Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to deal with the efficiency of this committee, which the Taoiseach has told us met six times in the past 12 months. It has responsibility for housing, planning and mortgage arrears. I listened keenly to the figures the Taoiseach produced earlier. If we judge it on results, almost four family homes are being repossessed or surrendered every day. According to Central Bank figures, 351 homes were repossessed in the first quarter of this year. Some 104,963 family homes are in mortgage arrears and that figure keeps growing. That is a real threat to the well-being, health and security of the families involved.

The Central Bank figures also reveal that when the banks agree to restructuring, they increasingly rely on arrears capitalisation and split mortgages, which I am sure the Taoiseach will agree are the least fair and the least sustainable. Of course the high variable mortgage rates contribute to the overall mortgage arrears crisis.

Last week the Government voted down what I considered to be a thoughtful Bill, the Central Bank (Mortgage Interest Rates) Bill 2015, tabled by Sinn Féin, which would have enabled the Central Bank to direct those banks bailed out by the State and theoretically owned by the citizens to lower or cap mortgage interest rates. I believe the Taoiseach has acknowledged that Irish home owners are paying over the odds compared with interest rates in other EU countries. The Taoiseach has said that the refusal of some banks to cut interest rates is a very serious manner and that it would not be tolerated. We are not happy, nor is it acceptable, that banks should be charging mortgage holders a much higher rate than the one at which they are able to borrow. We then measure what has been done about that.

I agree with what the Taoiseach said, although it is very obvious, that the real problem leading to homelessness is with the supply of houses. I believe Fr. McVerry said about a year ago that he saw different people now becoming homeless. Unfortunately, and there but for the grace of God go all of us, some people fall into homelessness because of addiction problems, mental health problems, physical health problems or problems in their own home. However, people are now falling into homelessness simply because they cannot afford to pay the rent, particularly if a family member becomes ill or if their social welfare, including rent supplement is cut. Last month a record 71 families in the capital here presented as homeless. There are 1,000 children in emergency accommodation. The average worker in Dublin now pays half their wages in rent.

Let us consider how the Minister deals with this. In April, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government published social housing targets for local authorities. That included €57 million for the constituency I am privileged to represent, which the Minister, Deputy Kelly, claimed would provide 778 housing units and reduce the current waiting list by 20%. However, he was working on outdated figures. At the end of March, 4,636 households were on the Louth waiting list and 20% of this would be 927, which is 139 more than the Minister claims his strategy would provide. The fact is that his housing strategy, in Louth anyway, is based on outdated waiting list figures collected by the Housing Agency more than two years ago in May 2013. They are not contemporary figures.

Does the Taoiseach agree that this is a serious flaw? Is it beyond the wit of someone in the Department to phone someone in Louth County Council for an up-to-date figure for the housing list? Of the 778 units announced for Louth, only 288, or 36%, will be provided under capital programmes and the majority will come from the private sector. Some 443 will come from the housing leasing initiative and 47 from the rental accommodation scheme. That will provide a major challenge for Louth County Council because reports indicate that there is already a major shortage of private housing for rent, with many private landlords preferring to rent or lease on the private market where more profit can be made.

This reliance on the private sector is totally at odds with the Minister's position six months ago when he said:

The privatisation of social housing should never have happened ... It was wrong, and it was more than wrong, it was simply unacceptable and we are going to change that.

If it was wrong six months ago, why is the Labour Party Minister responsible for Government policy on housing now almost entirely reliant on private housing markets to provide social housing in Louth?

Those are two issues when we consider the efficiency of this committee. I accept it has met six times in the past 12 months, but we have to measure it in terms of how it has been able to address, redress or reverse the crisis we have with private rent, mortgage distress and homelessness. I would like the Taoiseach to address some of those issues without getting into the business of the committee but just to give us some measurement as to how the Government strategically tackles these big issues.

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