Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I begin by continuing on some of the themes Deputy Sean Fleming mentioned. I strongly agree with his point about people living in one area for a period of time and then moving to another local authority, which is often an adjacent area. They find that their positions on the housing list change radically. I most often hear of such cases, sadly, in the event of a family break-up or difficulty at home. When people move from one part of the country to another and cross local area boundaries they find that any status or points they might have accrued by virtue of being in one area are lost, and in some cases they have to start all over again. There would be justification in having a more standardised and centralised system to deal with those specific cases in a fairer way.

The point Deputy Fleming made about the quality of private rental accommodation is a matter I have raised with the Minister of State previously when debating other housing Bills and also as a Topical Issue. I acknowledge the progress made by Dublin City Council and laud the work it is doing in this area. Last Friday, The Irish Times brought to the public eye work of which I have been aware for quite a while and which I have mentioned to the Minister of State. In recent months Dublin City Council inspected 1,500 privately rented flats across selected parts of the city. Those inspection teams include trained Dublin City Council officials, sometimes with officials from other State authorities, who arrive at a property to ensure that minimum legal requirements are being met. The statistics from this work are startling as are the consequences. Of the 1,500 flats inspected, the council found that 1,400 did not meet the minimum legal standards for private rented accommodation. They had various deficiencies, including unsafe electrics, no private bathroom, rooms without windows, damp, mould and inadequate heating. They carried out 2,230 inspections on these 1,499 properties - in other words, some were inspected more than once. The council has been forced to issue 1,544 legal notices to landlords requiring them to upgrade the standard of accommodation provided.

In many cases we are talking about the most minimum of standards. I have been in some of these flats, which are inhabited by constituents and neighbours of mine, and the standards in a small number of them have been deplorable. I recognise the pioneering work the city council is doing in tackling this. It is very hard work. Unfortunately, in some cases the officials must work in close co-ordination with An Garda Síochána because of the difficulties they encounter.

Two important consequences of this are relevant to the Bill and to the public housing policy issues we are discussing. It proves to me what I believed based on anecdotal evidence - that a large amount of money has been paid in the form of private rent supplement in respect of properties that do not meet the standards we want. The Comptroller and Auditor General is carrying out a report into the operation of that payment and its interaction with overall rent levels. This is clear indication of that.

The second consequence, which will present a new difficulty to us, is the number of landlords who either cannot afford or do not want to update their properties to meet these new standards. As the areas involved are in the public domain, I will list them. They include a section of the North Circular Road, which I mentioned previously, and Cabra Park in Phibsborough. The landlords are now putting many of properties in these areas up for sale. I am speculating that many of these properties were subject to the inspection regime and landlords, in some cases through no fault of their own, will consider the quantity of housing stock they have there and say they cannot afford to upgrade it.

The new difficulty I am beginning to encounter is that of people who were in such private rental accommodation, who are now finding that accommodation might not be available to them in the future and are wondering where they can go. That section of the private rental market was providing single-unit bedsits or very small apartments, frequently for single men and women. My concern is that by virtue of our doing the right thing - let me be clear that what we are doing is absolutely the correct thing to do - the supply of those units in our major cities could contract much more quickly than we had anticipated because, alongside those changes, as the Minister of State is aware, other changes have been made to the taxation of rental income, which is having an effect on landlords' cashflow.

I laud the quality of the work the city council is doing in this area. We should support the introduction of that model throughout the country. Dublin City Council is able to do this because the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government made €1 million available over a three-year period to fund the scheme. We should be doing more of it and in parallel we need to come up with an alternative accommodation model for people who are living in these homes.

That leads on to a point that comes to the fore whenever we debate housing policy or public housing.

The extraordinary and bitter irony for a country which went through a housing boom is that we still have more than 100,000 people on our public housing lists. This shows the manifest failure of housing policy during the period under the previous Government. In many of the communities I am so privileged to represent I meets residents and constituents who have been on housing lists for between five and eight years looking for a particular form of accommodation. Dublin City Council is doing its best. These are individuals for whom rent might not be an option and for whom purchase is not an option, and they now find themselves locked in very long waiting lists despite the huge effort of the city council to deal with it. The Government and the Minister of State are already examining the role voluntary housing associations, such as Clúid, can play in this and how we can support them in their work.

I am still certain that in the model for future public housing provision in our cities and counties local authorities will continue to play, and must play, a role in building housing stock themselves. When we get to better days, as I am sure we will, I hope we will examine the type of financial support we can give to voluntary housing associations and local authorities to continue their work in dealing with the 100,000 people who have been left on these lists despite homes being built throughout the country for years. We have a duty to support them. I acknowledge the work done by our local authorities in trying to rise to this challenge.

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