Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this Bill, which allows elected representatives to take part in setting rent rates in local authorities. This already happens in some local authority areas, but for the most part one relies on the goodwill of local management. Sinn Féin is in favour of stronger local government and we welcome the transfer of decision making powers to properly funded local councils. It is important that this Bill ensures rent levels will not be set by county or city managers alone, but that there will be an input from local representatives. This is a positive development. The Bill will allow councillors to use their local knowledge and enable people to hold decision makers to account.

However, the Bill will not resolve or solve the housing crisis facing people in the State. We have a severe housing shortage, with 97,000 people on the housing waiting list, 94,000 on rent supplement and 24,000 on RAS. This is a problem the Government has failed to tackle. It has allowed the need to grow, rents to rise, conditions to deteriorate and speculative landlords to make huge profits in the absence of public provision. Successive Governments have overseen the depletion of the public housing stock, the over-burdening of the voluntary sector and the drive to subsidise private landlords, developers and speculators who provide what is often below standard housing at a very high price.

A recent parliamentary question submitted by Sinn Féin to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government revealed that in the more than three years of NAMA, only 263 of a promised 3,949 units have been delivered for local authority use. We face one of the biggest housing crises the State has ever seen and if the Government continues to provide social housing at this critically low rate, the crisis will only get worse and will affect more individuals and families. It is a major issue that people across the country are in sub-standard accommodation while units lie empty in estates near them. People cannot understand why these units are not being used to relieve the crisis.

The Minister of State said previously that she would address and speed up this process, but units are not being delivered at the speed people expect.

I heard the Minister of State speaking in this House previously about speeding up and addressing this process. The units are not being delivered at the speed that people expect. Unfortunately, the crisis is getting worse, as waiting lists get longer.

We are facing one of the biggest housing crises the State has ever seen. If the Government continues to proceed at such a low speed, things will get worse for families. The length of time someone has to spend on South Dublin County Council's waiting list has increased from five years to eight. It is not acceptable that a person who goes on the list tomorrow will have to wait eight years before he or she receives an offer of housing. The children who are stuck in this situation have to move from one area or school to another and do not have any consistency in their lives. Dublin City Council recently found that 90% of the apartments it inspected did not meet basic standards.

The Government has created a new timescale for homelessness. It aims to bring long-term homelessness and rough sleeping to an end by 2016. Many of us attended the launch of Focus Ireland's report earlier today. When I spoke to people before the event, they referred to the failure of previous Governments to live up to the 2010 commitment made. I do not think anybody believes the Government has a hope in hell of meeting the new 2016 target. I hope it will happen, but I just do not believe it will. I appreciate the goodwill on the Minister of State's part, but most of the players in the system do not believe long-term homelessness will be ended by 2016. Homeless services have made it clear that they cannot take more cuts, including those made by the HSE. We heard the message from Sr. Stan at today's event that more cuts will mean reduced services.

According to Focus Ireland, there are approximately 5,000 homeless persons in the State. On any given night, up to 90 people could be sleeping rough in doorways, parks, derelict sites and abandoned cars in the Dublin City Council area. The same applies in the other local authority areas. People in the South Dublin County Council area sleep rough around The Priory, in Clondalkin and other areas. They can sleep in parks in warmer weather. They sometimes sleep in basements of apartment blocks. The official figures are not picking up many of the people in question. The number of sleeping bags that the homeless unit in the Tallaght area has to give out every year does not equate to the council's official number of rough sleepers in the county.

People sleeping rough represent the tip of the homelessness problem. Those who live in hostels, refuges, bed and breakfast accommodation, shelters and forms of emergency accommodation comprise the less obvious side of the problem. Sadly, the hidden homeless population is 20 times bigger than the number who sleep rough. There are 531 homeless children in the system. According to figures we were given today, there are 439 children living with a parent in homeless accommodation. All of them are in this hopeless situation because of the lack of action in providing appropriate accommodation to meet their housing needs. A large proportion of them are vulnerable victims. Society's failure to respond to their needs is making many of them more vulnerable. I refer to basic needs such as a roof over one's head, or somewhere safe and warm where one can sleep.

Other Deputies have spoken about rent supplement thresholds. The threshold for a single self-contained unit in my constituency of Dublin South-West is €475. I checked daft.ietoday when somebody came into my office to try to find accommodation. According to rent.iethis morning, the monthly rent for a single apartment in the Tallaght area ranges from €780 to €850. When people come in, they are told this is the level and advised to look further out. If they look in Rathcoole or Saggart, they will find that accommodation is not available, unfortunately. Many of them have children who live in another part of the city. The difficulty is that people are being pushed further and further out of the city in order to meet the Department's guidelines. The reality is that the system is not working.

Many people are in despair as they try to find somewhere within the threshold. Many of them do not have the experience of dealing with landlords that would help them to negotiate rent reductions. Housing problems are by far the most frequent issue I deal with in my constituency office. I do not know if other Deputies have the same experience of the crisis. People come into my office because their marriages have broken down and they have to leave the family home, for example, or because someone has been assaulted in the home and they have to get out. They want to know where exactly they can go. They come to us for advice as they seek to solve their problems. Many of my constituents have encountered problems when their relationships have broken up. In such cases, it is usually the male partner who suddenly finds himself with nowhere to live. The age profile of many of those who come in seems to be getting older.

I wish to mention a recent case I dealt with. A male constituent of mine is renting a room in a house for €300. He receives €180 in rent supplement. The RAS section of South Dublin County Council has told him he must leave to find private rented accommodation up to a threshold of €650. The Minister of State might be able to make sense of this. In effect, this means the RAS section will allow a single person to rent somewhere for up to €650, but the community welfare officer will not. Rather than paying rent supplement of €120, the council is forcing this man to look for somewhere in the €650 bracket. He has not been able to find such a property on any of the rental accommodation websites. If he does not find somewhere suitable, South Dublin County Council will pay up to three times what it previously cost the community welfare officer to house him. It does not make sense. Perhaps I will send the details to the Minister of State.

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