Michael Fitzpatrick (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

In my contribution to Second Stage of the debate on 5 March, I spoke about the background to the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, homelessness and the quality of new local authority estates. Today, I wish discuss the issue of housing for the Traveller community. The legislative framework for Traveller accommodation is set out in the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998. Section 7 of that Act requires housing authorities to adopt Traveller accommodation programmes in their functional areas to accommodate the needs of Travellers. The culture of the Traveller community must be recognised and local authorities must be committed to promoting equality and inclusion for travellers. Living accommodation based on needs and family circumstances of Travellers is essential and should cater for the expression of their culture. It is important for all of us that the Traveller culture is maintained in its original form.

The allocation of Traveller families to settled estates should be done with the agreement of immediate neighbours and tenants because past experience has shown that many problems arise when this does not happen. Allocating a dwelling to a household is an executive function but, notwithstanding this, it is important that the executive consults elected members, officials of the relevant health authorities and other interested parties who possess a wealth of local knowledge. In cases where this does not happen, the results are self-evident.

This important Bill aims to improve services and develop sustainable communities. It provides local authorities which enhanced powers to deal with anti-social behaviour. I welcome the significant amendment to the definition of "anti-social behaviour" as set out in section 1(1) of the Housing Act 1970 to include, under four different headings, violence, threats, intimidation, coercion and harassment or serious obstruction of a person, behaviour which causes any significant or persistent impairment of a person's use or enjoyment of his or her home and damage to or defacement by writing or other marks of a property, including a person's home.

The provision of one-off housing for persons or families should always be an important element of housing policy in order to allow personal and family needs to be considered separately. This is particularly true in rural Ireland, where many sons and daughters have been forced to live in towns and settlements far from their parents and roots. The time has come when we should consider maintaining people from rural areas in their own communities, particularly those who live in isolated areas or who have elderly parents.

Section 11 replaces section 56(2) of the Housing Act 1966 and empowers the housing authority to provide and maintain services ancillary to housing developments, including roads, shops, playgrounds, places of worship and sites for schools and other facilities. It is important this section is also applied to the voluntary and co-operative housing sector and projects undertaken through public private partnerships on behalf of housing authorities. These provisions will ensure that all future developments provide essential services.

The screening regulatory impact assessment prepared by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for the Bill states that the scheme aims to source good quality rented accommodation, provide greater housing security for persons with long-term housing needs, reduce dependency on supplementary benefit allowances and long-term housing benefit, secure a greater social mix through the geographical disbursal of housing needs and contribute to better value for money for the State in the provision of long-term housing solutions. I hope these worthy aims will be achieved. In essence, the scheme proposed in the Bill addresses many of the concerns expressed by NGOs in the housing sector regarding rent supplements. They claim that rent supplements provide no security to tenants, subsidise poor standards of accommodation and create unemployment traps due to conditions on employment. Under the rent allowance scheme, rent is assessed under local authorities' differential rent schemes for other forms of social housing. The RIA identified the following as barriers to initial take up of the rental accommodation scheme introduced in 2004 — the poor quality of some private-rented accommodation; the unwillingness of some landlords to join RAS; households living in overcrowded conditions; and a shortage of supply for particular types of accommodation in some areas at reasonable rent levels.

Another issue addressed under section 39 is the resale of properties. Section 39 lays out the resale conditions of the scheme. It allows for resale at any time, so should not act as a barrier to future housing options or be inflexible regarding changes of circumstances. In relation to resale and repayment of a portion of the value to the housing association, section 39(7) allows that where the purchaser has made "material improvement", this may be taken into account in calculating the proportion repayable. The Bill provides the housing authority with first refusal to purchase the property on re-sale, and gives it power of approval for any other potential purchaser. This power can be used, inter alia, to refuse re-sale to those who have engaged in anti-social behaviour.

Although there is no specific provision in the 2008 Bill providing for a review of the incremental purchase scheme, the RIA states that the scheme will be subject to a pilot phase in a number of housing authorities before being implemented more broadly. The pilot phase will be managed and reviewed by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Thereafter the Department will continue to monitor and review progress in implementing the scheme. Another issue is the sale of flats.

The proposed incremental purchase scheme does not apply to the sale of new flats or apartments. Section 36(2) specifically excludes from the incremental purchase scheme the sale of any dwelling that is "a separate and self-contained apartment in a premises, divided into 2 or more apartments, which would require arrangements for the upkeep of common areas, works or services other than by the purchaser". Perhaps this is an area that needs to be kept under review.

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