Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Casey for introducing the Bill. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy English. I accept that his commitment to introduce amendments to deal with this issue is genuine. The issue of overcrowding in our housing stock is very significant. It is important to acknowledge that it is now two years since the documentary "RTÉ Investigates - Nightmare to Let" showed some of the most appalling overcrowding many of us had seen in a long time. It is important to acknowledge, however, that kind of overcrowding is not the most common, nor is it the only kind of overcrowding this Bill tries to address. It is important to reflect on the kinds of overcrowding with which we deal every day.

In a very large number of local authority houses three and, in some cases, four generations of the one family live in exceptionally cramped circumstances. This is because a lack of supply of social housing or other available housing options over many years. It is not uncommon in my constituency or, I am sure, those of other Deputies for two adults and two children to live in a box bedroom of 7, 8 or 9 sq. m for a very extended period of time. It is not just that it is cramped, it is also unhealthy and unsafe as a result of condensation and damp impacting on the respiratory well-being of the tenants, in addition to the enormous stress and strain it puts on family relationships. I think of one family in my own constituency. Ten adults over three generations were living in a standard three-bedroom 1980s local authority house. That was not unusual or exceptional.

A significant amount of overcrowding also comprises people sleeping on the couches of members of their extended family. This is often described as hidden homelessness or sofa surfing. These are cases where people cannot get accommodation and their extended family does not have an additional box bedroom. This also causes significant issues.

Something I have started to notice more recently in the private rental sector is cases of multiple families renting private homes. These people are not even eligible for social housing support. They are often people with relatively decent incomes but, because of the high price of rental accommodation both in the city centre and the suburbs of Dublin, it can be the case that two professional working families with children rent a house that was only intended for one. I can list a number of cases in which three extended families are forced to share simply because of the cost of rental accommodation. This results in many difficulties.

We also have a lot of older single men, many of whom may have separated or divorced and left the family home to the wife and children. Some of these men have issues with alcohol addiction or with their mental health and are living in very unsanitary and overcrowded accommodations that are almost like flophouses. This also raises issues.

If we are going to design not only a new definition but also a new enforcement regime, we have to ensure we capture all of these circumstances to make sure that those people do not continue to live indefinitely in appalling housing conditions.

I share and support the intention of the Bill and we will therefore support it, notwithstanding the Government's amendment. Given that the proposers are supporting the Government's amendment and that we accept the Minister of State's intention, we are happy to endorse it.

The comments I will make in the last few minutes I have are made with a mind to influence the debate around those amendments because that is where this will ultimately go. I agree with the Minister of State, Deputy English, with regard to the comments he made on the technical outworkings of the proposal before us. Any definition has to be assessed against our building standards and the Department's technical guidance documents, including those on design standards, particularly those which were recently introduced - albeit with a lot of criticism from myself and others - in respect of studio apartments and co-living. The definition needs to be assessed very closely against the minimum standards for the private rental sector but also against the design standards for local authority housing. The Minister of State alluded to this. In some cases, the floor area per person described in table 2 on page 4 of the Bill would require a change in design standards for local authority housing or could result in housing currently under construction falling foul of the new standards. We have to work all of that out.

We also have to look very carefully at enforcement. One of the difficulties with the current enforcement regime is not only that there is not an adequate level of inspections and that the sanctions are too weak, but that sanctions are not imposed immediately on an offence being identified. In fact, people in breach of the existing standards are given time to rectify that breach. Even in the case of the very serious breaches identified in the properties featured in "RTÉ Investigates - Nightmare to Let" two years ago, under the existing legislation the landlords would be given time to rectify the issues before facing any sanction. That is an appalling state of affairs. If there are standards and if a serious breach of those standards is an offence, people should not be given time to rectify such breaches. They should be immediately sanctioned, followed by an opportunity to rectify to avoid further sanction.

I will express a concern. The Government has a target of inspections of 25% of all private rental properties by 2020 or 2021. On the basis of the latest National Oversight and Audit Commission figures, we will not reach that target. Whether this is a result of a lack of funding being provided by the Department and the Minister, or whether local authorities are failing to employ staff or get inspections up and running, we need to inspect that 25% of properties and we need to do so much sooner than the 2021 deadline. There is little point in spending a lot of time putting a new definition in statute but not carrying out the inspections. Some local authorities are still only inspecting 5% or 10% of rental properties. Others are doing much better. A failure to inspect, however, means that all of our work will have been in vain.

The other crucial thing is, if we introduce new standards and a better enforcement regime, where do people go? I will take for example the case I mentioned in which two families, comprising four adults and six children, are living in a private rental property in my constituency which was designed for a standard family of two adults and two children. Where are those families going to go? Where are the properties going to be, whether they be social, affordable purchase, or affordable rental? Where new standards are introduced, which should be ambitious, we need a parallel assessment of the number of properties that will be affected and of the lead-in time for enforcement. We cannot force people into homelessness because of a lack of available alternative housing options on the social, affordable or private end as a result of the new standards.

The converse, however, is that we should not allow the poor supply of housing to lower our expectations of what the standards should be. I am not, in any way, arguing that we should not have the highest possible standards. In fact, I am arguing the very opposite. In parallel with those standards, we need to be far more ambitious with regard to the delivery of the required social and affordable housing.

We are happy to work with the proposers of the Bill and with the Minister of State in committee to get this right. There are a range of voices and experts in this field from whom we would like to hear in committee. As we did with student accommodation, let us do this in a way that allows us to get it right. Let us work together and ensure that, in this instance, people in any kind of housing will have standards which will ensure a good quality of life, an inspection regime that identifies those properties that fall foul, and an enforcement regime that ensures the standards are upheld. Crucially, we also need to be far more ambitious in supplying social housing and housing that is affordable to rent or to buy, as well as straight private housing, so that all people in the immediate future can expect to live in good quality accommodation that meets their needs at an appropriate and affordable price.

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