Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this very important Bill. I commend the Minister of State on the work she has done and the huge amount of work that has gone on behind the scenes in bringing it before the House.

A number of elements of the Bill will have a very significant impact, including the new tenant purchase scheme, the housing assistance payment scheme, provision for direct deductions of rent contributions from social welfare payments, and the strengthened local authority powers to deal with individuals engaged in anti-social behaviour in local authority housing estates. These elements are all crucial and long overdue. The Bill's early enactment is essential to provide a procedure for housing authorities to recover possession of a dwelling where there has been a serious breach of the tenancy agreement, to restore to local authority tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes at a substantial discount on an incremental basis, and to enable the housing assistance scheme to be rolled out across the country without delay.

Based on the latest figures, 6,144 people are on the Kildare County Council housing list, which we can all agree is too many. Most of these people are on rent allowance. The rent allowance caps, which were mentioned earlier, represent a very significant issue in a number of the cases I deal with. In my area the cap for a couple with no children is €500 a month, for a couple with one child it is €650 and parents with two children it is €700. Neither love not money would get a family two or three-bed accommodation in the Newbridge area for less than €900, if they can find a landlord willing to let to rent-allowance tenants.

The other very significant difficulty is that many landlords for one reason or another would prefer not to deal with rent allowance. In my experience the vast majority of people in receipt of rent allowance have been excellent tenants - perhaps even better than some tenants who were not on rent allowance. However, a small minority have given the scheme a bad name. The scheme facilitated that by having the rent paid directly to the tenant. I have come across cases where landlords have not received rent for a few months and when they checked up discovered that the tenant was in receipt of the rent allowance but was pocketing the money. So not only was the landlord at a loss in not getting it and might have to spend months going through the very expensive process of getting the tenant evicted, during that time the tenant was not only availing of free accommodation but was also pocketing State money, which is unbelievably frustrating.

We need serious reform of the PRTB. On the one hand people are saying landlords do not want to take in tenants, but landlords are not getting the cover from the PRTB, which is very much tenant focused. There is a lack of balance and landlords have the sense that they are wasting their time going to the PRTB. While I know that matter is not one for this Bill, it is a very significant issue.

I welcome the changes regarding the payment of rent allowance directly to landlords. It is just as important that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way. The landlords need to be tax compliant, need to have everything done right and need to be good landlords, and they need to be punished if not. I believe the balance went too far the other way.

Linked to that is the mandatory deduction of rent from social welfare payments. It has been crazy that where for social or other reasons tenants may have allowed significant rent arrears to build up, on the one hand the local authority is paying considerable money in pursuing these individuals for the rent arrears and on the other hand from the same coffers the State is paying them social welfare, with one not being able to talk to the other. This is a common-sense practical approach.

I welcome the changes to deal with anti-social behaviour. In my experience some of the worst cases of anti-social behaviour have happened in private rented dwellings where a landlord who may not live in the estate or the area has turned a blind eye and taken in tenants whom most of the neighbours would not want, as they know there may be a difficulty with them.

I know of people living in a private estate in south Kildare with a very large mortgage and in negative equity. They cannot let their children out to play because of anti-social behaviour. They are almost like prisoners in their own home. I know that on the Minister of State's visit to south Kildare some of the cases were highlighted to her. I have sympathy for the Garda which is very restricted in what it can do. As was highlighted during the Minister of State's visit to the constituency, we need a multi-agency approach, involving social workers, gardaí and others. The gardaí alone cannot deal with it and they are at the end of the problem in trying to deal with it in many cases.

The previous tenant purchase scheme closed in December 2012. It is very important for the many people who have had a local authority house for some time and would like to buy it out. I very much welcome that. With 6,144 people on the Kildare County Council housing list we cannot afford to lose stock. A reduction in our overall stock would not be good and we would pay a price for that.

I know we are moving much more local authorities towards long-term leasing, which concerns me somewhat because we may be storing up problems when in 15 or 20 years' time these houses need to be turned around and restored to the condition they were at the start. I would like to see much more social housing built. As a part of any stimulus it would definitely impact on our construction industry in a positive and measured manner in an area where we have a very significant need. At the heart of this is that housing is the most basic essential thing we do. Back to the time of the tenements and the establishment of the State, housing has always been a very basic social need and it remains critical.

I commend the Bill and I commend the work the Minister of State has done to get it to this point.

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