Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak in the debate. There has been much talk about the serious state of the housing situation in Ireland and homelessness. I have a very simple view on this matter. This is a national emergency and anyone who thinks otherwise is only skirting around the edges. We can talk all day about all of the bits and pieces causing the problem, but until we face up to the reality that we have a national emergency on our hands we will not deal with it adequately.

A few years ago in difficult times when the economy was in a very tightened economic situation our Government and the most recent Government brought in various legislation called Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts. The time has now come for the same serious approach to be taken to the housing situation. We need new legislation in the form of the financial emergency measures in the public interest housing Bill 2016. This is what is necessary and anything less is not adequate.

We can talk about all the various issues and I will put very simply some of the issues that must be grasped which have not been dealt with. On my way home this evening I could call to Portlaoise and meet 300 people looking for social housing, but within an hour I could identify 300 vacant houses. Before I got to Portlaoise I could stop in Monasterevin where I could identify 70 people looking for social housing and 70 vacant houses. I could call to Portarlington and identify 100 people on the housing list and at the same time identify 100 vacant houses. In some areas there is a shortage of houses, but in those parts of the country where there are vacant houses the State has failed to match them with the people who require social housing. It makes no sense in some of these areas to have people homeless when there are hundreds of vacant houses. It became very clear to me when I was canvassing last July, August and September and met so many people on the housing list and then turned a corner and saw 20 empty housing units.

There is a variety of reasons they are empty, many of which have to do with the hold the financial institutions have on the housing market. We know they are not letting people get onto the property ladder. The former Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, had proposals to make it very difficult for people to overborrow, but he did not take into account how people could put together a deposit if they are paying rent which is more than a mortgage repayment would be. It is illogical. The banks are delaying the sales of houses because they know prices are increasing. I know of houses which could have been sold last year at a €20,000 profit, but people are holding on to them for an increased profit. We need financial emergency measures in the public interest housing legislation to deal with this emergency.

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