Dáil debates

Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

9:45 pm

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Although there are some positive aspects to it, this Bill is not a solution to the housing crisis. It will significantly intensify the crisis because the solutions proposed in it, by and large, are not based on evidence or any comprehensive analysis of the causes of the existing crisis, which amounts to a national emergency. Without proper analysis, we are proceeding down the same road that caused the crisis without having learned any lesson.

The Bill further reduces the powers of local authorities in planning matters and in the provision of social and affordable housing. This is an issue that is extremely serious of itself and a matter to which I will return. However, we are doing it in response to submissions and lobbying from powerful sectors and in further reliance on the principle or philosophy that the free market will provide. This principle or philosophy has not only utterly failed us by failing to provide homes - note I use the word homes - for our people but is the policy that caused the crisis in the first place.

As I sit in the Chamber and listen, having listened on other days too, I note the narrative that is being shaped, but the narrative is not being shaped in my name. The narrative is that local authorities, bad planners, An Bord Pleanála, objectors or An Taisce are the causes of our crisis, but the cause of our crisis is simply that we did not build enough houses. The local authority was not provided with money so that there would be a balance in the market. We need both the public and the private sector. Rather than face reality, we construct a narrative to justify a Bill that is a developer's charter. Even worse, this will intensify the crisis.

More specifically, the national housing emergency - I call it that and I noted Deputy Seamus Healy called it that earlier on - has arisen for many reasons. There has been the failure by successive Governments to provide funding to local authorities for what is now a period of almost ten years. There has certainly been eight years of no money. For example, the last time Galway City Council built a social house was in 2009. I have repeatedly stated that in this Chamber. The last time we built a house was in 2009. We got quarterly reports on a regular basis. The fault did not lie with the planners or the councillors. We bought the land, zoned it and approved Part 8 schemes, but each time we sought funding it was not given.

The quarterly report dated 10 October 2016 tells us that 4,720 households, somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 people, are on a waiting list in Galway city that goes back to 2003. Interestingly, when a parliamentary question was tabled on the up-to-date figures, the reply contained figures for 2013. The Minister of State might double check what is happening in terms of figures. The report is dated 10 October and those figures are rising.

The second reason for the crisis was the failure of third level institutions to plan proactively for and build student accommodation. According to the Bills digest we received from the Oireachtas Library, the Higher Education Authority in 2015 estimated that there was an unmet demand for 25,000 bed spaces which was having an impact on the private rental sector. That is my experience in Galway. The authority stated that those shortages were most acute in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The National Economic and Social Council estimated that in 2015 there were 9,000 student households renting in the private sector. The number will have gone up considerably since then, thereby adding to the crisis.

A third reason for the crisis is the systematic reduction of planning, engineering and housing staff at local authority level.

The fourth reason, which I have mentioned already, was the utter reliance on the private market to provide homes, which it spectacularly failed to do, but which this legislation utterly fails to recognise and acknowledge and which will actually worsen the situation.

A further reason for the crisis is Government policy. A fundamental change was brought in by the last Government. A person on a waiting list is no longer entitled to a social house. This has been a fundamental change in policy that was brought in by the Labour Party and Fine Gael and one that is being continued by this Government. A person no longer has a right to a house, regardless of how long he or she is on a list.

From 2003 onwards, in Galway city, people on the housing list have been entitled simply to social housing support.

What we now have is what is known as a housing assistance payment. People who have been on the housing list in Galway city since 2003 received letters today informing them that they have no choice but to sign up to the housing assistance payment and come off the waiting list. When I highlighted this issue in my previous life as a local councillor, I was informed by various party councillors that I was telling lies. I will be the first to apologise if I am wrong but I am informed, as are the applicants who receive the letters, that there is no choice but to go on the housing assistance payment scheme and that those who do so must come off the housing waiting list. The best that can be done for those in receipt of the payment is to be placed on a transfer list. This means someone who has waited from 2003 until 2016 for a home must come off the waiting list.

A further reason for the crisis is that, with the housing assistance payment, more and more people are being forced into an unregulated private rental market without any security of tenure. Into this frame came the National Asset Management Agency. To take a local perspective, I have not seen a single social dividend from NAMA in Galway city. On the contrary, the former Corrib Great Southern Hotel, which has a convention centre and many bedrooms, lies empty next door to the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, while the latter struggles to provide accommodation for its students and the housing crisis in the city continues. It is a scandal that this hotel, which was owned by the State until 2007, remains empty.

The former Anglo Irish Bank building in Galway city also lies empty. Commercial accommodation located beside the private bus station remained empty for a long time, although it and the Corrib Great Southern Hotel were sold to developers in recent years. Mystery surrounds the building that once housed Anglo Irish Bank. One must ask how we can have so many empty commercial buildings and hotels when people are sleeping on the streets of Galway and elsewhere. There is no escaping the answer to that question. It is, as Deputy Wallace stated, because Government Deputies have sold their souls to neo-liberalism. That is, without doubt, what has happened.

I believe it was a Fianna Fáil-led Government which introduced the land aggregation scheme that was subsequently pushed by the previous Government. The scheme has become a complete mystery, with no reference to where the land held under it is or to where it has moved. Obviously, the land in question remains physically in the various counties but legal ownership has been transferred to a body in Dublin. This was not mentioned. How many acres of residential zoned land are held by this body somewhere in Dublin?

Significantly, the Government, in the text of the Bill, refers to providing housing units, rather than the provision of homes and communities. The Bill fails to integrate its proposals in any meaningful way with existing policies, for example, integrated public transport policies or smart travel. The Government has failed to provide the House with an analysis of what is owned by the city councils and local authorities, including Galway City Council, and how much land is held under the mysterious land aggregation scheme.

The powers of local authorities have been significantly reduced, leaving them with only a consultative role. The value of the public consultation process in respect of city and county development plans has been undermined. Most significantly, the role of members of the public in the planning process has been reduced. This is notwithstanding the fact that judges have repeatedly pointed out that the public's role in the planning process is crucial and that members of the public are the eyes and ears of the local authorities in respect of planning transgressions. Judges have gone so far as to refer to members of the public as part of the planning trinity, consisting of the developer-applicant, local authority and members of the public. What the Government is doing in this Bill is further excluding the public from the planning process. While I welcome the decision not to increase the €20 fee for submissions on planning applications, I deplore the Government's failure to take this opportunity to abolish the fee and actively encourage citizens to take part in the planning process.

I note the concerns expressed by the Irish Planning Institute in its letter to the Minister. I fully share these concerns which I propose to briefly outline. The institute states that with regard to the pre-application discussion at local level, it is unclear how the discussion and decision making at board level will operate in practice. It points out that the proposal further removes communities from their respective local authority and development plan. This, combined with the stated aim of reducing the use of oral hearings, is also of concern to the Irish Planning Institute, particularly in light of Ireland's obligation under the United Nations Convention on Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, known as the Aarhus Convention. Having refused to sign the convention for a long time, the Government is now completely ignoring it. The Aarhus Convention clearly states it is vital to encourage rather than reduce public engagement and community involvement at all stages of the planning process.

The Irish Planning Institute also refers to the danger of overemphasising the provision of numbers of housing units and repeating mistakes of the past. It points out that this is not a numbers game and we should be discussing the creation of homes and communities. As I indicated, the institute refers to the failure to integrate with existing transport policies. It points out that the planning system cannot and should not be made the scapegoat for failures in the housing market. It also notes the lack of evidence used in making the decision to remove planning applications for projects involving more than 100 housing units. There is no evidence that moving decisions in such cases to An Bord Pleanála will speed up the process. In desperation, the Irish Planning Institute emphasises the need to ensure that planning authorities and An Bord Pleanála are adequately staffed. I note that a survey carried out by the institute indicated that the number of planners in planning authorities decreased by one third between 2006 and 2015.

The Bill proposes to make cheaper finance available from the Housing Finance Agency to third level institutions. I ask the Minister of State to clarify whether this refers solely to universities or is the institutes of technology sector included. This step has been taken to address the unmet demand of 25,000 bed spaces to which I referred. My concern is that while it is a good idea to provide cheaper finance to build student accommodation, no conditions are imposed to ensure accommodation for students is provided at an affordable level. It is amazing that cheaper finance can be provided to build student accommodation but that it can not be given not to ordinary citizens who want to build homes.

On the change to moving orders for possession in specific cases to the District Court, I note Threshold's concerns that this amendment will speed up the process of securing vacation of dwellings. While this may be a welcome development in terms of efficiency and reducing costs, it will have the most unfortunate effect of leaving more people homeless.

While I welcome the limited steps taken to introduce security of tenure and the decision to reduce the threshold in respect of the so-called Tyrrelstown amendment from 20 units to five units, these changes do not go anywhere near providing security of tenure in a market where the policies pursued by successive Governments have forced an increasing number of people into the private rented sector. The Bills Digest of November 2016 cites a daft.iereference to the rate of rental inflation, at 11.7%, as being the highest ever recorded. The figure has since increased.

The utter failure to analyse the reasons behind the housing crisis, and this Bill, will intensify the housing crisis. The city and county development plans will be in danger and under threat. The fast-tracking of applications is not based on evidence and, in my opinion, is unnecessary without evidence being put before us.

I recently received a letter from a man who, with his wife and two small children, has been renting for seven years and was recently furnished with a rent review which proposes an increase in their rent from €1,100 per month to €1,500 without any consultation. This person is a professional and his wife is a trainee professional. They were struggling to meet the original rent, child care costs, high taxes and travel costs and they are now living with fear and uncertainty as they cannot afford the proposed increase in rent. Rents in Galway have rocketed and they cannot afford them and they fear they will be out on the streets. This is having a huge affect on them mentally and physically. It is not my way to refer to personal letters but it is important to do so at this point to try to personalise the many facts that I have outlined. I am not sure if it is worth appealing to the Minister of State, Deputy English, or the Government to pause and ask questions as to what actually caused the housing crisis. The Government needs to stop scapegoating and repeating a narrative that suits its own purposes. We are not here to be negative. My aim is not to condemn the Government but to highlight issues, one of which is the housing crisis which I have seen worsen since I was first elected as a councillor in 1999, which is 17 years ago. My first speech in 1999 was on the rising cost of housing, which cost has continued to rise unabated in the past 17 years, unfortunately.

At the risk of boring the Minister of State I reiterate that the main reason for the rising cost of housing is the utter failure of the local authorities to build houses in Galway and throughout the country because of the utter failure of Governments to provide funding. I do not accept the reason given that it was too expensive to build or that the Government did not have the money to do so because during all of that time it gave money under various schemes to private landlords, including the rent supplement scheme, which was supposed to be a temporary measure. It has now become the housing assistance payment, which is permanent, with applicants in Galway city being told it is now the only game in town. All of this time Governments had money but they chose to give that money to the private market.

I am not here to demonise landlords. They have an important role to play in the provision of affordable housing and rented accommodation. However, this must always be balanced with direct provision by Government through the local authorities. Instead of bypassing the local authorities the Government should be resourcing them to build on the land they purchased at huge cost.

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