Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I very strongly support this amendment. It is really beyond belief that the Minister of State would seek to make this legislative provision. It is extraordinary that she would seek to absolve the State of responsibility for providing public housing. It brings to mind what the Government is doing in the health area, where the thrust of policy is now to privatise our public health service and for the State to wash its hands of responsibility for the provision of public health services. In effect, this is what the provision in the Bill is doing. It is allowing the Government to walk away and say the provision of a public housing programme is no longer the responsibility of the State.

I was not aware that the Labour Party, in particular, favoured small government and the wholesale privatisation of public services, but it seems that is actually what is happening here. As other speakers have said, and as we were constantly reminded by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and the current Minister responsible for housing, rent supplement was a temporary measure that was never intended as a substitute for a proper public housing programme. For the Minister to walk away from that responsibility and hand it over to the private sector is shocking. I agree with others who have said that, on the basis of this provision alone, this Bill deserves to be voted down.

I do not know why the Minister has not taken the time to rethink this after the strong arguments that were made on Committee Stage. It is really regrettable that, by all indications, there is no budge all. The Minister has not taken on board the points that were made very strongly by the several members at meetings of the committee.

It would be entirely different if we had a tightly regulated housing market here, with the State taking responsibility for the public good, as in the provision of an adequate number of houses, and regulating the market. Such a model operates in some parts of Europe. In those regions, large numbers of people live their entire lives in rented accommodation but do so in a market that is very tightly regulated by their state. They have security of tenure and are free to live for 30, 40 or 50 years in accommodation with security underpinned by law. Moreover, there are strict rent controls. However, we do not have such conditions in Ireland. Rather, we have a very lightly regulated housing market. For that reason, it makes it all the more shocking that the Government is seeking to hand over responsibility for what should be a key public service to the private sector.

The state of so much of the private rental accommodation is absolutely appalling. It is disgraceful that the State is paying money into the pockets of landlords who keep their accommodation in such disgraceful conditions. The State has a hands-off approach to this. While we know there are standards set down in theory, we know there is little or no adherence to those standards in practice. For example, there is but one environmental health officer responsible for ensuring standards are met on the north side of Dublin. If tenants are prepared to take the risk of reporting unsuitable accommodation - very few are because it is so extraordinarily difficult to come across a landlord who is prepared to make accommodation available to somebody on rent supplement - they must wait weeks or, in some cases, months for any kind of response from the local authority, again because of the lack of prioritisation in this area, the arm's-length approach to ensuring the maintenance of proper standards by the Government, and the restriction of funding for the environmental health service.

I am shocked that the Minister of State is proposing to walk away from responsibilities. One of the key responsibilities of any socially minded, concerned Government is to ensure the existence of adequate public services, particularly in the area of housing, which is so central to all our lives.

It is a disgrace that the Government would seek to do this. I would appeal to the Minister of State very strongly to pull back from this, not to be led by the nose by her Fine Gael colleagues in this regard, to stand up to them and to reject this.

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