Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

The Housing Act 1966, the City and County Management (Amendment) Act and the Local Government Acts laid the basis for good housing policy and action and a good response by the local authorities to the housing need. Unfortunately, many changes have taken place. Many of the principles of those Acts have been set aside. Experts have been called in. Consultants were called upon to advise Governments in the past ten years regarding how the situation might be addressed. Unfortunately, as is the often the case when consultants are called in, the results are only as good as the degree to which the consultants are experts and only an expert can determine when an expert should be called in.

I am dismayed at the way the housing situation has degenerated in so far as the local authorities are concerned in recent years. The number of family size homes now being built is very limited. In my constituency, the possibility of acquiring a three bedroom house is remote. There are 3,700 families on the waiting list. Some of those families have been on the waiting list for the past ten years and some of those families will be on the waiting list until their children are teenagers. I cannot understand how the Government has remained altogether immune and impervious to the fact that this has taken place. I cannot understand why it has taken until now to introduce a housing Bill to somehow address some parts of the problem.

In recent years there has been a failure by Government to recognise the true housing situation. There was urgency on the part of the Government to divest itself of all responsibility for any action which might be construed as being a means of resolving the housing problem. It opted out. It stated the private sector should take the necessary action. It reached over to its friends in the private sector and requested they do something about it, but nothing occurred.

The whole culture in the area has completely changed. Under the 1966 Act, there was an onus and responsibility on local authorities to provide housing and the funding for housing to ensure those who were first time house buyers would be able to afford a house. Where did that go? It is long since gone, lost and forgotten. In the past ten years there has scarcely been a single instance where one could acquire a truly affordable house. What has occurred? The voluntary sector moved in. In the absence of Government policy and because of the laziness of Government to address the issue, the voluntary sector was called in. What has taken place? I do not blame voluntary organisations for this because anyone would do the same thing, but they received a 100% capital grant to build houses. They acquired free sites. The voluntary agencies own those houses for ever. Some of them are now the largest landlords in the country and some own up to 4,500 houses. The tenant can never buy those houses. I acknowledge there are references in the proposed legislation to address some of the issues, but I do not believe the Bill will properly address them.

Another issue is the definition of affordable. What does affordable mean? Is a dwelling affordable by virtue of being lower in scale than the market price, or is it affordable by virtue of the fact that it should address the housing need of a given individual? Let us also bear in mind such a person's ability to repay. In other words, I refer to the sustainability of the loan.

In recent years, we carried out an experiment in my constituency whereby we challenged the local authority to make sites available to those on the local authority housing list at the same price the sites were being made available to the voluntary sector. That was a challenge, but it was legal under the legislation. We succeeded until the various ministerial bodies, bureaucrats, consultants and all such "crats" became involved and decided to close off that loophole and charge a meaningful fee for the sites. Previously, we would have acquired the sites for free, for £1 or €1, which was done. What resulted was local authority houses of good quality were provided on foot of a local authority loan to people who had no other means of obtaining a housing loan. Such people are in those houses to this day. Their loans were sustainable and they were able to live there even in the highly inflationary environment which was in place in the housing sector.

We had to change our approach and move in an different direction because the loophole was closed off. The next step was to identify how to deal with the new situation emerging and how persons on the local authority housing list could obtain a loan whether through the shared ownership scheme, the SDA, severely disadvantaged area, scheme and whether they would qualify under one or the other. We discovered it was possible, but with somewhat greater difficulty. Again, we succeeded in securing the building of several houses. The cost of these, even in the past two years, was no more than between €140,000 and €165,000, which was quite an achievement.

The local voluntary groups were obliged to purchase the site and they were subject to a clawback. Deputy Catherine Byrne mentioned the clawback already. I cannot understand the purpose of the clawback. It permanently punishes the unfortunate person who falls into the category of housing need. Such people will never put together a deposit to move out because if they ever make a profit it is taken from them by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Such people cannot move anywhere. It would have been very simple to say the housing need of a given person is met and if that person sells the house to another person at a later stage the housing need is still met and the person has the ability to use their deposit or whatever profit is made — in some cases a loss would be made — to move on to different accommodation. It used to be the case that there was a clawback for local authority sites and housing and each case had to be approved by the local authority. However, that procedure was disbanded because it was holding up and restricting the extent to which a person could sell his or her house on the open market and move on with satisfaction.

During the time of the Celtic tiger the one group of people seriously neglected was those dependant on a first housing start. Such people remain set aside. Some of the most recent schemes have an entitlement and an upper limit of €280,000 or €300,000. In the present market those who took up these schemes are not looking forward to a positive future. I do not know where we are going, but we must consider more carefully to what we commit people.

I refer to tax incentives in the housing area. They completely skewed the housing system and took the emphasis away from those in need. Why was it not possible to provide tax incentives to produces houses for first time buyers? That would have been simple. Incentives were introduced for speculative purposes and to encourage investment and investors, which is fine. However, we now know the difficulty with that approach.

I refer to another occurrence in recent times which must be addressed urgently. Deputies referred to the degree of antisocial behaviour taking place. I recognise action is proposed in the legislation. I do not know whether that action will be effective, because legislation to address this issue was previously introduced and nothing occurred. There are local authority housing estates in some parts of the country and in my constituency where the existing long-term tenants wish to move out. In some cases, people who have purchased their homes have moved out because they can no longer tolerate antisocial behaviour. What is the reason? The local authorities do not seem to be trying to ensure that people appointed to tenancies in some housing schemes recognise their serious responsibility, which affects their neighbours.

The voluntary housing sector is also affected. It cherry picks by skimming, not scamming, the list of housing applicants. Its allocation policy is not subject to local authority or transparency requirements. Having cherry picked several times, there is a tendency to wear down the core and the social fabric of the housing schemes. Those who have lived in a scheme for a number of years find themselves isolated. In some cases, by virtue of the shortage of housing available to local authorities, they find that undesirables have been located among them. By "undesirables" I mean people involved in drug dealing and other antisocial activity. This serious matter has damaged the social fabric of countless housing areas.

I wish to raise an issue relating to a number of points made by other Deputies, namely, meeting the needs of those who have been entrusted to our responsibility. I refer to people with, for example, special needs who receive disabled persons grants, DPGs, and those who are in need of essential repairs grants. Currently, grants from local authorities have been frozen because they are awaiting a Government decision on what should occur next. It is sad that people who, in many cases, are elderly or are young and have special needs still find that they must travel upstairs without assistance. Their disabled person's grant, DPG, applications are being assessed or it has been indicated to them that assessments will be carried out at some point. Does anyone understand what this is like for the applicant? How does placing someone, often an elderly person, on a long waiting list and telling him or her that we will consider the case next year or at the end of this year, depending on the availability of funding, resonate with that applicant? He or she may experience a shortage of funding, but what about civilised society's recognition of the person's special needs — his or her inability to live a reasonable quality of life in his or her home — and the system's failure to respond positively?

I do not know what the outcome will be, but every Deputy has a list as long as his or her arm of people who keep reminding us that they have made applications for DPGs. Local authorities have told them that, because of the current financial situation, the grants have been put on hold. Life itself is being put on hold as far as I can see. The Minister sitting across from me knows full well that efforts should be made as a matter of urgency to deal with these special needs cases. While it might not receive the same amount of good publicity, this scheme generates as much employment as other schemes that will likely be before the House in the not too distant future and some of which are before us already. If possible and notwithstanding any proposals in the Bill, will funding be made available to deal with the DPG issue as a priority?

I wish to discuss the economic needs of the house building sector. The building industry has suffered a severe setback in the current economic climate. Approximately 70,000 families are seeking accommodation on local authority and affordable housing lists. Bringing these two inter-linked areas together is a necessity, as one can resolve the other. How to do so and the logistics involved are matters for the Minister and his Department, but I am uncertain as to whether the Bill goes even a fraction of the way. It is not enough to say that we do not have enough money. We will never have enough to carry out the type of attack on housing needs that is required. We never had it or the will to do this in the past, which is the sad part.

Once upon a time, most local authority members, many of whom were Deputies, would meet four or five applicants for affordable home loans on a weekly basis. Sadly, that time is past. What is affordable? How affordable is a mortgage of €250,000 or €300,000 to someone who applies for a loan from a building society, mortgage company or so on in the public or private sector? It is not.

As I stated at a committee meeting today, I had occasion in recent weeks to attend court to give evidence on behalf of an unfortunate constituent whose house was being repossessed. I am annoyed by how people must go to the various financial institutions before a local authority will consider him or her. The unfortunate constituent's family was given a loan by a mortgage company amounting to approximately 200% of the family's then entitlement. It was a question of matching the loan to the house price. This practice was unsustainable, as has proven to be the case. The family's house will be repossessed and, when placed on the market, will not be sold. The family's credit rating will be damaged by the selfishness of the mortgage company, which has piled compound interest charges and penalties upon the original low interest rate to such an extent that it will be impossible for the person to extricate himself from his situation.

The question of affordability must be examined, particularly given that local authorities have on their hands a fairly large number of what are deemed to be affordable houses. Does the Minister know what is happening? Some houses on the same estates are on sale at prices lower than those being offered to applicants by local authorities. How can this be? It is a regular occurrence in every local authority from Cork to Dublin and from Kildare to Carlow, Meath and so on. I do not understand why the penny has not dropped and someone has not said that the applicants must be treated with fairness and that prices be decreased to a point at which they are at least in keeping with today's market values. Otherwise, further problems will be created by people entering negative equity situations, particularly if they have gone to the private sector for their mortgages. How much time have I remaining?

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