Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate.

It is important that the Government prioritises the housing area. In our constituency offices, we can judge how real is the issue of social housing. It always was an issue, but it is an increasing issue and the figures bear this out. If one compares the figures from 2005 and 2013, they show the extent of this problem.

The previous housing model was unsustainable and its legacy is ghost estates. There are repossessions and an increase in homelessness because of it. There are people who have really been destroyed due to the levels of borrowing they were able to obtain and not support.

The waiting list increased from 43,000 in 2005 to 98,000 in 2011, and then dropped down to 90,000 in 2013. It is still almost twice the level of need in 2005.

The rent supplement should be examined. There has been a large increase in the number benefiting from rent supplement, which is another indication of the difficulty being experienced by so many. It has increased from 60,000 in 2005 to 97,000 in 2013.

There is also an issue with the rent supplement among those who are on very low incomes and who are ineligible for rent supplement. The circumstances of some of those are as bad as, or worse than, the circumstances of social welfare recipients who are eligible for rent supplement. It is important that would be looked at and that there would be some flexibility in relation to the rent supplement for those who are on very low incomes.

On the construction of houses, the area of planning is still slowing up the bringing of housing proposals to construction. The Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, will provide considerable funding. She is doing a lot of work in this area and she has brought forward proposals and is operating them. It is so important that we raise this issue and use this opportunity. It takes months, sometimes years, to bring a proposal from where it is accepted to construct social housing to the letting of those houses.

The other issue is that there are thousands of houses in this country which the tenants have left for whatever reason, and these are boarded up. Sometimes two or three years afterwards these houses are not re-let. One of the excuses is that the housing authority needs funding to undertake repairs to these houses, but that is a cheap way of ensuring that houses are made available. Only for maintenance, these are waiting to be let. Some of them I have seen have required only a small amount of maintenance: often a significant level of maintenance is not required.

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