Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Some of the figures we have heard are unacceptable. I do not know the Minister of State's political history but I am sure he served on a local authority like I did, and he would know better than me the pressures faced by local authorities in trying to provide adequate social housing to meet demand. My local authority area of Cork City Council has 9,000 applications for social housing and many of those have been on the waiting list for six, seven or eight years. Those people have little prospect of being offered social housing because we do not have the stock within the city boundaries to provide for those on the list.

We must ask why people go on the social housing lists. There might be medical issues or overcrowded accommodation but primarily they are on the list because they cannot afford to purchase their own home and are therefore relying on the State to provide housing at local level to secure a home for themselves and their families. This is a vicious circle because these people cannot afford to pay a mortgage so many of them apply for social housing. If they are lucky enough to have a job, even in low-paid employment, they do not qualify for rent allowance. As there is no social housing available and because they are working, even for minimum wage, they do not qualify for rent allowance and are therefore forced into the private market. They end up paying what it would cost them if they were able to get a mortgage. That is consigning people to poverty. It is unacceptable and must be addressed. Much of the private accommodation I visit when meeting constituents is substandard. The Minister of State will have seen the same when visiting constituents who are looking for social housing in his own constituency.

Approximately half of those on the Cork City Council housing list are single, and many of them are separated fathers who will never have their needs met because they are classed as single applicants. Many of these separated fathers have children and they have access to those children. Given that the marriage has broken down and as a result of their inability to secure social housing, they must rent in the private market. They cannot afford to rent a two or three bedroom house which would allow them to have their children to stay. They are forced to rent one bedroom apartments where they cannot put their children up overnight. That creates real hardship for the separated parents but most of all for the children. This is not just about providing social housing, we must provide the sort of social housing that will meet the demand that exists. No longer do typical three bedroom homes need to be built in areas like Cork City Council, we must tailor the social housing building to meet the demands of those on the social housing lists and those demands will vary from local authority to local authority. To get hold of this we must have comprehensive review of the type of housing needed and then put in place the finances to deal with it.

The cuts in the housing budgets for local authorities are having a significant impact. There are houses in Cork City Council that are lying idle under the works department but the works department does not have the necessary funding to bring them up to a standard for re-letting. People come to clinics asking why they must sit on a housing list for seven years when there are houses in the area that have been boarded up for three years. We are not investing in housing at local or national level and that must change.

I commend the motion put forward by my colleague Deputy Ellis and the section dealing with mortgage distress as put forward by Deputy Pearse Doherty. I ask the Minister of State to take on board our proposals for solutions to rectify this issue.

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