Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tá áthas orm deis a bheith agam labhairt ar an mBille seo. In general we welcome some aspects of the Bill and what it attempts to do. For example, Part 2 Chapter 3 of the Bill, dealing with miscellaneous constructions and amendments to the Planning and Development Act, allows for streamlining of existing arrangements for approval by local authorities of their own development proposals, including proposals for social housing projects and infrastructure servicing for both public and private developments.

We welcome this aspect. The strengthening of the Part 8 planning process used by the local authorities for council housing will prevent planning delays. We have, however, concerns about tampering with the planning process to speed up so called delivery. Consultation and pre-planning should be four to six weeks and this Bill will bypass the planning process. Part 2 of the Bill, relating to planning and the development of strategic housing developments, will introduce a fast-track planning procedure for residential developments of 100 units or more and for large-scale student accommodation projects of 200 or more bed spaces. This proposal to fast-track private planning developments by bypassing local authorities and going straight to An Bord Pleanála is a profound change to our planning system. An Bord Pleanála is not the same as a local authority. The inclusion of a greater use of pre-planning engagement with local communities and residents is essential. My colleague, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, said in the House last week that the Government has not provided an evidence base for this proposal, nor has it demonstrated that the move will not undermine good planning and further alienate communities from the planning process. The problem with this provision is that it appears the Government is tampering with planning law in order to facilitate a few developments in certain areas.

Part 3 of the Bill proposes an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 but this does not go far enough and an opportunity was missed. Sinn Féin has categorically stated many times that the Minister missed an opportunity to amend the Bill and insert rent certainty provisions. The provisions contained in the Bill are weak. Couples and families who are working in good jobs come into my office in Dublin north west, yet they cannot afford to keep up with rent increases at the moment and are now in danger of becoming homeless. The consequences of these continual rent increases are not trivial and affect everyone who is dependent on the private rental sector for accommodation - the middle income working families who cannot afford to save to buy a home, the low income families who are paying up to 60% of their disposable income on rent and the students whose numbers increase every year - with fewer properties available to meet this growth. The situation is such that many parents have to decide between paying rent and covering increasing back to school costs. In some cases, families are being made homeless because of an inability to pay the rising rents or to secure rental accommodation.

With the number of children now in emergency accommodation, it is clear that household poverty is increasing. The Government must recognise that rent certainty is key to alleviating the pressure on these households. Sinn Féin brought forward a Bill last week that would have provided rent certainty for landlords and tenants alike but this was rejected by the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties. Our Bill would have linked rent increases and decreases to the consumer price index, which would have provided some stability for the market. The Government’s housing action plan offers little hope for those in the private rental sector, other than a vague pledge to commission a White Paper to be included in the plan. For example, the proposal to strengthen tenants' rights in developments of more than five units - the Tyrrelstown amendment - is weak. The overwhelming majority of those living in the private rented sector will not benefit from this change. This means that those families at risk of homelessness due to buy-to-let properties being repossessed by the banks will continue to be at risk of homelessness. The tenants who are managing to pay these high rent prices have little or no security of tenure. As it stands, the property can be sold from under them at the whim of the landlord. A report by the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, on local authority inspections of rented accommodation shows that 55% of properties inspected were substandard. The sale of any rented property should not lead to the termination of a tenancy. Section 34 of the Residential Tenancies Act should be reviewed to remove sale as a justification for the termination of a tenancy in any case where the property is in the ownership of an institutional landlord or where the landlord in question works as a property professional. The strengthening of the powers of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, is welcome as long as it is properly resourced to carry out the additional functions as required.

Last year, the previous Government promised to deliver 500 rapid build housing units with 134 of them to be built before last Christmas. Unfortunately, we have only got 22 so far this year and we are told more will be delivered throughout this coming year. While I accept that will happen, it is at far too slow a rate. I know problems are being encountered with communities and objections and all sorts of problems being thrown at us, but we must be ready for them and overcome them. The cost of the 22 units in Ballymun, at approximately €205,000 each, excluded the cost of the land which belonged to the local authority. Underground services were also available there. The cost of those rapid builds was way over the top and we could have built ordinary houses, although I will not dispute that rapid build houses are a very high standard. The rapid build houses we are about to build - some have started in Cherry Orchard and in Finglas - cannot be delivered quick enough. It certainly is very slow. We will not have them available until the second quarter of next year.

We are in an emergency with 130,000 people on the housing waiting lists, almost 6,400 people who are homeless and over 2,000 children living in hotels without cooking facilities. They are in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation. They have nowhere to go. Many of them must leave their accommodation in the morning and come back in the evening. We have chaos when it comes to families. Children's rights should be protected much more. It is an example of how we have let our children down. They have had to manage in hotels, with no rooms of their own and no place to play. They are literally under a curfew in many of these hotels.

Homeless people are still dying on the streets. The last Government promised that the homeless crisis would be totally solved in 2016. We now have a massive crisis which is even worse and it is, unfortunately, getting worse and but for the volunteers out there, delivering meals and looking after the homeless on our streets, there is absolutely no doubt that we would have even more deaths on our streets. Single males and females who are now on the Dublin City Council waiting list will be looking at waiting for ten or 15 years to get a place. It is just impossible now for a single person on the housing list, never mind the families who are on the list. Some people with large families are being told they could be ten or 15 years on the housing waiting list. This is how bad the crisis has become and how bad it is hitting our society. We judge a society by how we look after our people and house them. We are not doing it and it is not working. Something radical is missing in the approach of this and the previous Government.

With regard to local authorities and the fast-track planning process, revenue will be lost to local authorities by fast-tracking, doing away with the local authority process and going straight to An Bord Pleanála. If An Bord Pleanála makes a decision that needs judicial review, what citizen can do that? They would not have the money to access the judicial review process and this is what we are talking about. That is the only point in the process that would be left to them. The Minister of State has said that these measures would end up being temporary, but it is very clear that they could end up being permanent. We are in such a crisis now that it is going to continue into the foreseeable future.

We will end up with a permanent system that has been messed around and a planning process that has been changed. It would not be to the benefit of many cases to tamper with planning permission.

One of the biggest issues we have when dealing with housing is the procurement process, which needs to be accountable and speeded up. We need to find a mechanism to speed up the entire procurement process. The State needs to build social and affordable housing. We constantly rely on the private sector, which is where our downfall is at present. We are waiting for it to come up with the 10% under Part V. We will never get on top of the crisis while we are dependent on the private sector. It is possible to look at a situation where the State hires companies or building firms to build social housing and pays them a fee to do so. This is a possible way to look at it but we need to get down to build the houses ourselves.

The aim of the Bill is to speed up the planning process, but tampering with planning, particularly when it comes to local authorities, is dangerous and we need to be very careful about this. I am disappointed that Part V has not been mentioned and we have not revisited it with regard to the 10%. Previously we had a provision for 20% social and affordable housing. There were other provisions with which I did not agree, and I welcome the changes in other areas, but while there is flexibility in this regard, 10% is a very low starting point. We need to get real. We have an emergency and it is not getting any better. It is quite obvious that it is continuing, and despite all the measures put in place by the Government, we still have a serious emergency.

While we oppose the Bill in its current form, and we will table a large number of amendments, we accept there are good measures in it.

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