Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Members opposite and those on this side of the House for their contributions to this debate. Housing is clearly a subject that arouses great passion and interest in all of us, as it should, due to the seriousness of the issue. In the very limited time available, I will briefly pick up on some matters raised by Members during the debate. I assure Deputies that all the contributions have been noted, especially those which were realistic and constructive. Many constructive points were made, although many more were made just to score political points on this very sensitive issue.

A number of Members expressed satisfaction with the extent of NAMA's involvement in the provision of social housing. NAMA continues to engage proactively with my Department and the housing agency on the provision of social housing. Over the past three years it has made approximately one third of all housing units under its control available to local authorities for consideration for social housing. That is almost all of its unoccupied housing stock. It must be recognised that many of the properties concerned require, for legacy reasons, substantial work or are located in estates that require substantial work before they can be occupied by individuals or families. There are no shortcuts in terms of undertaking and completing this work to the highest standard. In this regard, NAMA has funded approximately €20 million in capital expenditure in delivering social housing units to date. NAMA has also adopted measures to help streamline and expedite the social housing delivery process, including the establishment of a new subsidiary, the National Asset Residential Property Services Limited, to facilitate these transactions and standardise lease terms.

Of the current 1,971 available and confirmed demand properties, 736 had been delivered for social housing use at the end of June 2014. This figure included 531 complete and operational units and 205 units where contracts had been signed and final completion works were under way. A further 603 properties are considered as being active transactions, whereby terms are agreed or active negotiation is ongoing by all parties concerned, or where a detailed appraisal making a decision on the most likely delivery mechanism is being carried out.

I will respond to some of the issues raised by Deputies relating to the housing assistance payment, HAP, and transfer lists. Section 22 of the Housing Act 2009 provides that a housing authority can determine the order of priority in which it makes allocations to individual households in accordance with its allocation scheme. This includes reserving dwellings available for allocation in an area in respect of households transferring from other forms of social housing support, of which HAP will be one. In that regard, social housing regulations which commenced on 1 May 2011 set out the conditions that housing authorities must take into account when making allocation schemes. All housing authorities were required to make an allocation scheme under these regulations on or before 13 June 2011. The regulations require authorities to set out the manner in which they will allocate dwellings to households on the waiting list and households approved for transfers. Given the assertion of a number of Members that certain local authorities do not have transfer lists, our Department officials will contact each local authority again to ensure they are implementing regulations correctly.

The quality of private rented accommodation was raised by a number of speakers. This Government is committed to ensuring that rental accommodation is of good quality. Regulations are in place setting out the minimum standards for quality accommodation in terms of basic requirements regarding ventilation, heating, lighting, fire, fire safety and sanitary facilities. Minimum standards are necessary as a protection to all consumers and especially the most vulnerable. New standards were introduced in 2008 and for some of these, landlords were allowed a four-year phasing-in period to facilitate any improvement works required, including those relating to sanitary and heating facilities and food preparation and storage.

Responsibility for the enforcement of minimum standards rests with local authorities. With inspections carried out under the Dublin City Council inspection programme for the past four years, it is worth noting that although much is heard anecdotally about inspection failures on grounds such as inadequate sanitation, a recent inspection programme found that a property is six times as likely to fail an inspection on the grounds of fire safety than sanitation grounds.

This serves only to emphasise the value of, and necessity for, these inspections. The majority of landlords have brought their properties into line with the minimum standards. Any remaining non-compliant bed-sits are failing on multiple grounds, including fire safety, and many are simply not fit for habitation.

Deputies were also concerned about the rights of private tenants. The Minister and I share these concerns. The programme for Government includes a commitment to establish a tenancy deposit protection scheme. On foot of this commitment the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, commissioned research on such a scheme and reported to our Department with recommendations. All the options in the report were considered in order to determine how to offer the greatest protection to tenants at least cost to the Exchequer. Government approval was secured for the establishment of a tenancy deposit scheme based on a custodial model to be operated by the PRTB. It is my intention to introduce the legislative amendments relating to the scheme on Committee Stage of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2012 in the Seanad.

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 sets out the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants in the private residential rented sector covering security of tenure and the termination of tenancies. The provisions of the Act do not extend to the circumstances under which a landlord seeks a tenant for a property. Like many Members I have noticed the practice of including phrases such as “rent allowance not accepted” or “no rent supplement” in advertisements for rental properties. The practice of discriminating against a person on the grounds that he or she is in receipt of rent supplement but is otherwise a suitable tenant, while in my view indefensible, is not expressly prohibited under the Equal Status Act 2000. Quite apart from the discriminatory tone this a very real cause for concern given the difficulties being expressed by families seeking accommodation. There are complex issues of law involved in this but I can advise that options including that of legal remedy to address the practice of discrimination in such instances are being explored by the relevant Departments in consultation with the Attorney General.

The Minister and I agree that we need short, medium and long-term responses to the housing challenge. We went from one extreme in this country to another in terms of housing output from building too many to building too few. I can assure Deputies that housing is and will remain a priority for the Minister and me. We need to address housing supply to normalise the market and make it more sustainable. Prefabs are not the answer to this. They are not a sustainable solution. The social housing strategy will deliver a mix of housing investment options, including local authority direct build but also other investment mechanisms to deliver mixed housing models to meet the varied demands in modern society. The Construction 2020 strategy will also contribute significantly to the housing supply deficit. Deputies have mentioned vacant local authority houses. We need to turn these around far more quickly and re-let them. We also need to utilise and stimulate the use of vacant properties in town and city centres.

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