Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin supports this Bill, but with some reservations. Housing is a hugely important issue for people and for the State. As we know only too well, it was housing or an obsession with property and the buying and selling of houses that brought this country to the brink of financial ruin. While we support the Bill, we believe that in terms of housing, the State is failing the people miserably. When we look at the issue of housing in Ireland, we see a dismal picture. Thousands of families are in mortgage arrears and struggling to survive. The Central Bank's figures show that more than one in ten mortgage holders is now in arrears of three months or more and that some 27,000 people, or almost 18% of buy-to-let mortgages are in arrears.

How does the Government respond to this crisis? It responds by introducing legislation that makes it easier for banks to repossess family homes. This type of policy decision and other initiatives of the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government are yet again on the side of the rich, the privileged and big money. Time and again they favour the banks and the big financial institutions over the people. Even more depressing, we have a chronic shortage of social housing, with almost 100,000 people on the housing waiting list. This is an appalling indictment of any state. Fine Gael and the Labour Party have failed people, especially those who depend on social housing. The State has a duty and an obligation to house people. If it is to do this in an efficient and successful manner, it must ensure the public housing stock is maintained at levels that can accommodate those who require housing.

On the question of rent supplement, the picture is also bleak. Some 94,000 people are now dependent on rent supplement to keep a roof over their heads. This is taxpayers' money. In other words, it is money from the public purse that is going to private landlords and property speculators. This is an appalling state of affairs and is a direct result of the policies of this and previous Governments and their abysmal failure to ensure the State's public housing stock is adequate for its housing needs. Another 24,000 people are in receipt of State money from the rental accommodation scheme. This highlights the Government's failure to address in any meaningful way the whole debacle around the housing issue and the resultant crisis. The real casualties of this are families, children, young couples and single people.

Nowhere is the human impact of fall-out from the State's indifference and ineptitude more glaring than in the numbers of homeless young people, who must either sleep on the streets or take their chances in dangerous and frightening hostels and emergency accommodation. The Government pledged to end homelessness by 2016, yet it goes about achieving this target by slashing the housing budget. It introduced draconian laws, capping rent supplement and hounds people into finding cheaper accommodation. The result is that many people, many of whom are vulnerable, disabled, have an addiction problem or are just poor, end up living in sub-standard accommodation.

A recent investigation by Dublin City Council of just under 1,500 flats found that 1,400 did not meet the minimum legal standards for private rented accommodation. The council found that flats had no private bathrooms, people lived in rooms without windows and flats were damp, had mould, poor electrics and inadequate heating. A well thought out proper State housing policy would ensure diversity would be the hallmark of housing in the State. In other words, there would be a balance between public and private housing stock, rather than as we have currently, an excess of privately owned dwellings coupled with an appalling lack of public and social housing.

I mentioned on a previous occasion that foster care allowance should not be included as reckonable means. It is not reckoned when calculating social welfare payments. Also, the fact people on supplementary welfare allowance cannot go on the housing list is wrong. I know of people who have been removed from the housing list when reviewed because of being in receipt of supplementary welfare allowance.

The issue of transfers from one local authority to another is huge. This problem arises in particular where there is a marriage break-up and the person from another part of the country cannot transfer. Other times the problem arises when the person on the list wants to move to get a job or when a person wants to move from one area, such as Cork, back to the home area, such as Galway, to care for an elderly parent. This issue needs to be examined.

It is very important local authorities keep a database of the people who have applied to local authorities and have failed to be approved for housing. On a number of occasions I have been aware of people who have had three or four failed housing applications. Some of these people suffer from mental illness and are on rent allowance, but when the rent allowance is cut off and the local politician makes representations on their behalf, the local authorities say they have no record of applications made by these people. However, the local politician might have a thick file covering three years recording the fact the person has been trying to get on the housing list. Therefore, a database documenting failed applications would be helpful.

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