Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

We in Clonmel defeated Cromwell and sometimes it is easier to defeat an external enemy than an internal one like the Minister. We defeated Cromwell and it has taken a Minister like the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to abolish a borough council with huge history and traditions. The Minister has taken €500 million out of local authority funding over the past number of years and heaped unfair taxes on local people. He has imposed the local property tax on ordinary people across this country, a tax the leader of Fine Gael said was morally wrong, unfair and unjust. To add insult to injury, he now tells us he will not even give local authorities the full property tax. He will not honour the 80% reduction and will reduce funding to local authorities. Of course, the big lie we were told in the debate on the local property tax was that we would get additional services. Everybody across this country now knows that this is simply untrue. There are no new services. In fact, we have seen a stripping away of funding, a stripping away of staff by way of the moratorium and a stripping away of powers. It is no wonder that services are suffering badly.

I am delighted the Minister is here. I want to send out the message loud and clear that this Government has brought into law a provision that every local authority house must pay the local property tax. Kites are being flown by local authorities around the country which say they are going to increase rents for local authority dwellings. I can tell the Minister that this will be fought across this country. Local authority tenants are entitled to proper services and their rents should not be increased for the local property tax. This is something that local authorities, communities and tenants' organisations will fight and defeat.

What happened to the RAPID programme over the past number of years, which was in place for local communities and estates which were completely bypassed and never even had a sniff of the Celtic tiger and which were getting some little support from the programme, is a disgrace. The RAPID programme is now no more. Those communities which suffered through the Celtic tiger years are being made to suffer even more by the reduction in this programme and the fact it has been completely undermined by the withdrawal of funding. An associated withdrawal of funding from youth work around this country is another aspect of this. Both RAPID and youth work were working well and helping local communities, particularly young people. Not only has the RAPID programme been completely undermined, there has been a reduction in funding for youth services.

Housing is a service that has traditionally been provided by local authorities. It is a policy of which the Labour Party was always proud. Indeed, it was entitled to be proud of it. The Labour Party in the past always built local authority houses for people who could not provide housing from their own resources. We now have 112,000 families on local authority housing waiting lists. These are huge numbers. People are waiting for many years for a house simply because there is no house building programme. A very small amount of money has been put aside this year for house building but this is simply a drop in the ocean. It is not enough and the sooner local authorities are allowed and funded to build houses in the future, the better it will be. I ask the Minister to extend immediately the local authority house building programme. It would also have the knock-on effect of providing employment to local people who have lost out due to the recession, particularly in the building industry. It would save money on the social welfare front as well so it is a programme that would be beneficial not just to local authority tenants looking for a house but for employment in the future.

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