Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

recognises that:— the two biggest issues in housing are mortgage distress and the lack of social housing; and

— the current Government has pursued a policy to pass responsibility for providing social housing onto the private sector and has continued to deplete the public housing stock;notes that:— one in four mortgage holders in the State is in distress, while tens of thousands more are at risk of distress;

— 115 mortgage holders are falling into distress every day;

— Fine Gael and the Labour Party have failed to fully implement the recommendations of the report by the Inter-Departmental Mortgage Arrears Working Group (the Keane Report) into the mortgage crisis;

— the Central Bank and the financial institutions are failing to be pro-active;

— the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 will do little for the vast majority of mortgage holders currently in distress;

— despite the fact that Sinn Féin and others have, since 2011, called for an independent statutory mortgage distress body to adjudicate and enforce agreements on mortgages between banks and mortgage holders, the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 establishes a Personal Insolvency Service but does not adequately deal specifically with the area of mortgage distress;

— this Government, since 2011, has cut spending on housing by 19 per cent to €585 million, leaving local authority housing desperately under-funded, resulting in 98,318 households on waiting lists for local authority housing in this State;

— there are 23,649 people housed as part of the rental accommodation scheme and 94,000 people in receipt of rent supplement, with recent cuts to rent supplement rates making securing affordable housing even more difficult and in some cases leading to families being made homeless; and

— the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA is mandated to provide a social dividend, yet only 179 units have so far been provided for housing; and calls on the Government to:— remove the veto given to lenders over proposed insolvency agreements in the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 and prioritise the maintenance of the family home in any agreements dealing with residential mortgages;

— provide in the legislation for the independent adjudication and enforcement on mortgage distress cases, through a new category of agreement to be known as "independent agreement on mortgage distress" which will be adjudicated by a "mortgage restructuring panel" appointed by the Minister, who would have the statutory power to agree and impose agreements on lending institutions where the panel believes that such agreements would enable the mortgage holders to remain in the family home;

— include the possibility of write-downs on portions of the mortgage debt as well as other options such as debt for equity swaps, mortgage-to-rent and short selling in the options available when reaching "mortgage restructuring agreements";

— take more direct action with the Central Bank to force lending institutions to adopt a more pro-active and lender-friendly approach to the mortgage crisis;

— ensure that NAMA contributes to "the social and economic development of the State" in providing any housing units in its portfolio suitable for social housing;

— develop a plan to commence the building of at least 5,000 housing units by the end of 2013, with a further 4,000 houses by the second half of 2014 for the public housing system, including the use of social housing bonds to fund these projects; and

— restore funding for Traveller accommodation to its 2010 level.

In recommending this motion to the House, I am conscious that mortgage distress and lack of social housing are two of the most important issues with regard to housing. I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak on the issue of social housing in the House tonight. There has certainly been much talk of housing, particularly relating to the issues faced by people at risk of losing their homes. However, there has been very little debate on the solutions to these problems and even less dedicated to the continuing shortage of social housing.

If one spent much time in this House listening to those on the Government benches or examining the topics for discussion, one could be led to believe there is no issue with social housing. In fact, the only thing one would learn about social housing is that apparently too much money is being spent on it and it needs a good cut at least once a year. One would be led to believe that those in social housing are well looked after, that they live very comfortable lives, in good conditions and that those who are not happy with their accommodation are most likely a bit too picky. However, like most pictures this House paints of those hardest hit by this recession or those who were already on the margins, it is a picture much distorted by many things. Some Deputies are out of touch, some are in denial and some still look on those who avail of social housing as targets for contempt rather than as citizens deserving of their rights, but that is what housing is.

Despite what Government policy might indicate, housing is a right. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the European Social Charter all recognise the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CESCR General Comment No.4: The Right to Adequate Housing, states: "The human right to adequate housing, which is thus derived from the right to an adequate standard of living, is of central importance for the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights." Can we really say that in 2013 this State provides that right to its people? Shamefully, we cannot.

As the motion states, there are currently almost 100,000 people on the housing waiting lists of this State. In 1948, the first coalition Government commissioned a report which found that 59,000 homes were needed across the State to make up for the gap between housing provision and demand. That was just over 26 years after the foundation of the State and now, 65 years later, we have nearly double that demand but are nowhere near providing for those numbers. In fact, we are providing less new social housing now than we were in the 1970s. The State has a shocking shortage of suitable homes to provide for people, while there are tens of thousands of homes lying idle which, in many cases, belong to developers who have been bailed out by the public purse.

Who are these people whose needs the State is so badly failing to meet? Of course, the degree of need among this very large group varies but I certainly have met and worked with many people whose need could be described as severe. I met a mother who shared her parents' couch with her two sons in a house of 11. She has no option but to wait and see, with the hope of getting onto the insecure and increasingly difficult rent supplement scheme. She cannot get work even if there was work to be found because she cannot sleep a wink, giving up the couch so her sons will not go to school too tired to pay attention. She sits in her mother's kitchen and hopes for some way out. Rent supplement, by its nature, perpetuates her poverty trap. It is her only hope but is only open to her if she is unemployed. This is a poverty trap which now takes in 94,000 households and includes hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.

A short-term stop gap to deal with the shortage of social housing when introduced, rent supplement has now become the Government's best weapon in pretending it is providing housing. We have a system where the State is taking public money and subsidising private landlords who are, in too many cases, not living up to the standards set for them but all too rarely checked upon. In order to get rent supplement, a person must be on the housing waiting list and be unemployed. Once a person becomes part of the scheme, he or she must find accommodation, which can be a difficult task, given rising rents, poor standards, cramped conditions and the fact that some landlords, as a means of pre-emptive social cleansing, reject any prospective tenants in receipt of rent allowance. This scheme costs the State over €500 million per year and provides not one extra social housing unit at the end of each year. If rent is dead money then rent supplement is much worse, given the potential this money could have to rebuild communities and the social housing stock in a long-term drive to provide for the needs of the people on the housing waiting lists.

The Government's other solution is to pretend that NAMA is delivering a social dividend. While it is supposed to be doing this and a special purpose vehicle was created last year, it would seem to be a little bit of a charade. Having spent billions of euro bailing out developers through NAMA, we are left with 179 homes delivered in three years, out of a promised total of nearly 4,000, up from an original figure of 2,000 homes which never materialised. This scheme will also not deliver one extra social housing unit in the long term. Instead, developers in NAMA will be given an easy tenant for about 11 years. Estimates are that 2,000 homes will cost the State €14 million per year. NAMA developers line their pockets while nothing is done to solve the continuing lack of housing.

Sinn Féin has offered a solution, clearly laid out in our job creation package released at the end of last year. A novel approach, it suggests that we provide housing as part of a public housing system. The current Minister and the last Minister with responsibility for housing have stated that no big house building programmes would be possible, but we have clearly shown how it can be done. In our job creation document, we highlighted how, through the National Pensions Reserve Fund, the European Investment Bank and incentivised investment from the private pensions sector, we could raise funds which would include €1 billion for improving and increasing our social housing stock. This could fund the commencement of building 9,000 homes in the next two years, coupled with a renewed focus on the delivery of the 3,949 properties identified for social housing by NAMA, of which only 179 have so far been delivered. This would take a considerable number of people off the waiting lists and save a considerable amount of taxpayers' money. This €1 billion could also be used to improve the maintenance of social housing and to refurbish dilapidated units to make them available for housing families.

Management companies are a big problem and the taking in charge by local authorities of many private housing estates and apartment blocks is going to happen sooner or later. The Traveller accommodation maintenance programme in Dublin alone had its budget cut from €1 million to €50,000, which is an absolute shame.

We need a vision for housing and a new approach. We need an approach that recognises that housing is a right and that people who need housing should be housed and should not have to beg for it.

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