheless very modest.

We received the report on pillar two today. One of the worrying things about the quarter two social housing output is that if one looks at the local authority, approved housing body, AHB, and Part 5 properties, it can be seen that around 1,051 units have been delivered over six months. The target is 4,969 over the year. It is not unreasonable to be concerned. The Department and the local authorities have a long way to go to meet that target. Is there anything the Minister can say to reassure members that the target will be met? If we were 33% or 45% of the way along that would be fine, but there is a long way to go. While the Department is ahead in terms of acquisitions, the acquisitions target was always very low, at 900. I welcome the extra acquisitions, but it is still a low number.

On voids, Mr. Brendan Kenny was here yesterday - the Minister was not here - and he told us categorically that there are no more long-term voids and that all they have is expensive casual re-lets which the council do not categorise as additions to the stock. However, 387 voids are included in the figures provided by the Minister, including 184 from Dublin City Council. We are getting conflicting information here. Dublin City Council tells us that those properties are not voids and should not be counted as additions to the stock, yet the Minister tells us that they are voids and they should be counted. I am genuinely concerned because I believe they are being incorrectly categorised.

I also have a concern about Part 5 properties. Looking at the quarter two social housing construction report and the quarter two housing supply co-ordination task force, the figures on Part 5 properties do not match the figures on the private builds. Perhaps I am reading the two reports incorrectly, but rather than social housing Part 5s being at around 10% of the total outputs, which is what should be happening, they are actually at 28% when the two sets of figures for quarter two are compared. Maybe it is an accounting error and perhaps it is unfair to ask the Minister to give a detailed response to that, but I would appreciate it if he could get back to me on that.

Can the Minister give us a quick update on where we are with the AHB redesignation? There is a lot of concern in the AHB sector about that issue. Can the Minister give us some indication as to what the plan is and how it will be rolled out?

We dealt with the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, quarter two index report today. I know the Minister is going to bring forward legislation, and if it does what he says it will do he will certainly have the support of my party, and we would be happy to expedite it. However, it will only provide protection in the first instance for just over half of the total number of tenancies. Some places are not covered by the rent pressure zones, RPZs, but it can be seen from today's report that places such as Limerick, Waterford and Sligo town are all experiencing unsustainable rent increases. What is the Minister going to do for people in those places? How is he going to respond?

In terms of pillar four, affordable housing, while I have welcomed the approach taken at St. Michael's Estate as a significant change in direction in terms of Government policy on these matters, I keep hearing the Minister mentioning a rent coming in at 10% to 15% of market rates. That is worrying, because it is not going to be genuinely affordable for the income cohort that exists. It is also not the same as what Dublin City Council is telling us; it is seeking to overlay the cost of providing those units - the financing and maintenance - with the income of the tenants, which might mean a number of income bands to make sure that not only those at the top end of the affordable income cohort benefit. I believe that linking it to market rents is the wrong way to do it, and I would appreciate some clarity on that.

In terms of the vacant home tax, can the Minister confirm that the Government, on the back of the Indecon report, is not considering implementing such a tax? If it has not made up its mind, I say to the Minister that in the context of the very low uptake on the repair and leasing scheme, despite the fact that there is a very good carrot - albeit underfunded, in my view - he should consider the stick of a vacant home tax on properties that are being sat on speculatively by individual owners of funds. I am not referring to properties stuck in probate or fair deal arrangements. Without such a tax, the repair and lease scheme and similar schemes will continue to dramatically underperform.

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