Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, in her work to achieve harmonisation of local authority rents across geographical areas. I also support her determination to continue the system, whereby rent is determined as a proportion of a tenant's income. It is good that local democracy will, in this small way, be strengthened if county councils have the power to set rent levels. One aspect we need to watch is the need for local authorities to ensure tenants avoid running up large rent arrears. I am aware the Minister of State and the Minister for Social Protection are very much aware of the need to tackle this issue.

To address the housing issue more generally, the Government has been left with a hugely difficult housing problem. There are many critical problems in housing provision. Last week I listened to Deputy Michael Healy-Rae as he got into a big lather about how badly the Government was dealing with the issue. One would swear he and his family had nothing to do with the Fianna Fáil approach during the 14-year period from 1997 to 2011 when it held power. Many of the problems being confronted in the provision of social housing stem from the fact that those Fianna Fáil Governments essentially left it to the private rented sector to provide for most of those on the housing list. This directly led to a situation where 100,000 families are on the housing list. In my own area, south Dublin, 10,500 families are on the housing list. We must face up to the growing problem in housing provision, especially in the capital and other major urban centres. To highlight this problem, the website www.daft.ie shows that as of today only 2,300 properties are available for rent in Dublin.

An increasing trend in recent years is of private landlords not being willing to accept rent allowance tenants. Ten days ago I spoke to one auctioneer who said none of his client landlords wanted to take people from the social housing list who would be receiving rent allowance, in part because of the bureaucratic hoops they would have to jump through with the local authorities and also because it was much simpler to deal with people who were working when renting property. I was very struck by that conversation. He was saying the landlords dealing with him did not want to have to deal with the county council.

Another related issue which must be addressed is that of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS. One needs to be unemployed to be placed on the RAS in the first place. There is, therefore, a case to be made for the scheme to be broadened. There is also a problem in that estate agents such as the one to whom I referred tend to run from a mile from the RAS as landlords want to be able to vet their tenants to ensure they have good and reliable tenants. This obviously conflicts with the traditional system of being placed on the list for a time period, which councils have understandably used. Some tweaking of these arrangements is needed. More generally, delays in processing housing requests mean tenants are losing out on houses.

Last week Deputy Pascal Donohoe referred to the substandard nature of some private rented housing. Part of the reason for this may be that landlords are in negative equity, but it is a scandal that needs to be addressed.

There are several anomalies within the rent allowance system which I hope will be addressed. For example, the level of payment is not sufficient in Dublin which, as others have mentioned, is leading to under the counter payments, which put great pressure on tenants. There are also anomalies in the allowance being granted. For example, in the Clondalkin area in my constituency one or two adults and a child are entitled to €875 per month, but when the child turns 18 years, this amount drops to €600 per month, even if he or she continues to reside with the parents. Another issue is that the rent for even modest three-bedroom accommodation is significantly more than the €875 per month, while bedsits cannot be found for the sum of €475 on offer for them.

In Clondalkin the asking price for a one-bedroom unit is between €600 to €650. Therefore, rent supplement is not covering the cost and is creating problems as a result.

I know the Minister of State has sympathy for this idea because it is traditional Labour Party policy to have a house building programme. Alternatively, vacant buildings could be taken over, preferably by county councils, because it would mean they would build a body of housing that they could rent to tenants on the housing list. There is also a need for a significant retrofit or upgrade of accommodation. I hope that if moneys become available from whatever source, be it from the European Union or money we can provide ourselves, some of it will be directed in these directions. One of the advantages of county councils having more housing units available than housing organisations is that it would provide for more local control over housing provision.

I ask the Minister of State to clarify what the position on the possibility of EU investment and getting money through the European Investment Bank which could be directed down this route. Overall, we need to get away from the situation allowed by Fianna Fáil Governments where private landlords looked after people on the housing list. We need a national housing strategy to work out an inventory of how many social houses are needed. I support the Bill.

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