John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

Since my involvement as a member of the local authority in my area, from 1979 up to the point where we had to cease such membership because of the end of the dual mandate, which was a daft notion, I have seen substantial change in the approach to local authority housing. I applaud the various initiatives such as the shared ownership scheme, the affordable housing scheme, the continuing social housing, the rent supplement scheme to a degree and the Part V process. Down the years I have seen all those initiatives make an impact in one way or another on the housing lists.

Regardless of what the Government will do, there will always be a group on the housing list who simply cannot afford to build or buy their own house, who must rely on the local authority. That is a growing number. As the population increases and there is a demand on young people to have their own place, people aspire to having their own local authority house if they are in that category.

It is a little unfortunate that we allowed the rent supplement scheme to grow from €5 million, as it was in the beginning, to the present level of €305 million without putting in place a method of filling that market by providing the accommodation that is needed in the context of local authority dwellings. If we had focused earlier on the emergence of the different categories on the local authority housing lists, we would have terminated the rent supplement scheme and fulfilled the demand for that scheme by way of a high number of a specific kind of local authority houses. By that I mean that if we audited the local authority housing lists, there are people living in three-bedroom houses who would prefer to be in two-bedroom or one-bedroom houses etc. We could have achieved the goal of reducing the number on the housing list and ceasing the rent supplement scheme.

I tend to agree with Deputy Crowe that at times it seems that it is solely landlords who are benefiting from that scheme. Rent for poor quality rented properties, at least down the country, has increased substantially because of the existence of that scheme, just as the price of private houses has increased substantially because of the shared ownership scheme. In my county, every time the maximum loan available under the scheme increases, the cost of the units increases. The maximum loan amounts to €165,000 in my county at present. The increases demonstrate greed on the part of those providing the accommodation in question. The Part V process, whereby land is made available to local authorities in private housing schemes, is working and will fulfil a need.

The length of waiting lists for local authority housing is growing and a number of single men and women have been on the lists for many years. The type of accommodation they require is not made available frequently enough to reduce the number on the waiting lists. I encourage the Minister of State to focus on that group. He should also consider those people of a certain generation who had to emigrate to the United Kingdom and beyond to find employment and who have now fallen on hard times. They want to come home and, while there is limited scope for them to do so, we should broaden this scope by providing the necessary local authority housing.

There is now a lack of land banks in local authority areas because they have been exhausted over the years. We need a scheme to allow the local authorities buy land from the private sector at a price that is reasonable relative to the acceptable cost per unit under the local authority housing scheme. This is the only way we can address the problem and provide apartment-style accommodation for those single men and women who need to be housed and taken out of private sector accommodation.

The bureaucracy pertaining to the disabled person's grant scheme and the housing aid for the elderly scheme is considerable and the people waiting for improvements to their homes under these schemes do not have time to endure it. A simplified scheme in the form of a home package, administered through the local government structure, is needed. I encourage a serious overhaul of both the disabled person's grant and housing aid for the elderly schemes so the bureaucracy could be removed and the grants made more realistic. The focus should be on the disabled or elderly person to ensure the relevant grant is delivered on time.

Given the emergence of the voluntary housing sector, which includes Respond in Kilkenny, and the emergence of the affordable housing scheme, which are sometimes coupled under or operating in conjunction with a local authority housing scheme, there is need for overall scheme management. This is not being delivered by the local authorities or the voluntary housing associations. They are not interested in dealing with anti-social behaviour, which is now emerging as a significant issue throughout the country, yet the directors of services and county managers are being paid well enough to deal with all the issues that arise in this regard. I have said this directly to the Department officials in Kilkenny. The directors of services and county managers should deal with the issues in a comprehensive way with the other agencies involved and the Garda. It is part of their remit to ensure that anti-social behaviour is dealt with in the context of supporting good, decent tenants in housing estates throughout the country.

If anti-social behaviour is left unaddressed, as is now the case, it will become more widespread. We need to engage with the Health Service Executive in this regard because it encourages some of the people on its waiting lists to enter private rented accommodation. Some of these people are known drug users, are known to be providing drugs for use by others. In Kilkenny city there is a serious heroin problem, yet it is unrecognised by the agencies and those involved in allocating housing, be they in the private sector, Respond or the local authority. We are allowing difficulties to fester in the estates in question. In saying that, I acknowledge the substantial money given to Respond, other voluntary agencies and local authorities to deal with housing.

Dealing with housing should go beyond giving a person a house. Those concerned have a responsibility to manage estates in the way they should be managed, that is, in the interest of the good tenants living therein. If they do not manage the estates properly, they are negligent in their duties and do not do justice to the system in which persons in need are granted houses and in which they should be given the type of support they require in their housing estates.

Reference was made in this debate and others to community gardaí. The presence of a community garda in any estate is pivotal to addressing the problems that exit therein. I ask the Minister, when briefing county managers, to insist that they allocate houses in consultation with all the relevant agencies so the right mix of people will exist in every housing estate and they will not dump most of the people who are perhaps undesirable into a single housing estate. This would not represent good management, yet it is happening in my county and in some neighbouring counties. We are receiving complaints as a result of that method of allocating houses.

On the affordable housing scheme, the clawback system is a good idea. However, it is working against tenants who find that the scheme suits them initially but who discover after some years that it actually militates against them when they want to sell their property after bettering their circumstances. We need to review the system to ensure we are affording the best possible advantage to the tenant to improve his or her circumstances and move on without being penalised to the extent that he or she must refuse or decide not to move because of the amount of money being clawed back. The housing initiatives are good but need to be tailored to the reality of the housing scene in local authority areas.

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