Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:notes that:

- the State is in the midst of the most severe housing crisis in its history, due mostly to a drastic shortage of social housing;

- 89,872 households, representing well in excess of 100,000 men, women and children are currently on local authority housing waiting lists, a rise of 30% in just five years;

— approximately 74,000 households are in receipt of rent supplement at a cost of €344 million in subsidy for private landlords, more than a third of whom are in Dublin;

— 2013 saw a decrease of 36% in the construction of new housing;

— the latest reports from both the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, and Daft show private residential rents in Dublin have risen by 26% since the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition took office in 2011 and that this trend is continuing;

— homelessness services are reporting unprecedented need with rough sleep numbers in Dublin trebling last year, resulting in 139 people sleeping on the city's streets during harsh winter conditions with many more forced to live in emergency or temporary accommodation;

— more than €1 billion has been cut from the housing budget since 2008;

— City council inspections have found that the vast majority of rental properties in inner city Dublin do not meet minimum standards for human habitation;

— the Government has failed to deliver less than a quarter of promised National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, housing after three years in office;

— the Government is also currently failing in its stated policy objective to end long-term homelessness by 2016; and

— the rental accommodation scheme has failed to deliver adequate numbers of homes and to protect those it has housed from eviction;

recognises:

— the great work done by many voluntary and co-operative organisations across the State to provide housing where the State has failed or refused to do so;

— the vital role played by homeless agencies and charities in providing for people experiencing homelessness and lobbying for policies to end homelessness;

— that the Government has failed to prioritise the housing of citizens in need and are repeating the failed policies of its Government predecessors; and

— in solving the social housing crisis and ending long-term homelessness it is essential that the quality of homes provided are built to the highest standards - being warm, spacious and secure;

concludes that:

— the solution to the housing crisis needs to become a political priority for this Government which is underpinned by credible Government initiatives to build and deliver more social housing;

— alternative funding models must be used to allow local authorities to build new homes as and where needed;

— NAMA must be given a deadline for delivery of promised housing and this process should be overseen by the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht;

— soaring rent rates need to be tackled; and

— the Government has a responsibility and duty to prioritise housing in the remainder of this Dáil term; and

calls on the Government to:

— introduce legislative change to allow for the initial use of €1 billion from the Strategic Investment Fund to deliver at least 6,600 additional social housing units over the next two years;

— ensure that all new housing provided, whether for emergency accommodation or for long-term housing, meets the standards as laid down in regulations and efficiently provides warmth, space and other essential utilities required of a modern home;

— further prioritise local authority construction as a method of providing homes for those who need them;

— take urgent action regarding spiralling rents by implementing a system of rent control that guarantees a fair rate of return for landlords that is linked to both the consumer price index and the quality of the property;

— enable local authorities to establish independent housing trusts allowing them to source financing independent of the national debt in order to build and maintain new social housing;

— ensure that recipients of Housing Assistance Payment will not be removed from housing waiting lists;

— amend equality legislation to disallow the practice of landlords discriminating against recipients of rent supplement and immediately reform the operation of the scheme to ensure recipients seeking rental properties are not unnecessarily disadvantaged;

— broaden access to the mortgage-to-rent scheme;

— commit to ring-fencing funding for housing and homelessness services for the lifetime of this Government;

— introduce a deposit retention scheme under the supervision of the PRTB; and

— set a date for a referendum on the Constitutional Convention's recommendation that Bunreacht na hÉireann should include a right to housing cognisable by the courts.

Tá áthas orm go bhfuilim ag labhairt ar ghnó Comhaltaí Príobháideacha. This motion is designed to highlight the dire crisis in housing. For more than three years, Sinn Féin has been using every opportunity to raise this crisis with the Ministers of this Government who share responsibility for housing. We have struggled to bring home to them the true scale of this crisis. Some 89,000 households are on waiting lists, representing well in excess of 100,000 men, women and children. There are at least 5,000 homeless in this State, with 10,000 seeking the services of Focus Ireland in 2013. Between 30 and 40 families become homeless every month in Dublin. On Wednesday night last, 158 persons were found sleeping rough on the streets of the capital. Shame on us. Some 74,000 households are on rent supplement and 23,000 on the rental accommodation scheme. By no stretch of the imagination could these be considered to be adequately housed, with rising rents and repossessions of buy-to-lets. Today, the leading homeless charity, Simon Community, states that the Government's goal of ending homelessness by 2016 is dead in the water due to its own policies. It is fantasy. These are the results of the policies of austerity. Since 2008, more than €1 billion euro has been cut from the capital budget for housing. The Minister's predecessors were responsible for some of it and this Government continued the practice.

This is what anyone would call an emergency. The obvious solution to this crisis is to build housing. That is not to say this will be easy. It is an expensive solution that will require dedication. This Government must decide that the social good and the public interest come first. We must put in place the solutions to this crisis. The Government must accept that the financial cost in the short term is worth the benefit to society. A more equal and fair society will reap its own rewards and generate genuine and sustainable prosperity in the future. For every person and family that short-sightedness fails, we are poorer morally, as a community and as an economy. It is far more costly to condemn a child to deprivation or a family to homelessness than to give them a home. This is at the heart of what we propose, that a home is a right we cannot afford to deny to the people.

These measures are not an attempt to attack the Government. Tackling this crisis is far more important than political point scoring, but we are in this position because of failed policies which must be abandoned. The truth is this Government's policy has put more people into homelessness than it has lifted out. Through cuts to rent supplement, single parent's allowance, child benefit and young person’s dole, through austerity as ruthlessly pursued by this Government, those who struggled previously are now drowning and those who made ends meet are now fighting to keep their heads above water.

Despite it seeming late to start to tackle this crisis, it is certainly not too late. I accept that the Government has in recent times been more willing to accept that the crisis is just that, but a lot more is required than words. We need real investment and a real commitment. We need houses and we need them as soon as possible.

My party's proposals include an additional 6,600 homes for social housing, which the State could build through local authorities. This could be done by a simple legislative change to release €1 billion from the Strategic Investment Fund for social investment. Housing people in quality homes seems a good strategy worthy of investment. The construction of these 6,600 homes would create thousands of jobs. It would generate increased VAT and income tax revenue. It would increase local authority rent revenues and stabilise private rents by decreasing demand. Most important, it would allow 6,600 households to live as people in dignity. If those 6,600 households were taken out of rent supplement to be housed, it would represent a saving of about €148 million over the next five years. When one considers all of the extra costs involved in not housing people properly for years on end, this is a conservative figure. That said, this investment is not the solution but part of a solution. It is a step in the right direction. Sinn Féin is under no illusions about the scale of this crisis or how easy it will be to solve, but we must take the first step and we feel this investment is it.

We also propose a suite of measures which seek to help tenants in the private rental market. Some 20% of accommodation in this State is rental accommodation. Despite growing numbers, tenant's rights have not received enough focus by Government and regulation is needed. Rental tenants are routinely misinformed of their rights. Often tenancy agreements do not respect the rights of tenants, and low standards, high rents and insecure conditions are the norm. If there is a crisis in social housing, equally there is a crisis in the rental market and it is tenants who are bearing the brunt. In April, an inspections blitz by Dublin City Council found that 92% of the rental homes it looked at failed minimum standards checks. These 1,398 flats and apartments were not fit for human habitation, yet they were on the market for prices based not on their quality, but on the desperation of those seeking housing. They were slums.

What we need is an overhaul of standards for private accommodation, of procedures, regulations, oversight and price setting. That is why we have proposed rent controls as an essential measure to help stop the flow of people into homelessness and to make renting affordable for the low paid and unemployed. In Dublin, rents have shot up by 26% since 2011. They have gone up by 10% this year. Accommodation quality has not improved in tandem. Daft and other rental sites have 40% fewer properties available due to the repossession of many homes bought on buy-to-let mortgages. We have called many times for the Minister to carve out a code of conduct with banks in order that tenants are not left in the lurch when a landlord loses control.

The average monthly rent across the State is €915, nearly 50% of an average worker’s take-home pay. The average rent in Dublin city is now €1,233, nearly 60% of the average take-home pay. Rent controls are not new and have been shown to be effective in conjunction with the State provision of social housing. Rates should be tied to the consumer price index and the quality of the accommodation. On Daft.ie, there are utterly substandard rooms, studios and flats being let for extortionate prices. This cannot continue. Focus Ireland, Threshold, Peter McVerry and even the former Minister of State with responsibility for housing, now the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Jan O’Sullivan, agree. I was very disappointed by the dismissal by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, of the idea of rent control before the PRTB, Private Residential Tenancies Board, even released its report on the matter.

Another measure in the motion which my Sinn Féin colleagues will elaborate on is the deposit retention scheme, a Labour policy before it entered government.

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