Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on housing. Many of the issues we as public representatives face in our constituencies on a daily and weekly basis concern housing. Others have spoken on the cost of housing and the economy going well. Those issues aside, we have a certain bracket of population, such as single parents, which finds it very difficult to get on the property ladder. The State and the county councils are doing much to target these people under the affordable housing scheme and other initiatives.

Representing a rural constituency I have seen the benefits of sheltered housing, which has become a feature of rural Ireland. The sheltered housing scheme receives funding from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government via the local authorities and supports voluntary housing groups such as local community organisations or voluntary housing associations. These provide massive facilities. In some of the smaller communities, they have provided some six to eight houses and more in other communities. They particularly facilitate older people moving into a sheltered environment. Funding is now available through the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and local authorities for the day-care centres attached to these facilities. Many of those groups have done excellent work in small villages and towns in rural Ireland. We should encourage it because in every community vulnerable people are left on the margins. We occasionally see news of people left aside, unable achieve what people have in the sheltered housing projects and day-care centres.

If people were lucky enough to get a local authority house to lease and then their circumstances changed, they could buy the house. People in such housing tended to maintain the house as well as possible because they might one day come into good fortune and be able to purchase it. It was a great incentive and I have seen many estates where that happened. However, in my constituency and throughout the country many housing associations and co-operatives build houses and lease them to people who would normally be on a local authority list. In some estates, housing associations lease to local authority tenants with the stipulation that the house cannot be bought. Such associations have massive amounts of property in each town, village and local community but I wonder do the people renting them have the same incentives as those who know that one day they will be able to buy. Does it encourage them to get involved in the local community? I would like to hear other people's views on that. People can say we built houses, leased them and then allowed the tenants to buy them, and that it was a great idea which was the forerunner of the affordable housing scheme.

The shared ownership scheme is also beneficial. All these schemes particularly target the less well-off and try to get them on to the property ladder. Over the years more affluent people have been able to look after themselves. The figures show that many people have been able to get on the property ladder through the shared ownership scheme. They show that 17,000 houses have been purchased in this way. Affordable housing is about to get going and the Part V arrangements will come into play in many housing estates the length and breadth of the country. This will be seen as revolutionary legislation that has helped people in no small way.

A huge bugbear for all public representatives from rural constituencies in Ireland is planning, particularly for one-off houses. Those various organisations of the State that constantly criticise one-off houses should be dispensed with. There should be normal planning guidelines but this framework contains enough to ensure that as many as possible can get planning on a one-off basis in rural Ireland.

I commend the Government's amendment to the House.

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