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

Táim an-bhuíoch deis a bheith agam labhairt ar an mBille seo. It is not hard to conclude that we are in an escalating housing and homeless crisis. Effectively, we have an emergency crisis. We are at a point where it is now out of control. The figures speak for themselves. Almost 92,000 families are on the social housing list, which does not include the close to 9,000 housing assistance payment tenancies up to the second quarter of 2017. There is a record number of homeless people. There are more than 5,000 homeless adults and 3,048 children accessing emergency accommodation in the State. Some 46% of all homeless people are under 24 years of age. The statistics, dramatic as they are, do not convey each personal tragedy. Each individual has a personal story of anguish and despair. Behind each of these figures is a father, a mother, a child or a family or an individual who have been failed by this Government.

The most effective way to address the housing crisis is to increase the housing supply. The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government currently calculates its housing completion statistics using connections to the ESB network. However, concerns have been raised about the level of accuracy of those figures. When set against other data sets such as stamp duty transactions, building completion certificates and building energy regulation certificates, the Department's figures appear significantly inflated. Central Statistic Office, CSO, statistics confirm that there is a problem with the accuracy of the Government's housing completion figures. These figures get skewed when, for example, a house has been empty for more than two years and the owner must apply for a new ESB connection. This can result in vacant units, refurbished homes and other existing empty properties being classified within the new housing completion figures, thus distorting the true housing completion rates. The figures for completion rates issued by the Department could in reality be exaggerated by more than 50%. However, the Government continues to use ESB connection data as a means of measuring housing completion rates.

The Minister has proposed that 3,800 new social and affordable housing units will be built in 2018. These houses will be built by local authorities and approved housing bodies. However, this will not go anywhere near addressing the current escalating housing and homeless crisis.

Sinn Féin in our submission to the review of Rebuilding Ireland proposed more realistic figures to meet housing requirements. We proposed 10,000 new social houses to be built each year, amounting to 50,000 over a five-year period. We showed that this can be done and financed in our alternative budget. In addition, we believe that the Government should abandon the expensive use of public private partnerships, joint ventures and so on to develop mixed tenure estates and regeneration projects on public land. Such estates should include social and affordable housing, rentable and affordable based on need. They should also have the associated social and economic amenities in parallel with any new housing.

This Government and previous Governments have placed far too much reliance on the private sector. This has led to increased rents and a shortage of long-term rental accommodation. People are finding it increasingly difficult to find rental property and when they do, the rents are often exorbitant. We hear stories each day of how even professionals and families with two incomes are finding it a struggle to pay the rent or even to save money. Many rental properties are beyond the reach of low income families, including those in receipt of the housing assistance payment. That is why Sinn Féin has argued for the introduction of rent controls or, to use the new buzzword we now hear mentioned, "rent certainty". This should be based on the consumer price index and tied to inflation, and not the pressure zone system that the Government now has in place.

Sinn Féin believes that the provision of affordable housing for average income earners should be a priority for this Government.

10 o’clock

Various schemes rolled out by the Government such as the affordable rental scheme have yet to be developed, while others such as the help to buy scheme only pushed up housing prices. The planning rebate scheme and the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, have also proved unsuccessful at delivering affordable rental or purchase housing. Sinn Féin has continually argued that affordable rental homes could be provided through existing vacant housing stock. As long as the Government continues to adhere to deeply flawed policies and housing plans, remains over-reliant on the private sector to deliver social housing solutions, and does not provide adequate resources or funding, we will always have a housing and homelessness crisis.

The disastrous changing of our planning laws, whereby under Part V we now get 10% of any new scheme instead of the previous 10% social and 10% affordable, has had a hugely negative impact on the delivery of social housing. It was a disaster and should never have happened. We should have left it at 20%. It just never made any sense.

We do not even have a senior citizens scheme in Dublin City Council. The schemes were open to financial contributions from people. They would give up their house and in return they might have to pay the council a third or a quarter of the money depending on their age. That is another means of getting more money. We are talking about finances. It is also a means to contribute towards new housing and should be ring-fenced for this.

The mortgage-to-rent scheme has delivered fewer than 200 units. What a disaster. It could have been very effective but it has not been pushed by the Government for various reasons. On vacant homes and businesses, all we have seen is empty places left, right and centre throughout the country - businesses newly built in the so-called Celtic tiger era. We have seen them everywhere across the city and the country. The wider use of co-operative housing using local authority lands should be pushed harder. We should be looking at building bigger schemes. This thing of doing small infills is every bit as costly and the whole process is every bit as tedious as going through four, five or six houses in one scheme. We should be looking at increasing the sizes in the local authority areas. Co-operative organisations such as Ó Cualann in Ballymun are examples of how we could use more co-operative housing at a lower price. We can use the structural funds which have been put aside to start using those lands. It is very important that this is done.

There are enough resources to tackle housing and health in this country, the two main areas in which we are failing abysmally. It is not all down to money, however. It is also down to ideology and choices. Money obviously comes into it. It is how we get that money and our approach that form the question. We should also be outlawing the hoarding of land. This practice has set prices at a very high level and we need to stop it. More use should be made of the funds NAMA has raised. We have all met credit unions that have money available. I do not know why we have not figured out a way they could supply the funding that we badly need. The European Structural Fund is available as well as the finance agencies from which we can borrow at low rates. There is no excuse for not being able to raise money on the basis of the housing stock many local authorities have, similar to what is done with the voluntary housing bodies.

This housing crisis could have been resolved. There is no doubt that with the right will and the right mind, it could have been resolved. The budget and the ideology behind it have given senior citizens a rise of €5 instead of looking at the health system or the housing or transport issues, or looking at the structural funding that is required to try to improve life for everyone. We should be looking at that but this is down to mindset in many cases.

Tá mo chroí briste. Tá géarchéim ann i dtaca le tithíocht agus le sláinte. Níl gá dó ach tá sé ann, agus tá slí chun é a shocrú ach níl an toil ann.

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