Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister spoke about legal obligations on local authorities in this regard. That is relevant but if the funding model for social housing and maintenance is not fixed, we will continue to have this problem. It is scandalous that local authorities which own public housing do not meet the basic standards and legal requirements that any landlord has to meet. Local authorities enforce those standards, in some instances, with regard to private landlords but do not adhere to those standards themselves. While some local authorities have improved significantly in that regard in enforcement in the private sector over the past number of years; there is still some distance to go.

A heartbreaking thing I see as a public representative in parts of my constituency is that some people on lower incomes are in much poorer health than others. Part of that, at least, arises from them living in substandard conditions due to the local authority's neglect of its housing stock. It is absolutely shocking. It can have debilitating consequences. It can mean people being old before their time, getting serious health conditions and having serious respiratory conditions. That ill-health and those conditions affect people's physical and mental health and well-being. It puts them under pressure. It can lead to people simply dying long before others in their age group. That the State and local authorities bear some responsibility in that regard due to poor housing standards in their own stock is unforgivable.

The motion is timely given the news today that Ireland is way off meeting its climate targets to reduce emissions. According to the latest EPA report, Ireland is set to miss its greenhouse gas targets by a considerable distance. The EPA analysis shows that planned climate policies and measures, even if fully implemented, will only deliver a 29% emissions reduction by 2030. That is if fully implemented. It is well below the 51% target in the Government's climate action plan. The EPA warns that almost all sectors are on a trajectory to exceed their national sectoral emissions for 2025 and 2030. We simply do not have the luxury of time to avoid climate emergency. In addition, Ireland faces the prospect of fines from the EU amounting to between €3 billion and €8 billion for not getting this right. Let us imagine what we could do to retrofit our existing social housing stock if we were not going to be paying out those fines, and how that money would be better spent doing that. It is a scandalous waste of money. These results from the EPA are the same as last year's EPA projections, which raises the question of what this Government has been doing for the past 12 months that means no progress has been made since the EPA report and projections of last year. Despite all the rhetoric coming from the Government we are way off on this.

Operational emissions from the residential sector account for 9.7% of Ireland's national emissions. Retrofitting existing housing stock is one of the best ways to address this. It is also one of the best ways to address energy poverty. Almost one third of households were at risk of energy poverty in 2022 compared to 2015 and 2016 when 13.2% of households - still too high a figure - were at risk of energy poverty. That is a staggering increase in a small number of years. Living with energy poverty is associated with serious negative physical and mental health outcomes, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, arthritis and rheumatism. Studies have shown that Ireland has a higher number of deaths during the winter and a lot of that is linked to poor living conditions and energy poverty. There is an excellent report called Bridging the Gap - Between Energy Poverty and Energy Renovation published by the Irish Green Building Council and Friends of the Earth. It has 34 recommendations that the Government could easily implement. The report makes the key point that hundreds of millions of euro are currently being spent on retrofitting, but it would make sense to closely align that expenditure with the goal of reducing energy poverty. That close alignment is not being done at the moment. We would get much better buy-in across the population for the task of reducing emissions and climate change if a serious approach was taken to reducing energy poverty at the same time. Retrofitting housing stock in public ownership is one of the best ways to build a scalable and efficient model to retrofit our housing stock more generally. That is another benefit.

I turn to another aspect of this motion about housing adaptation grants, which are hugely important for assisting people with reduced mobility, such as older people and people with disabilities, to stay in their homes. It is an absolutely key measure in adapting housing stock and ensuring safe outcomes for people whose mobility changes, especially as they get older. A review of the housing adaptation grant scheme was due to be published by the end of 2022. That review has still not been published. A number of disability and older persons organisations made submissions to the review in 2022. There is a commitment to Housing for All with a timeline of quarter 4 2021 and the national housing strategy for disabled people with a timeline of quarter 4 2023 to implement the relevant changes from that review. The Government has still not published it. It was completed by the Department some time ago and there was engagement with the Department of public expenditure and reform. The former Minister of State in the Department of housing, Deputy O'Donnell, stated at the disability matters committee on 20 March 2024 that the review was completed and a submission on it was currently with the Department of public expenditure to get final sanction for the money. The Department of public expenditure is holding up the money required to implement that highly overdue review of the housing adaptation grant scheme. I do not need to tell any Member the serious problems with that scheme, the lack of funding in it, and the hardship it is causing people. It is unacceptable that the work has been done on this, the review is sitting there, and is being held up by the Department of public expenditure and reform. There are serious issues with people on waiting lists for this scheme. A freedom of information request submitted by Alone showed there were 85 people on a waiting list in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, 95 in south Dublin, 194 in Fingal and 200 in Dublin City Council. Galway county had 550 people on a waiting list, and County Louth had 562. Bearing in mind that most local authorities do not even keep a waiting list, we are looking at thousands of people waiting for this, being held up and in need because the Department of public expenditure and reform is holding this up. I implore the Minister of State to speak to his colleagues in that Department, get them to stop holding up that review and get on with implementing it so people in absolute need of housing adaptation grants are not waiting any more and can get their houses adapted to liveable conditions so they can continue to live in their homes.

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