Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wished to raise this matter because it is becoming a more prevalent issue in my day-to-day work in my constituency of Dublin South-Central, where much of the housing stock is of a certain age. It may also be related to climate change and changes in our weather patterns. In St. Teresa's Gardens and other large local authority flat complexes there are also issues of mould, dampness and condensation.

It has come to my attention that when a council house becomes "void", or vacant, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government provides funding to bring that house up to an acceptable building energy rating, BER, standard. However, sitting tenants cannot access any of that money. Tenants are also advised that the carrying out of repairs due to condensation is their responsibility, but that is not what I am talking about here. My concern is about the insulation of homes and the anomaly I have discovered is like a form of apartheid, whereby a council tenant cannot apply for a grant but a private home owner with a mortgage can. Furthermore, the local authority cannot apply for a grant on behalf of a sitting tenant.

A climate change Bill is being prepared at present and there have been discussions on a national policy to reduce fuel emissions and the use of fossil fuels and so forth. At the same time, in one of the largest housing stocks in the country, namely, local authority housing, tenants cannot access insulation. Many tenants are not in a position to get loans from their credit unions to carry out such work because money is so scarce. This is an issue that could be dealt with in the context of the forthcoming climate change Bill. We could allow the local authorities to apply for grants for insulating homes or, ideally, there should be a national programme of public works for all council housing, public buildings, schools and so forth. The DEIS school in Bluebell, for example, is crying out for insulation because of the amount of heat being lost from the building.

I ask the Minister of State to give her opinion as to whether an insulation programme could feed into the climate change legislation. Is there a basis for changing the current legislation to allow either council tenants or local authorities to access grants for insulation? Are there any plans in the pipeline in the Department to upgrade local authority houses with sitting tenants?

On a separate matter, Deputy Jim Daly raised the issue of unemployed people doing outdoor local authority work. If Deputy Daly is sitting twiddling his thumbs any day, perhaps he should make himself available because he is already getting well paid. If there is work to be done, it should be paid for.

See this speech in context