The following motion was moved by Deputy Dessie Ellis on Tuesday, 19 February 2013: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;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.

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