Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 25 April 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Resumed)

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na hAirí. This series of meetings has been going on for some time. It is very much focused on the implementation of Housing for All. When we have had our political debates in this committee room and in the Chamber about the policy side of Housing for All, sometimes there is an attempt to pretend that something has changed in the past two years and nine months. There is often a denial that it is only one year and nine months since the Affordable Housing Act was signed into law. Someone who started building a house one year and nine months ago would most likely not be finished with the development now. In the context of implementing Housing for All, it is important to identify the legislative changes that have happened and when they happened. We also need to indicate that they are different from policies which operated in the past.

For example, prior to Housing for All it was not possible to buy a local authority affordable purchase home. There was no legislative basis to buy a home in a private development with State assistance through the first home scheme; that just was not there. There was no legislative basis to have a long-term State-backed mortgage with a defined interest rate. The Rebuilding Ireland home loan was approved then with the local authority home loan. It was not possible to buy a home in a development that was exclusively owner-occupied. The Government introduced legislation to protect home ownership and owner occupation. It was not possible to get a direct State grant of up to €50,000 - now €70,000 - to refurbish a home. It was not possible to get a direct State grant build to build a new home on a vacant site. It was not possible to rent an affordable cost-rental home. It was not possible to rent a private home in an RPZ where it was capped at 2%. It was not possible to be eligible for a social housing home up to €40,000 because we increased the income limits and that also increased the eligibility for HAP. It was not possible to get a €500 rent tax credit prior to the previous budget. It was not possible for a pensioner to buy a social home through the tenant purchase scheme. It was not possible to avail of the State schemes under the fresh start principle, which is no small feat. For people who are either separated or have been through insolvency the fresh start principle was a new principle under Housing for All and it is having a real impact.

To pretend that Housing for all Has not made an impact is to deny reality. It is not appropriate to pretend that it was possible to implement it all in one year and nine months when actually the lead Opposition party indicated it might take two terms to solve some of these issues. Yet after one year and nine months there are already accusations that Housing for All needs to be torn up. It is very clear that the policy element is still being debated. I am focused on the implementation. Representatives from a large number of local authorities - it was a sample - appeared before the committee. All of them said they felt they had full funding to deliver public housing on public lands. They indicated that based on the current projections they could run out of land and would need a fund to access new land. That will be covered in our report and the Minister should examine it.

The AHBs pointed out that based on their gearing, there could be issues for their ability to borrow. We need to look at that. They were looking to move towards a grant aid system rather than a borrow system. My instinct is that that would effectively be another version of local authority housing in which case we should get the local authorities to deliver more. If there is more capacity there, I have no opposition to that.

The other issue that came up - I am cherry-picking between representatives of different local authorities and different AHBs who spoke - was that there was not great ambition in the room for any of the AHBs regarding the cost-rental model. That is not acceptable. We need the AHBs to be involved in cost rental. The Cathaoirleach is right in saying that is a key platform to deliver affordable rental. The local authorities were very reliant on the AHBs to deliver the cost rental. While the LDA is one element of that, we have much more work to do on implementing cost rental and we need to focus on that area.

With particular sites it is often very tricky to see who has responsibility for delivering them. Last week I raised a number of sites with Ms Stapleton. I accept that implementation is messy and involves going back and forth between different local authorities, AHBs and the Department. There is insufficient transparency. To improve the transparency on the implementation of Housing for All, it would help to have a website where I can see all the local authority public housing sites and the AHB sites in my area, showing their status and who is responsible for them. My constituency has 20 public housing sites for public housing on public land. They are mostly being developed by Dublin City Council and the AHBs. It is clear that things have changed. It is clear that there is no evidence of developer-led development. It is clear that the local authorities are back in the game of building. I can outline specific problems on each site where I would like things to move faster. We should have some more transparency. I do not want to be blaming my local authority and asking why it is not doing this or why a particular site is not moving. I just want access to more information on what local authorities are doing which would be very useful.

We need to give people more options on senior citizen housing. We need to consider accessing capital funding for older person accommodation. This is not independent senior citizens, as we call it in Dublin city. This is where people live not in a nursing home environment but one that feels very like a nursing home environment without that technical nursing element; it is in supported accommodation. They cannot access capital funding from the HSE because it claims it is housing provision. They cannot access capital funding from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage because it is not housing for people coming off local authority waiting lists. There is scope for us to do more. I would like to hear the Minister's views on that.

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