Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and I thank the Minister of State responsible for housing for being here to listen to the debate and her good work in the area. The Bill is technical, providing for changes to be made to section 31 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009.

The changes involved will introduce a harmonised local authority rent system with effect from 1 January 2014 and a new housing assistance payment scheme. At present there is a wide variation in rents being paid by tenants in various local authorities. This legislation will give elected local councillors the power to set the rent parameters in their local authority areas. It is proposed that a base rent will be charged for each household member in addition to a differential rent based on a proportion of the net household income in excess of a threshold that will depend on the composition of the household. That is much more equitable than the current system.

It is also important that the regulations will allow for a transitional period for households where the rent will increase significantly under the new system. This matter will be discussed later this year when legislation is introduced for the new housing assistance payment scheme.

I welcome the move by Dublin City Council to change from a points based housing allocation system to a system based on the length of time on the list. This is a much needed change. All of us as Deputies receive queries about difficult situations where people are on the housing list for up to ten years. This is the way to go and will be welcomed by the public. The new system will be fairer and more transparent. There will be three levels of priority, with the first band made up of those with medical needs and those experiencing homelessness, the second made up of tenants living in overcrowded accommodation and the third band made up of all other cases. It is fairer to base the system of allocation on the length of time someone is on a housing list than on a points system. There have always been many complaints about the waiting times on housing lists. As the Government faces economic constraints, it is impossible to build brand new stock so we must continue to seek innovative solutions in this area, particularly when 100,000 people are on waiting lists nationally.

The council also proposes to introduce a new applicant-sourced housing scheme, allowing people in need of social housing to rent their own accommodation. This will see the council pay rent to the landlord and the tenant, who will in turn pay the council a tenant rate. I welcome the new measures to address any existing problems in local authority housing. This new rent system will help to make the system fairer and will standardise rents across the State. Those renting local authority housing in any county should be expected to pay the same basic rates.

The Government is determined to address the issue of homelessness and it is quite right that it is a priority. We all know of cases and instances where people find themselves homeless. Nationally, there do not seem to be reliable figures for this. Perhaps the only way to secure a more reliable figure is to carry out a point in time count across all local authorities. The figure is close to 5,000 at present and estimating the problem is difficult when people are out of sight and do not present themselves to the homeless authorities. We are all used to seeing people sleeping rough and when there is bad weather it is not a nice situation for those involved. I hope we can give a high priority to the issue and deal with this as soon as possible.

There are over 4,000 houses and apartments that could potentially be used for social housing in NAMA's stock. I welcome that; it is positive news and shows an element of progress towards a social dividend from NAMA. We have been left with a huge amount of surplus housing all over the State, housing that was built in areas that will never be occupied, and we must consider this further to identify a match up with the housing lists so people could be adequately housed.

There has been criticism of the property tax but in Dublin, those living in bigger houses and richer areas are paying more in property tax. It is certainly fair from that point of view.

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