Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the motion. I assure Deputy Halligan that I take the problem of homelessness and housing very seriously. I have spoken a number of times, including in the past month, on similar issues. Nobody is denying that there is a crisis with housing and homelessness. All Members in the House and our colleagues in the local authorities are dealing with large numbers of housing-related queries. I sit on the Labour Party sub-committee on housing, and we have drafted a report for the Minister of State listing the areas in housing in which we want to see change. I understand that the Minister of State finds herself in a very difficult situation, although she has been very active in responding to the contents of that report. Even if we had the money, it would possibly take two or three years before people would find themselves in a home.

I will not go on about the legacy issues we were left with.

A major flaw in the housing policy of the Fianna Fáil-led Government was that the local authority had to raise funds by the number of planning permissions it granted. That was a fundamental flaw because the regulatory authority had to give planning permissions to get a funding stream to deliver houses. It was a kind of stick approach to local authorities in that the more planning permissions they granted, the more money they got in, which was very wrong. When I was on Kilkenny County Council, any time we tried to draw attention to housing issues such as this and said permission had been granted for 300 houses in the back of beyond where there was no chemist, no shop and no school, we were always told we were anti-development by our Fianna Fáil colleagues. The Labour Party members on the county councils were always told they were anti-development. If we had been able to fight harder on those councils for what we believed in, we would not be in this situation but nobody wanted to listen to us. Now everybody is talking about the housing crisis. We inherited this housing crisis.

I commend the Minister of State on what she is doing and for being on top of her brief. I very much welcome today's approval by Cabinet of the publication of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014. The three main elements of the Government's housing policy will bring clarity and purpose to how we deal with the serious problems in this area, as outlined by the Minister of State, introduce a new tenant purchase scheme for local authority tenants, provide a legislative basis for the new housing assistance payment, HAP, and reform the process for the termination of local authority tenancies.

I would like to draw attention to a point Deputy Wallace raised, which I have raised with the Minister of State a number of times, namely, the need for the Government to get seriously involved in the rental sector and to try to bring about stability in that sector. One sees a house on daft.iepriced at €850 per month but stating that no rent allowance tenants need apply. That is dreadful and we need to do something about it. Governments in France, Italy, Austria and on the Continent take a very heavy-handed approach to the rental sector and it is possibly the way we have to go.

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