Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for spotting such an important issue that I simply had not spotted in these two sections. I will give a bit of background because this issue has become a bit of a hobby-horse of mine. There is a widespread view in political and media circles that monotenure housing - having large numbers of working-class people living in the same place - is not good housing policy. At its worst end, we hear people talk about monotenure housing as inevitably producing ghettos and social problems. It is interesting that there is no empirical evidence in this jurisdiction, or in the OECD, that supports this proposition. In fact, it is one of the most frustrating areas of housing policy discussion whereby a world view has become so dominant, based on so little evidence.

I will talk the committee through the evidence in support of Deputy Boyd Barrett's amendments. The first piece of housing policy research in this jurisdiction that raised the issue of monotenure and mixed tenure housing was the National Economic and Social Council report of 1998. What was interesting about the report is that it challenged 100% private housing and private developments. It argued that this was a very bad thing. It was not actually making the case against large-scale public housing projects because up until that period, large-scale public housing projects had an income mix. The Minister of State will know that himself from the local authority estates he would have known growing up in Limerick. These estates had a wide range of income categories and professions. These estates provided housing for working-class people, the majority of whom worked in good, stable jobs, some in more poorly-paid jobs and some more precariously.

In 1990, Government policy changed and moved away from the large-scale provision of mixed-income working-class housing estates to the model we have today, which is called residualised public housing provision. This involves small amounts of public housing for the very poor, the unemployed or the unemployable. As a consequence, some new housing projects started to develop challenges that were not widespread in more traditional social housing. In fact, the only major piece of empirical research in this jurisdiction on whether monotenure is good or bad is that conducted by Professor Tony Fahey who was professor of social policy in UCD at the time. Michelle Norris and Cathal O'Donnell were the research assistants. They are now both eminent professors of social policy, Professor O'Donnell in Cork and Professor Norris in UCD. The Minister of State should know about this because Moyross was included in the study, which focused on seven housing estates around Ireland. Two rounds of research were carried out, the first in 1997 and the second ten years later in 2007.

The strong conclusions of the report are that the overwhelming majority of monotenure states are really good places to live. Do they have challenges in respect of investment, economic opportunity, community safety, etc.? They do. However, in the view of the people who live there and who want to live there, they are really good places. The research of Dr. Tony Fahey, Ms Michelle Norris, Mr. Cathal O'Connell and others has consistently shown that only a minority of public housing estates, for a variety of very specific reasons, become very challenging. I do not need to tell the Minister of State the history of Moyross, which was one of the most sought-after estates when it was first built because there were good quality homes there. For a variety of reasons, it ended up in the situation it is currently in. The majority of council estates, however, did not end up like Moyross. We know the name of Moyross because it is quite an exception when compared with other estates in other jurisdictions. There is enormous good work happening in Moyross and there have been incredible achievements and advances, driven by the local community, community organisations and school principals. I have been there with my colleague, Deputy Quinlivan, and I want to ensure the impression is not given that Moyross is a bad place to live when the opposite is the case. People are improving that community day by day, as is the case in Ballymun and other areas that are often pointed to as examples of why monotenure housing does not work.

There are two things that are very interesting and to which I want to refer in support of these amendments, because the text the amendments are seeking to remove is dangerous. An increasing body of empirical research from other jurisdictions, including Britain, New Zealand, Australia, etc., is beginning to demonstrate that so-called mixed-tenure approaches to housing, such as Part V, for example, increase social exclusion and segregation within the housing estates. We all know of examples in our own communities where 10% social housing has not produced integration or inclusion but has exacerbated the divisions. I can think of one housing estate in my own constituency in which the local authority tenants are not entitled to sit on the management company because they are not owner-occupiers and, therefore, have no role in any of the discussions or decision-making. There is simply no research. I challenge the Minister of State and his officials to point us towards or provide us with empirical research in Ireland or Britain that suggests tenure has anything to do with the quality of the estate. I know monotenure estates that are great places to live and that are challenging places to live. I know mixed-tenure estates that are great places to live and that are challenging places to live. What really matters is income mix, the quality of housing stock and the integration of housing with services, etc.

This section relates, for example, to Ballymun. As we know, in Dublin City Council's development plan, there is a restriction on new social housing development in Ballymun because of a belief that there has been an over-concentration of social housing. The consequence of that is that the young, working-class people growing up in that community who want to remain there do not have the option to do so. Not only do they have the disadvantage, as do people on social housing waiting lists everywhere, of having to wait for ten to 14 years for an allocation but they will not get an allocation in that area because no new social housing is being provided. If the Government wants to increase the income mix in communities, that clearly cannot be done by restricting new social housing. It must be done by increasing the provision of affordable purchase and affordable rental or, as Deputy O'Donoghue has suggested, by widening the income bands, which has been partially done already. There is simply no justification for the continued use of mixed tenure as an argument for counteracting segregation.

My final point is important from a policy point of view. If one was to talk to Focus Ireland about the individuals with which it works who have made the transition from long-term homelessness into Part V social housing in mixed-tenure estates, its representatives would say that the experience of many of its clients now in secure tenancies is that they are completely isolated and segregated within the estate. The research of Dr. Fahey, Ms Norris and Mr. O'Connell showed clearly that one of the great values of monotenure is that it creates a cohesion underpinning the relationships between all of the different residents and, in the instance of local authority housing, the local authority. Mixed income can be achieved within local authority estates by allowing tenant purchase, etc., and some of our best and most settled social housing estates are those that have a significant portion of tenant purchase, where the tenants have remained and we have intergenerational security of tenure. I am sure the Minister of State could name estates in his own constituency that are like that. This is an opportunity for us to say that the dogma of mixed tenure has no basis in fact and to take it out of legislation and policy and allow the decisions around the volume of social and affordable housing be based on one thing and one thing only, that is, need. Let us put the focus on making sure we meet that need through mixed income public housing estates rather than continuing the failed policy of residualisation and narrowing the possibility for the scope of housing in areas where it is needed. Ballymun needs more social housing. It also needs far more affordable homes to rent and purchase, and this provision, for an area such as Ballymun and others, will continue to perpetuate problems that discriminate against and disadvantage people in those areas who are waiting for social housing allocations.