Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If there is nobody else here, I would like to speak for a longer time because there is no subject that frustrates and taxes me as much as this one, and it has done since I came into the Dáil in 2011. There has been much debate about this issue for a number of years. I will not start with the general picture, although I will come to that later but much of that ground has been well-trodden over the last few weeks and we will debate it again when the new housing strategy is published on Tuesday. However, I want to make a particular case for the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, which is important not just for the people in that area, but is also, I want to argue with the Minister of State, relevant to solving the problem on a wider level. The reason I say that is very simple.

I am not a prophet but I was the first person in this Dáil in 2011 to warn the Government that a housing crisis was looming. In 2011, I brought homeless people from Dún Laoghaire into the Chamber, I suspect for the first time in its history, and warned that there would be a crisis. This was not because I was a prophet; it was because there was something about Dún Laoghaire that was ahead of the curve in housing, rent and property prices but which, if we had seen it, and we did see it, was a harbinger of what would happen everywhere else. At that time it seemed preposterous that rents and housing prices would skyrocket out of control or that there would be a shortage of affordable housing because, remember, in 2011 we were in the crash period. Rents were for a brief period falling, house prices were on the floor and there was, according to the census, a massive surplus of housing.

It seemed preposterous, therefore, that we would have a housing crisis, yet we had one in Dún Laoghaire, even then. It was building up and had been there for years but it was accelerating even then. The reason was that property and rental prices hardly fell in Dún Laoghaire at all. As they have climbed everywhere else, if that was true back in 2011, can Deputies imagine what the situation is like here? I am not, generally speaking, for arguing exceptionalism because this is a big, broad problem. What I am saying is the problem is worse in Dún Laoghaire but points to what will happen everywhere else. Just so Deputies understand the scale of the situation we now face in Dún Laoghaire, the average house price in Dún Laoghaire is €459,000. That compares with Dublin city, at €330,000; Fingal at €292,000; and South Dublin at €277,000. We are off the Richter scale in house unaffordability, with prices €120,000 higher than the Dublin city average.

Regarding rents, the average rent of a three-bedroom house, according to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, in a report produced in the last few weeks, is €2,291. The average for a one-bedroom house or apartment is €1,800. Let us consider the new rent supplement limits. The newly increased rent supplement cap is €700 for one bedroom for a single person, not even half the average rent in Dún Laoghaire. The cap for one bedroom for a couple is €900, half the average rent. The cap is €1,150 for a two-bed and up to €1,200 for a three-bed, €1,000 short of the average rent. The increased rent caps will therefore not even scratch the surface of the rental, homelessness and accommodation crisis in Dún Laoghaire. They are not even in the same planetary system as the crisis that now faces us.

I went on Daft.ie yesterday, and I recited these points at the social protection committee yesterday. Guess how many houses are available onDaft.iein respect of the cap in the different categories? For the one-bed for a single person: zero; for the one-bed for a couple: one in the whole of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area; for the two-bed: zero; for the three-bed apartment: zero; and for the three-bed house: zero, none. That is what we face. Anybody who leaves home and is looking for accommodation, evicted by a landlord because he put up the rent, whatever the circumstances are, is done for - not just people on social welfare, but also working people. It is a disaster. The number of people homeless in Dún Laoghaire has doubled in the last year alone. We have only one emergency accommodation residency in the whole of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area for single people and one for families. We have 5,700 people on the housing list, with only 53 houses to be built in the next year. The figure of 5,700 is up from 4,584 two years previously. The crisis is exponential.

Let me give the Minister a few human examples. Michael and his partner had their home repossessed because of mortgage unsustainability. They have a daughter who is 18 and severely autistic. They were granted the right, which is very difficult to get in Dún Laoghaire, for self-accommodation, but the procedure is a total disgrace. They have to move from hotel to hotel every three or four days, into town and back out of town because we do not have any emergency accommodation in Dún Laoghaire. Each move means at least 45 minutes on their telephone, using up their credit to get through to the person with the credit card who pays for the self-accommodation in a hotel.

Dónal, a 72 year old man, who does not have the right to self accommodate, is staying in the Brú Aimsir hostel in Dublin city. He has a walking frame. He has no rolling bed and cannot leave his belongings in the hostel during the day. He must walk around, on his walking frame, with his belongings every day. Thomas is another pensioner who is sleeping rough in Dún Laoghaire because he will not go into Dublin city and stay in hostels with drugs and drink. He is afraid of the city. The council will not even register him as homeless because he will not go into the homeless hostels in town and there is no homeless accommodation in Dún Laoghaire. Siobhán is a young woman in her early 20s who is terrified to go into a hostel in Dublin city and is couch surfing and sleeping in cars.

Although the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, is a central plank of the 2020 strategy in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, only 12 landlords have been signed up, and it is not a permanent home. I am dealing with three families who have disabilities and who are in RAS. They need permanent adapted accommodation. However, it is not being built. Lori and Fergus, for example, who have three children, are in their third RAS tenancy in a three-year period. Lori is on crutches and has Crohn's disease. Although she needs a bathroom on the ground floor, it is not available. They live constantly in this precarious situation. The stories go on. I do not have time to list them. It is an unmitigated disaster.

What do we need in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown? We want the homeless executive to provide emergency accommodation in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. It is preposterous that pensioners, disabled people and people with children are being told to go into hostels in Dublin city when their family networks, support networks or schools are in Shankill, Blackrock or Dún Laoghaire. It is unacceptable. The council and central homeless executive must be instructed that people are to be kept in their localities.

We need higher rent caps in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. The Government has a lower rank of rent cap increases for Fingal, given that rents are lower on average there. Could the Government please acknowledge that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, including the south Dublin area, has rents such as I have described? Although I do not agree with HAP and I do not think it will work, in so far as it is the policy we need a place finders unit in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, separate to the Dublin unit, to help people find HAP.

Can we have a particular programme for pensioners so that people on walking frames are not sent into hostels and hotels with drugs and drink far away in the city centre? Can we have extra staff to help the architects in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown to produce the Part VIIIs that will deliver? I do not know whether the CEO has asked for them, but I am asking for them. They are needed. While the council is doing some work on ramping up housing, we have been told the reason it cannot ramp up further is that they do not have staff for the Part VIIIs.

We have a big NAMA Part V development under construction. Under its original planning permission, we would have received 20% of the development. Given that the Government reduced the proportion from 20% to 10%, we will receive only 10%. The social housing is physically there. It is an insult to the people I have just described who are on the list if we do not receive at least 20% of the site. It is furthermore an insult that a significant portion of publicly owned land, such as Shanganagh Castle, which is to be developed and Cherrywood, the strategic development zone, are to be privatised, and we will not get 100% social housing on them. I understand this from the council and the findings of the Minister, and we will see the report next week. Against the background I have described, it is outrageous. I want a firm commitment from the Minister that we will get direct provision of local authority housing on the two sites on a scale that will deal with the scale and severity of the problem in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

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