Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will add a few comments to the debate. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has already addressed most of the issues. I compliment Deputy Jan O'Sullivan on bringing forward this Bill and I am glad that we are in a position to support it. I know that the Bill and the motives behind it are genuine. It is unfair that others engaged in roundhousing and used the occasion to try to give a kick to Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, the Labour Party or others because they are trying to bring forward solutions and focus attention on families.

There are aspects of the Bill we want to change and work will have to be done to get it legally correct but the concept and the principles are right. It reflects the change in the situation of homelessness. Even in the good times at the height of the boom, approximately 4,000 individuals would have been homeless but they were not families. We now have a situation where 8,000 people are homeless and over 3,000 of them are children and families. A change in the nature of homelessness has happened in the past couple of years, which the Deputy is right to reflect in tonight's debate in what she is trying to bring forward in the Bill. I am glad we are able to work with the Deputy on that and that the Bill has the support of the House.

It is not the occasion for people to try to blame the Labour Party, Fine Gael or anybody else. They do not recognise that the situation is how this country was and, thanks to the great work of Deputies Howlin, Michael and Enda Kenny, as Taoiseach, the finances of this country were brought back to order and we were put in a position where we could try to address all the concerns we have with homelessness, emergency housing and the need for more housing. We are all politicians. If we had the money, we would have spent it four or five years ago. Deputy O'Sullivan was Minister of State at the Department of Housing and Planning and Minister for Education and Skills. Likewise, we would have spent more on education if we had the money too but, in the first chance, we have got over the past couple of years, towards the end of the term of the previous Government and the first year of this Government's term, we are allocating the money where it is needed. We we could not do that four years or five years ago, even if we had wanted to, because there was no money. There was no money in the private sector or the public sector. Thankfully, since the country has been restored to some order with the previous Government and this one, we have finances again and, on behalf of the taxpayer, we have committed in the region of €6 billion to solving this housing emergency across all the different categories, including social housing, people who are rough sleepers, homeless people in temporary accommodation, those in need of affordable houses, those in private sector housing and so on. We are intervening and trying to tackle the situation. We cannot do so overnight but the resources are present and I have no doubt, as I have repeatedly stated, that if we can stick to the plan, make changes - I have no problem doing that when people have good ideas - and spend the money, we will fix this. I wish we could do it yesterday but we cannot. We will intervene as quickly as we possibly can.

In the meantime, it means putting in extra money into services for those who are homeless and in emergency accommodation. In some cases, it means having to rely on private sector landlords, who have houses that they own throughout the country and that we use through the HAP scheme. We know it is not ideal. We would rather own them all ourselves but we do not. As we rebuild our housing stock, we have to depend on the HAP scheme or rental subsidy schemes.

Deputy Brendan Ryan asked about local authorities. They are central to fixing this. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, and I travel throughout the country with officials from our Department to meet local authority managers and housing officers - we did so as recently as yesterday - on a weekly basis. We engage with them through our Department, their council offices and on sites and have conversation. We tell them this money is real. It is taxpayers' money and it is there for local authorities to spend on driving forward housing solutions. We tell them that they are central to fixing this. They were prevented in the past by other parties that decided to restrict their abilities in this area and then, during bad times, we could not put them back up. However, now we are putting the capacity back into the system. The solutions to this will be led by local authorities. They are central to delivering the 33,000 or more houses that we want to build directly but they also have a role in working with approved housing bodies when it comes to leasing and buying houses, and in other areas. They are the drivers of this and they are up for it. We are giving them the extra personnel they need to try to do this and to strengthen their teams.

Likewise, we are strengthening the delivery system. The Minister attended the housing summit, at which all the housing managers, including the Tipperary housing manager and his team, were present in September. We engage with Tipperary a lot. Deputy Mattie McGrath never waits to listen to the answers but always scoots off afterwards since all he wants to do is make a show like many others around here. We engage on a regular basis and we are changing the structures of delivery. We made changes last year to the delivery system where we sat with all the housing officers. We will meet them again on 22 November to discuss the new delivery method that will be on a par with the private sector. It will be a system of which we can proud in the context of delivery. The day of waiting two, three or four years to get a site will be gone. We are putting in place a system that will match the industry norm. Our housing teams throughout the country are buying into that and putting a system in place. All of our jobs will be to drive it on. That also means our councillors doing their job too with Part VIII schemes and holding their executives to account. We all have a role to play here on a cross-party basis.

Tonight, I have heard many views to the effect that we are doing nothing and that nothing is happening. I tried to discuss that last night. The Taoiseach never said, as Deputy Catherine Murphy said tonight, that it is not that bad. That is fake news. That is not what the Taoiseach said. I did not say it either. None of us said it and none of us is trying to hide it. We publish the figures every couple of months. Over 8,000 people are homeless and no one is hiding that. The rough sleeper account is approximately 150 or 160. It could be less or more - the figure varies. We provide that information. No one is hiding this. We want to debate all the solutions. We accept criticism that we cannot do it quickly enough but please do not keep saying that we are doing nothing. That is the point I made last night because that is not fair on this country or on anybody looking in. It is not fair on all the people working night after night to provide solutions either in the short term, the long term or for emergency accommodation. Earlier today, after a committee meeting, I went to an event relating to the Irish Council for Social Housing community housing awards initiative. It had its awards a few weeks ago in Limerick and is launching the brochure today, reflecting the winners of that and putting across a number of class projects to prevent homelessness, help people who are homeless and older people, rejuvenate old buildings and bring them back into use, as well as a range of other initiatives. I visited some and they were excellent. They all say likewise. They are fed up that no one recognises their work and of all the commentary about nothing being done.

These people are out there. Some of them are in voluntary housing associations and some are in pooled housing bodies. Day in and day out they are working to bring forward projects that may have been started ten years ago but over the past few years, there was no money to finish them. Now they are being finished and they feel a bit hard done by that nobody mentions the work that is being done. Collectively, we all know that it will not be enough to solve the problem, and I cannot say that enough. The Taoiseach has said it is unacceptable. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has also said it, and I am saying it. We know it is not acceptable but there are solutions and we are working through them.

In some cases, the trends are coming right. It comes back to the supply of housing and thankfully the trends in that area are right. Planning permissions and commencement notices are up and we will be able to get our infrastructural funding on-side to open up sites that we believe are key. A lot is happening to bring forward the supply of housing. A lot is also happening to bring forward supply of social housing and next year we will see a commitment in local authority capacity to build the 3,800 units, which is double what it will be this year and double what it was last year. We are way back up from three or four years ago when we were building 75 houses. We are up to 3,800 houses next year. We know that 3,800 houses will not be enough when there are 7,000 or 8,000 people who are homeless, but it is where we are going. We are putting the capacity back in the system. The commitment is there to match what every Deputy in the House wants, which is to deliver 10,000 social houses per year. We are committed to doing this under Rebuilding Ireland and this is what we will achieve.

We have been in this space before. Local authorities were able to deliver that many homes, and way beyond that figure, years ago when they had the teams and the capacity to do it. They want to do it again. Through all the good work of the committee, individually as parties and as a Government, this House is putting the authorities back into that space. They will be able to be proud of their work, of the quality of design and of the cost effectiveness and good value of what they produce. They are ready for that and we will give them the resources to do it. We have to recognise that while there is some progress, one person who is homeless is one too many. No one is denying this but we have to be realistic because this will take time.

The chairman of the Housing Agency did not say it was "normal". He said that given the situation we have been in for the past number of years, we could expect some of it. He was not trying to normalise it or make excuses for it. He was trying to have a factual debate. If we are to work together to solve the housing problem, I ask Deputies at least to deal with facts and stop always throwing quotes around and making up information and spin around one's own line. There is no point in doing this as it does not get us anywhere. It does not serve all the people who work in this sector and it does not do them justice. They are out there every night of the week, bringing forward projects, and we must respond to that and work with it in the best way we possibly can.

Deputy Danny Healy Rae always asks reasonable questions but manages to be gone from the Chamber when I get the chance to answer them. There are opportunities to keep people in their homes, such as the mortgage-to-rent scheme, which has been revamped. It did not work the way we wanted in the past. When Deputy Jan O'Sullivan was the Minister of State, she tried to make it better. It is an improved scheme now and if a person has an unsustainable mortgage, he or she will have the option to deal with it through their local authority or approved housing body, remain in their home, pay rent and have the option to buy it back in the years to come if they need it. I ask that more people look at the scheme. We can fund the expansion of it as we have different ways of doing it now. The scheme could help thousands of people. There are also other schemes. Some contributors to the debate have said thousands of people are being put out of their houses every year. That is not the case. There are far too many, but the figures are not in the thousands. The threat, however, is over thousands of people who are afraid that it might happen. They need to engage with us through the different services such as the MABS Abhaile service, and other ways, so that we can find solutions.

We also buy vacant properties. At a meeting yesterday, I said that the Housing Agency is out there and has viewed 900 houses. It will buy some 500 or 600 of those over the year. There are also some vacant properties where situations are not sorted out between the bank and the original owner of the house. It would be easier for us if the original owner came forward to try to do a deal to sell the house because sometimes the banks cannot sell the house until there is an arrangement made with the original owner. We try to engage with all the different players and I ask them to come forward. I ask that Deputies liaise with their local councillors about the different schemes for vacant properties. These schemes could be the quickest win for us all. There are schemes that, for whatever reason, are not being utilised. We will tweak them and make them better but all Deputies are in a position to spread the word to find solutions.

People want to keep commenting on the situation and that is grand. In fairness, most of the Deputies who are in the Chamber now contribute solutions on a weekly basis. There are other Deputies, however, who hang around the back. They come into the Chamber, throw darts and then head off again. They do not really bring solutions and that is not helping the situation. If Deputies have solutions, we will take them, but we must also recognise what is happening in some cases.

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