Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, which is quite timely. It is important that all sides of the House get an opportunity to contribute to Government policy. For the purposes of this debate, I will focus my contribution on three areas. One area is the issue of mortgage arrears. We cannot have a debate in the House without focusing on that issue. We need to examine the sustainability issue into the future and to ensure there are adequate supports in place to keep families in their homes. That must be the main consideration. Families need to be kept in their own homes.

I also wish to focus on the provision of social housing. Every family and citizen in mortgage arrears that we fail to protect will ultimately end up on our social housing list. I also wish to deal with the recent regulations announced by the Central Bank. I am conscious that we need to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that we avoid those mistakes in the future, but it is also important that the right balance is struck to ensure that we avoid a situation where a generation such as mine would be locked out from ever owning their own home.

On the issue of mortgage arrears, I raised that issue in the Dáil by way of a Topical Issue before the Christmas recess. I said at that time that I could see an avalanche of repossessions happening but I was accused of scaremongering. I said it because there are more than 30,000 people in arrears of in excess of two years. These people are coming before the courts. In my constituency of Westmeath, a new monthly repossession court sits one day every month and I am sure that is replicated throughout the country. Since November, 150 cases have been dealt with and the recent edition of the Westmeath Topic ran a story covering the court which pointed to the desperation, confusion and utter sadness of families who presented before the court. There are separated mothers trying to stay in their family homes to rear their families, begging the registrar for help and support. I will give one example. A woman, now divorced, was paying KBC Bank €1,450 per month in mortgage repayments as well as supporting her children. She was a social worker, so she had a good job, and she was living in Mullingar. She fell behind in her repayments as her wages were halved during the past five years. She wants to stay in the home and help put her children through college. The maximum she can pay is €500 per month. She said it is not enough for KBC which wants more.

If we recall what the Government has done in this instance, it talks about the mortgage to rent scheme. That scheme should help that woman but I have been trying to help her get on it and she does not qualify for it. It talks about the personal insolvency legislation. When that legislation was before the Dáil, the then Minister for Justice and Equality said it would deal with in excess of 21,000 cases in the full first year. We know that since it has come through approximately 500 cases have been dealt with. What has the legislation done? It has left the power firmly and squarely in the hands of the financial institutions. It is because of this Government's policy that this lady, who is trying to provide a roof over the heads of her children and support them to go to college so that they can get a better standard of living, was left before Christmas at the mercy of the registrar, begging for the court case to be adjourned to see if she could come up with some proposal to maintain her family home.

On the issue of social housing, I welcome the belated acknowledgement by the Government that this is a real issue. We now have 90,000 people on the housing list, up one third since 2009. The Government is talking about Construction 2020. The extra money that is being put into the provision of social housing is to be welcomed but what supports are being put in now to deal with rapidly rising rents and the reduction in the rent allowance? My colleague spoke about Fine Gael Party and Labour Party members being in power in the local authorities and someone interjected and said they were starved of cash. I will give an example of Westmeath County Council in my constituency. In 2008, the then Fianna Fáil Government made €13.5 million available for the provision of social housing. In 2013, when Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in power, €1.5 million was made available for the provision of social housing. The figure went from €13.5 million to €1.5 million. It is no wonder there are more than 2,900 people on the housing list now in Westmeath County Council.

The Minister should look at what he promised to do. I refer to the transfer of NAMA housing properties for social housing. The Government should look at using the National Pensions Reserve Fund to give a meaningful social contribution back to this society by investing it in the provision of social housing. The Government thought it was good enough to invest €0.5 billion in the provision of water meters, meters that will not be read for six or seven years, but that money should have been invested in social housing. As my colleague, Deputy Niall Collins said, we need to consider the reintroduction of the tenant purchase scheme. I welcome the fact that the Minister said that is something that will come on board but that has been promised by this Government for the past 18 months. That scheme has been suspended for in excess of 18 months. There are people who want to buy out their local authority house and that money could be used to reinvest and provide further housing. We need to enable voluntary housing bodies to build new houses but also to purchase houses that banks are seeking to repossess and to leave the people in their homes. Aside from being good economic policy, it is good social policy to leave people in their homes.

Regarding the new regulations that were announced in recent days, it is important that we have a proper structure in place and that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. It is also important that the banks are not allowed to do what they did in the past when they loaned too much to people who could not afford to repay their loans. I acknowledge the independence of the Central Bank and its Governor. I welcome the fact that he opened the original proposals to public consultation. I also welcome the fact that he has had to row back.

It was too much of an endurance to ask first-time buyers to come up with 20%. It is welcome that has been reduced to 10%. I am concerned about people of my generation who are living in Dublin city. How will they be able to afford to buy? The 10% rule applies on sums up to €220,000. The average three-bedroom semi-detached house in Dublin costs €320,000. How will people be able to save the required deposit? They will simply not be able to do it at a time when they have to pay high rents and houses in Dublin are the most expensive in the country. By virtue of that fact, property taxes are the most expensive in the country.

When somebody asked a member of the commission about Dublin, he said they considered it, but they had to separate Dublin from the rest of the country. One cannot decide to leave a particular geographic area to the wind and decide that whatever happens will be good enough. Perhaps the Minister, in consultation with the Governor of the Central Bank, should consider introducing an insurance policy. We all have to take out life assurance policies when we draw down a mortgage to ensure that if, God forbid, we died before the loan was repaid, it would be covered. We can take out critical illness cover if we happen to sustain a critical illness before a loan is repaid. Perhaps consultation could take place with the insurance industry to see whether people could pay some sort of insurance bond to help address the major gap. The Minister of State is not much older than me. My generation should be supported in the purchase of homes if they choose to live in Dublin.

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