Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The Bill is like one of the omnibus Bills that come before the House in that it means well but whether it will deliver is another story. I agree with some of the remarks made by Deputy Ó Fearghaíl. I have heard the talk from so many Ministers in all Governments about the importance of the over-arching policies and strategies that are required in council housing and so on. It is important to have those, and there are many aspects of the Bill with which I have no major problem, but I have a major problem with one aspect which has been mentioned by colleagues on all sides of the House, namely, the number of glossy magazines, plans and so on laid before councillors and Deputies throughout the country, with very few houses being made available.

I have nothing but the highest praise for what the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, is trying to do. There is hardly anyone in this House who understands the position better because he has been through the local authority system for many years. To put the problem in context, yesterday evening I got the details of the number of people on the housing list for Galway County Council — everyone is concerned with their own geographical area — and I was astounded to be told that there were 2,250 on it. The normal level is approximately 1,200 or 1,400 but the shocking aspect of that statistic was that 500 were added to the list in the past three months. That speaks volumes, and every Member of this House knows that only too well, but regardless of what we know about it one can imagine the effect of it on the people concerned because they are saying, in effect, that they have nowhere else to turn to for housing other than the local authority. The message is that there is nowhere to go. From the point of view of the moneys made available by the Department I accept that some local authorities maximised the opportunities made available to them. However, there are so many people currently waiting legitimately for a house in County Galway that the entire allocation for the country could be used to solve that problem.

Unless the Minister of State, the Minister and the Government decide to further capitalise the allocation to housing in the next four or five years, we will see much longer housing waiting lists because there will be no funding from any other source. Unlike the position in previous years, there are other ways in which the Minister can act in this area and I will compliment him if some of the measures he is trying to implement, including the long term leasing scheme, work.

There are not that many ways for a person who has not got the money for a house and who cannot borrow or repay a mortgage can actually get a house. If one considers it, there are not that many places for them to go. Variations of schemes were introduced over the years. There was a multiplicity of them. In fact, there was such a difference between one local authority and another one would think they were not in the same state.

I was a Minister of State in the 1980s in what was so-called the worst of times and in the period since then there were never more of what we used to call local authority houses or social houses built. Some people will say that in terms of value for money we must be careful about the people to whom the houses are allocated and that there a more efficient way to proceed financially, from the taxpayers' point of view, in terms of putting a roof over their head. That matter has been discussed at length in every council chamber for many years. Something I have seen over the years is that when various schemes are tailor made to help young people build their own house or get a house through the shared ownership scheme, the procedure is so bureaucratic that before it is over the council staff and the applicants are fatigued, and the scheme dies.

I refer the Minister of State to his recent announcement on the new home loans scheme. I was prepared to give that a reasonably good chance but when I read through the details — I assume the Minister of State must have seen it because he operates almost on the same terrain as myself — I saw there were a number of aspects that would ensure it could not work, and it did not. I understand only four or five have been assessed for it. There is almost no uptake and one of the reasons for that is that there is a floor area restriction — I believe it is approximately 1,300 sq. ft. — on the house above which one would not be entitled to draw down a loan. I refer here to the 92% loan.

Some of the houses being built in the private sector are so big they are obscene. I cannot for the life of me see why people build five bedroom houses when they only hope to have two children. It is their right, and even members of my own family are at it so I am no position to criticise, but there is no question that there has been a huge overdoing of house sizes. Under the home loan system, when people build a house, it must be well insulated and as efficient as possible, but that has an effect. People are being asked to build a house half the size of their neighbour down the road in the private sector so they do not go for the loan. If the Minister wants that loan system to work, he should look at the size of the house. I am not suggesting it be increased to 2,400 sq. ft. but another extra room on to the floor area would make a dramatic difference.

Everyone is talking about anti-social behaviour but not much is being done about it. I wonder if the will exists to clamp down on the people who upset the lives of ordinary decent people and devalue their estates. Estates I am used to are much smaller than those in Dublin but it does not matter if there are 20 houses in an estate or 200 houses if there is an undesirable element creating havoc in the area. People become so tired waiting for the authorities to shift those people that eventually they leave, unable to continue living under those conditions. I have come across the greatest band of pups in my time in a few of the housing estates across east Galway. They have created havoc and the joint policing fora, the HSE, the gardaí, the local authorities and all the mechanisms that are in place did not work because they were too slow.

When those people are evicted for serious wrongdoing in council estates, what do we do with them when they are evicted? Where do they go then? That is a problem the Judiciary faces but, one way or another, if people are committed to bringing up their children and living their lives in a local authority estate, they have enough problems to face without being damned by those anti-social elements. These people are becoming bolder, more daring and harder to handle. There is not a Deputy in the House who does not know of the sort of character I have described. Whatever is in the Bill, I hope it is strong enough to address that problem.

I mentioned the schemes for the homeless and those on housing lists to acquire a council house. Whatever about over-arching strategy and new strategic approaches, I sincerely hope the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and county councils will never shy away from the single rural house where it is appropriate. It is hugely important that account is taken of people who have a commitment to the land because there is nowhere more appropriate to house the family than in the village where they were born and reared. Some people say we should have a continental approach, where those who farm would live in a hamlet along the Danish or Dutch lines. That is not what Irish people want. While numerically the number of houses should be small, the policy should never change.

I remember when the affordable housing proposals were made. There are eight such houses in my village of Mountbellew that were built when the scheme was first established and they were good value. The wheel has fallen off that wagon, however, as it has in much of the building industry. Now there are some affordable houses that are more expensive than houses on the open market. Some local authorities have been trying to sell affordable houses at those prices and no one will buy them. Something must be done immediately because those houses were built for a specific purpose. The applicants have been assessed and the loans made available so surely there must be a mechanism to reflect the downturn in house prices. The Department is not immune to the downturn in the housing market and if some local authorities are trying to get the same price for an affordable house now as they would have got three or four years ago, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

I assume they are trying to keep the price up so the money can be reinvested elsewhere. The purchasers will not wear that. Something must be done because those houses must be sold at some stage. They were built to a high standard and people were delighted to apply for them so there is no point in them standing idle.

When I first started I regularly helped young couples with local authority loan applications. Many of the schemes, such as shared ownership, are a variation of that loan scheme. I have noticed over the years that there was always some bureaucratic daftness written into the scheme that would exclude people who genuinely needed housing and who could have repaid the loan. Unless there is a realistic effort by, and a desire on the part of, the Government to assist moving people off the housing waiting lists, many will remain on them. Under the Fine Gael-Labour Government in the 1980s, when there was not a penny anywhere, more houses were built for local authority tenants than in any time since. According to the Minister, resources are now limited. If the Government is not prepared to put money into social housing, a bonus-led system must be introduced which will allow local authority tenants, under certain conditions, to be responsible for their homes. It should not be like the approach with the new home loan scheme which excluded thousands.

In the past, several local authority tenant purchase schemes have worked well. Any government, where it is appropriate, must ensure every local authority tenant has an opportunity to buy his or her property. Once that threshold is passed, people become house proud. The replacement of window panes and doors, for example, becomes a matter for the tenant-purchaser to which they will respond positively.

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