Mr. Mike Allen:

I thank the committee for the invitation. Focus Ireland is one of the leading homeless and housing organisations in the country. We are not just a homeless organisation; we are also an approved housing body. We have more than 600 housing units across the country for families and single people. We span a range of the concerns the committee is addressing.

I will make a general comment on the heads of the Bill before moving on to the housing supply issue we have been asked to address. The legislation is extremely important and I hope we will be able to engage in discussion as the legislation is drafted and proceeds through the Dáil. While we recognise there is a requirement to provide for evictions and amendments are needed to deal with the human rights issues and so on that are problematic in the current legislation, the heads as drafted at the moment are simply a mechanism to achieve an eviction and we strongly believe that is the next but worst outcome that could arise.

Much more needs to be included in the legislation so the underlying problems which lead to the threat of eviction might be addressed, not as an outside issue which officials may bring into play in particular circumstances but as a clearly specified legal part of the process in which organisations which can help people sustain their tenancies should be engaged. We and our colleagues in the Simon Community have prevention teams in the city which work with local authorities and both organisations have an extremely good record of intervening with families and households threatened with eviction and helping them deal with the problems which caused the threat in the first place to the satisfaction of the local authority and the neighbours, which is crucial. This is missing entirely. While we can understand how a community faced with families behaving in an antisocial way would wish simply to see the family moved elsewhere, as a society making families homeless is not a solution to any social problems we face and we need to closely examine what can be done to prevent it while the legislation goes through the Dáil.

Moving to the question on more general housing supply, homelessness is a very complex issue with many causes, one of which at any given time has to do with a shortage of housing, but there are usually many other factors such as mental health, social behaviour and poverty. At present the extent to which homelessness is caused simply as a housing supply issue is coming to the fore. In our submission we identify one of the areas in which we particularly work is with homeless families. In January 42 families in Dublin presented as homeless. This is three times as many as there were 18 months ago when we started this work. Of the 42 families, 40 had no previous experience of homelessness. The cause of their homelessness was housing supply. It was economics and not any social problem or issue.

The question of housing supply is central and it is a problem throughout society, including for relatively well-off people trying to achieve the home they wish. We make no apology for stating the part of society for whom we speak, namely, those at the bottom for whom the choice is not between a better home and a less good home but between homelessness and any type of home, are those whom the Dáil, Parliament and committee should prioritise in what they do. We do not believe simple measures to create an aggregate increase in the amount of housing in a rising tide will lift all boats way will solve the problem for those at the bottom. We need measures specifically designed to provide housing for people who cannot afford to provide it on their own in the free market. We need it through subsidies to existing housing, ring-fencing housing and policies leading to the building of public, social and community housing of one form or another.

We lay out a number of short-term measures in our presentation, which all committee members have read. A key element is our argument that rent supplement needs to be reviewed. It was reviewed almost a year ago and the Department of Social Protection states the review will last for 18 months and it will not re-examine it until the end of this year. According to the laws the Parliament has set down, landlords can review rent on an annual basis. It is our belief the way in which the State responds to the needs of tenants should reflect the laws of the land and we should also review rent supplement on an annual basis. This means we should examine it now with a view to revising the figures at the end of June.

We recognise that increasing rent supplement levels would have an impact on the cost to the State and there is a risk that rents will increase. The argument for rent regulation and rent control has never been stronger. The legislation we are discussing today which committee members will examine over a period of time is where this argument can be progressed. We should not wait several years to do it. We should do it now. We have put forward a number of ideas on rebalancing tax reliefs in the private rented sector so landlords would no longer be able to get rent relief for behaving in what we believe to be a blatantly discriminatory manner whereby they state they will not accept rent supplement tenants, while at the same time they receive tax relief on 75% of their income. This should be rebalanced so there is a tax incentive for landlords to take people from the bottom of the pack who are in greatest difficulty.

These are short-term measures, which we need, but we will not be able to deal with this problem with short-term measures only. We need to consider long-term measures also. In particular we draw attention to the important issue of reforming and retaining Part V. If a decision is taken to abolish it there would be little hope for providing sufficient social housing for our people.