Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the introduction of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2008 and I congratulate the Minister and Minister of State on the work they and their departmental officials have done on this Bill. The reforms proposed in the Bill are timely, particularly the powers given to the Minister to issue policy directions with which housing authorities must comply and guidelines to which housing authorities must have regard in the performance of their statutory duty. I also welcome a new power for elected members to make housing service plans for delivery in their areas of social and affordable housing supports, in line with housing strategies in the development plans. Such plans will be implemented through a three-year programme drawn up by managers and will be rolled over every year.

Moreover, the fact that the Bill makes provision for a number of important social housing supports is significant. I refer to a comprehensive statutory framework for the provision of rented social housing through leasing or contract arrangements, notably the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, that was introduced in 2005 and which involves housing authorities progressively taking responsibility for accommodating people in receipt of social welfare rent supplement who have a long-term housing need. Under RAS, the housing authority pays the rent to the landlord on behalf of the tenant and the tenant pays an income-related rent contribution to the statutory authority. This highly significant change is greatly to be welcomed.

I refer to the new incremental purchase scheme, whereby existing social housing tenants and households that qualify for social housing support are helped to become owners of houses that are newly built by local authorities and voluntary and co-operative bodies. Full ownership of the house is transferred to a household on purchase of an initial share of the equity. The housing authority or body charges the property for the proportion of the equity not paid for and releases this charge in equal proportions for each year that the buyer occupies the house until the charge is completely eliminated. The incremental purchaser can resell the house at any time but must pay the housing authority or body that proportion of the proceeds equivalent to its prevailing charge share of the equity. I welcome this initiative in particular.

The main problem with local authority estates down through the years has been the fact that many local authority tenants who were paying rent ad infinitum simply were not concerned or interested in the upkeep of their houses. On the other hand, many good tenants looked after their houses well and ensured that the costs of maintenance and so on to the local authorities were kept to a minimum. However, particularly on foot of the fairly significant buy-out of houses under the tenant purchase schemes, many tenants who held on to their houses did not really concern themselves in any way with the proper upkeep of their homes. All Members know of local authority estates in every town, city and village in which it is clear there are a number of tenants who have no interest or regard for the houses in which they are living and who always are on Members' constituency lists seeking support and help in the maintenance of such houses. I welcome the concept in this scheme whereby people are encouraged to take ownership of their house by degrees and compliment the officials and Ministers involved in this initiative.

The new range of powers given to the local authority or its elected members also is of great significance. Easily the most important of these new powers is that enabling the elected members to adopt strategies for the prevention and reduction of behaviour in the local authority housing stock. Members have sought such a provision for many years. Antisocial behaviour by local authority tenants should be dealt with in a zero tolerance way. The definition of antisocial behaviour has been extended to cover graffiti and damage to property, bringing it more into line with regard to legislation on Garda behaviour orders. I welcome the extension of the existing antisocial behaviour powers of housing authorities, notably the power to seek excluding orders against individual household members to cover accommodation provided through both rental or leasing arrangements, notably the RAS and incremental purchase. For far too long, behaviour that is unacceptable in any sphere has been tolerated among a small percentage of local authority tenants nationwide. All Members know the families involved. I could name those families in Galway who give constant difficulty and trouble to their neighbours, the local authority, the Garda, the social workers and everyone else. It is time that we had proper legislation to deal with such people and when dealing with this issue, a zero tolerance approach must be taken.

It is extremely important also to put in place preventative measures to try to ensure that families that are dysfunctional or that are experiencing difficulties are assisted in an appropriate way to enable them to live in a house or within a community. During my time as Minister of State with responsibility for youth affairs and for children, I found the difficulty often was due to the personal circumstances of the family. In such families, the mother involved, through no fault of her own, may have been obliged to cope with a large family or a husband who was alcoholic or absent. Some tenants experienced great difficulty when trying to deal with some of the ordinary everyday issues of life. We must ensure that proper co-ordinated and joined-up support is given to such families. We do not do so at present. Although it is critically important that the agencies involved should get their act together, I am satisfied that this has not happened and is not happening.

I can point to examples today in Galway city in which serious issues exist within families that are not being addressed because of the lack of proper joined-up thinking between the agencies that visit such households. Members will note that this is what happened in the infamous case in County Roscommon. Before this welcome legislation is applied, we must ensure that supports are provided to families who are finding it difficult and who in many respects are dysfunctional.

I recall a Garda chief superintendent in Neilstown who visited me one day while I was Minister of State with responsibility for children. He gave me the names of ten young delinquents and told me they would be the best criminals in Dublin in five or six years time. I had an examination carried out on these young lads, who were nine, ten, 11 or 12 years of age. However, in the company of the chief superintendent concerned, I visited the mother of the most notorious of the aforementioned kids. On the chief superintendent's arrival at the mother's door, she welcomed him as they knew each other. He interviewed her in my presence about the difficulties she was having. One of the points she made to him was that were she to make tea for everyone who visited her every week, she would be making tea all day, such was the number of different agencies and officials who were visiting this woman to try to be of support to her. Such was the lack of co-ordinated, joined up support that is essential for these families, some of these agencies did not even know that some of the other agencies were visiting the same house. My first appeal to the Minister is to ensure preventative initiatives are set up and that gardaí, the HSE, those in education, social workers and so on deal with dysfunctional families in a co-ordinated way.

When I published legislation on children I visited New Zealand to see the system there, which is the best in the world. We copied the legislation so that all agencies would deal effectively with families that had difficulties. I am not satisfied that this legislation is being implemented as well or as effectively as it could be. It is not a matter of resources, there are sufficient resources, but inefficient action is being taken by the agencies involved. If there are situations where families are not prepared to play ball, where children, teenagers, fathers and mothers have total disregard for their neighbours, the community, the local authority and the law, we must act tough. We must act in a no-nonsense way on drug and alcohol abuse. It is sad to hear stories of neighbours of dysfunctional families and the kind of misery they must put up with because some families are out of control and disrespectful to everyone. This is an initiative with which I wholeheartedly agree. This Bill would be worthwhile if there was nothing other than the power to deal with antisocial behaviour in it.

We are not spending money wisely on rental subsidy. I recently tabled a question on the number of families in receipt of €800 or more in monthly rental subsidy. The reply indicated some 13,000 families, which is money down the drain. Families receiving sums of more than €800 per month in rental income subsidy should be put in a house immediately. I recommend to the Minister of State with responsibility for housing to capitalise rental income subsidies and purchase houses in the current market. This would be more cost effective for the Exchequer. One can buy houses in parts of the country for as little as €130,000 for a three bedroom or a four bedroom semi-detached house. It would make more sense to buy out houses across the country and put people on large rental income subsidies in those houses. We could give them ownership and make them pay back some contribution on a continuing basis. That would make far more sense because rental income subsidy is putting money into the pockets of the owners of the houses. The support continues ad infinitum because these people cannot, by and large, get houses. I do not know the bill for the rental subsidy but it is larger than it should be. With the housing market in the condition it is in, now is the ideal time for local authorities to buy out houses. In Galway, the local authority bought out houses at high prices in the past few years. Now the houses have dropped in value. I do not blame local authority officials, who did not know what would happen any more than anyone else. Notwithstanding the difficult financial situation, one of the better ways to save money is for the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to switch from the rental subsidy to buying out the houses instead.

Trying to provide housing stock to meet waiting lists has not been successful. There have been significant increases in the amount of money available to local authorities but, equally, local authorities were caught by spiralling prices in the construction and rental of houses. When I was a member of Cabinet I showed that a three bedroom house could be built in Galway for approximately €100,000 at the time. The same houses were costing the local authority €220,000 or €230,000, which made no sense. There is now an opportunity, with the landbanks around every town and village around this country, for innovative thinking where the Government, the banks and the local authorities can provide new housing stock, built out of the ground, for a very cost effective price. This would provide housing stock to deal with the significant waiting lists cost effectively and would be an opportunity for employment for the construction industry. I appeal to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing to examine the opportunity that exists and to move before it is too late.

As sure as I have these pages in my hand, the price of houses will increase. I have previously said that there is excellent value at the moment. As soon as confidence returns the overhang in the housing stock will be reduced and this will happen quite quickly. One can borrow €200,000 and the repayment, taking the tax free allowance into account, is far less than €700 per month. We never had a situation where a young person could borrow €200,000 and have such repayments. Interest rates came down since I checked the price and they are due to be reduced again in the next couple of weeks. A person can buy a house with a mortgage of €200,000 for somewhere between €600 to €700 per month. That is far better than renting the same house. There is an opportunity for the Government but it will not be there forever. As sure as prices have collapsed, they will increase. I urge the Ministers involved to address this.

A section of the Bill deals with improving standards of maintenance and management of local authority houses. This is long overdue. It enables housing authorities to manage and control dwellings provided under a contract or lease between the authority and the housing provider. It strengthens the legislation considerably. Section 30 enables housing authorities to delegate management and control functions to a designated body and empowers the Minister to make regulations on the terms, procedures and monitoring of the designated body. Section 31 deals with rent schemes and charges and empowers the Minister to make regulations governing matters to be included in rent schemes. Section 35 concerns moneys owing to housing authorities and provides for interest to be payable and the setting off of money due from the local authority against money owing to it. This is a good arrangement.

It is past time to remove the block that exists in the affordable homes scheme, whereby people must pay back the amount of subsidy. With house prices as they are, the price available to a purchaser of an affordable home should not attract a clawback. That would immediately enable many people to go ahead with affordable homes.

With regard to social housing and the need for people on lower incomes to avail of such stock, we must put in place, as outlined in the Bill, an effective mechanism whereby people on lower incomes can have a rental purchase arrangement so they can finally buy out a house. I have no doubt that we are now in a time when we can improve our local authority housing practice and I hope this legislation will be the main tool in doing that. I compliment everybody involved with the Bill and am fully supportive of it.

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