Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: notes that:

— housing policy is not only about the number of homes delivered but the quality of those homes for tenants living in them;

— as the State's largest landlord, Government has a particular responsibility to ensure, through funding for local authorities, that social housing tenants live in good quality homes;

— investment in the maintenance, retrofitting and regeneration of social housing stock is too low;

— too many social housing tenants are living in poorly maintained homes; and

— in 2017, the European Committee of Social Rights deemed the State to be in breach of Article 16 of the European Social Charter and that "a significant stock of local authority housing is of substandard quality"; and

calls on the Government to:

— ensure that the social housing stock is maintained to the highest standard;

— create a dedicated annual fund for local authorities to supplement their existing response maintenance budgets;

— significantly increase the funding for retrofitting and regeneration to speed up the delivery of much needed refurbishment of older inner city flat complexes;

— significantly increase the funding for the social housing retrofitting programme to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy poverty;

— increase the funding for local authority adaptation grants for older persons and people with disabilities;

— on a phased basis, bring local authority tenancies under the remit of the Residential Tenancies Board, to give local authority tenants the same rights as social housing tenants in Approved Housing Body tenancies; and

— give active consideration to the recommendation contained in the Report of the Housing Commission, for the introduction of periodic stock condition surveys, with a particular focus on social housing.

I wish to share time with my colleagues.

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