John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Having read the plan, and to be fair about it, I broadly welcome it. There are issues I have with it and there are things I would like to have seen done differently. I welcome it because if this plan is implemented in full, in the fashion outlined and the timelines are met, we will be much better off than we would have been with the plan we were implementing three months ago or before the general election. This makes a serious effort under several headings to tackle the housing issue. The Minister said, in an honest assessment, that it does not have all the answers but it is a good start. It is a start. Certain elements are framed in such a way that it is an evolving plan. The answers are not all here, there is further research to be done and people who read the plan need to acknowledge that the Minister has not said this is the definitive handbook, that all the answers are here. There are certain areas that must be further developed.

Our greatest sympathy and that of any public representative is with the people in emergency homeless accommodation today, whether in hostels, bed and breakfast establishments, guesthouses and so forth. The Minister put his head on the block a bit today when he gave a very definitive timeline and I genuinely wish him well. For people living in such inappropriate accommodation, the urgency the Minister has attached to dealing with that is important. I acknowledge that he has published this report significantly ahead of time. That demonstrates his urgency in dealing with this issue.

From the point of view of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness, one of the issues on which we probably differ is that we had envisaged a national housing procurement agency, an overarching body, but the Minister proposes a housing delivery office within the Department. We need to see the detail. He also says the housing agency would run a procurement centre in parallel. We differ on that in terms of the efficiencies that might be driven. The Minister has made his plan and I do not think a plan should fall over on this issue but it was not as we had envisaged it. We felt that the way to go would be to have one centralised office that would be effective and efficient over a decade to drive the housing programme the Minister has delivered here, and one that Ministers after him would have to follow. He has chosen a different route.

The Minister has some innovative proposals about vacant properties which need to be dealt with urgently. I am conscious that Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures produced last week indicated that even in the greater Dublin area where the housing crisis is at its worst there are still significant numbers of vacant properties. While not all would be suitable for residential occupation, local authorities need to be tasked with identifying them and developing the initiatives the Minister has indicated in dealing with that.

There is certainly a job of work to be done in the private rented sector. It is several years since we had a strategy in that area but private rented accommodation will endure for some considerable time, as it has in most other countries and cities. One of the biggest concerns people have is about security of tenure. The Minister says that by the end of the year he will have strategy for the sector, which is important. This will also, however, require legislation to underpin it in respect of rents, security of tenure and other similar issues.

The committee asked for a moratorium on repossessions for a short period while additional legislation comes in, either what the Minister mentioned in the programme for Government or proposals that we might have. While mortgage arrears are mentioned in the report and the Minister refers to the potential for legislative measures later in the year, I would like to remind him that one of the committee's specific recommendations was that the code of conduct on mortgage arrears should be amended on a statutory basis to include an offer of split mortgage or mortgage to rent. Those issues should be considered.

The Minister refers to the off-balance sheet issue in the plan and I was a little bit surprised that only 5,000 social housing units will be built over five years. We felt that could have been more ambitious. Perhaps there is a job of work to be done with pension funds and the Irish League of Credit Unions and so forth.

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