Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I wished to raise this matter because it is becoming a more prevalent issue in my day-to-day work in my constituency of Dublin South-Central, where much of the housing stock is of a certain age. It may also be related to climate change and changes in our weather patterns. In St. Teresa's Gardens and other large local authority flat complexes there are also issues of mould, dampness and condensation.

It has come to my attention that when a council house becomes "void", or vacant, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government provides funding to bring that house up to an acceptable building energy rating, BER, standard. However, sitting tenants cannot access any of that money. Tenants are also advised that the carrying out of repairs due to condensation is their responsibility, but that is not what I am talking about here. My concern is about the insulation of homes and the anomaly I have discovered is like a form of apartheid, whereby a council tenant cannot apply for a grant but a private home owner with a mortgage can. Furthermore, the local authority cannot apply for a grant on behalf of a sitting tenant.

A climate change Bill is being prepared at present and there have been discussions on a national policy to reduce fuel emissions and the use of fossil fuels and so forth. At the same time, in one of the largest housing stocks in the country, namely, local authority housing, tenants cannot access insulation. Many tenants are not in a position to get loans from their credit unions to carry out such work because money is so scarce. This is an issue that could be dealt with in the context of the forthcoming climate change Bill. We could allow the local authorities to apply for grants for insulating homes or, ideally, there should be a national programme of public works for all council housing, public buildings, schools and so forth. The DEIS school in Bluebell, for example, is crying out for insulation because of the amount of heat being lost from the building.

I ask the Minister of State to give her opinion as to whether an insulation programme could feed into the climate change legislation. Is there a basis for changing the current legislation to allow either council tenants or local authorities to access grants for insulation? Are there any plans in the pipeline in the Department to upgrade local authority houses with sitting tenants?

On a separate matter, Deputy Jim Daly raised the issue of unemployed people doing outdoor local authority work. If Deputy Daly is sitting twiddling his thumbs any day, perhaps he should make himself available because he is already getting well paid. If there is work to be done, it should be paid for.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Collins for raising this matter and share her concern on the need to address the issue of inadequate insulation and draught proofing in older local authority housing stock. Given the constraints on capital budgets across all areas of the public service, my Department is now placing greater emphasis on local authority social housing improvement programmes to improve living conditions and comfort levels for tenants. The enhancement of energy efficiency standards remains a priority within my Department.

As Deputy Collins has said, the grants under the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland scheme are for private houses only and fall within the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte. In the past, funding for housing maintenance programmes was provided from the local authority's own internal capital receipts. However, with the decline in internal capital receipts, funding has been provided from my Department for the retrofitting and improvement of the housing stock, particularly with regard to energy efficiency measures. Under my Department's social housing investment programme, local authorities are allocated funding each year in respect of a range of measures to improve the standard and overall quality of their social housing stock. The programme includes a retrofitting measure aimed at improving the energy efficiency of older apartments and houses by reducing heat loss through the fabric of the building. Again, as Deputy Collins has pointed out, over the past two years, the retrofitting measure focused on improvement works to vacant houses, known as "voids", with the objective of returning as many as possible of these dwellings to productive use and combating dereliction and associated anti-social behaviour. Over that period some €52.5 million was recouped to local authorities in respect of improvements carried out to 4,774 dwellings. Deputy Collins is correct that these were "voids" and were not occupied houses.

I am currently reviewing the terms of the energy retrofitting measure for 2013 to target grants at those older houses and apartments which lack adequate insulation and draught proofing. Local authorities should pay particular attention to dwellings which accommodate older people and people with disabilities. My Department will issue revised guidelines to local authorities in the context of the capital allocations under the housing programme for 2013. Work is under way in this regard and my Department requested local authorities to submit details of their capital requirements under the various measures within the housing programme. This information is being assessed at present and I intend to advise individual authorities of their capital allocations as soon as possible.

The retrofitting programme offers a very practical and cost-effective way for local authorities to improve the standard of their housing stock. The programme brings immediate as well as long-term benefits for the community as a whole in terms of sustaining and creating jobs and delivering a greener Ireland for the future. The programme also reduces peoples' energy bills, which is a very important consideration.

It is clear to me that we need better information to give sharper focus to the overall national improvement works programme and to better target resources at areas which will give the best return on the investment made. My Department, in conjunction with the local authorities, has now commenced an audit of the 130,000 social housing units. Over time, this will build up a comprehensive profile of the stock and enable the compilation of planned housing maintenance programmes locally and the development of targeted strategies to address deficiencies in terms of thermal efficiency and so forth. Next year, I intend to use the results of the audit to inform the capital allocations to local authorities.

In the last two years the emphasis was on vacant houses with the objective of getting them back into use. I have specifically asked that now we focus on occupied houses. In many cases tenants have been in place for a long time and have maintained their homes as best they can but they have serious problems with dampness and so forth. Once again, I thank Deputy Collins for raising this issue.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister of State for her response. This is an area that needs to be addressed urgently. I know of a young woman with two children who moved into her house in Drimnagh in 2010, just after the BER rating system was introduced. Almost every week she has to wash down the walls on the ground floor of her house to remove mould. Her young children had to move out of the house over the Christmas period because it was in such a bad state. The response from the council has been to advise her to open windows, open vents and not to dry clothes indoors. She is doing all of that but the same thing keeps happening. She is caught in a bind because she cannot get a grant to insulate her home to prevent the dampness. She is getting no assistance from the council in this regard and has reached a point where she does not even consider it a home anymore. I know of another family who have been living in Pim Street in Pimlico for four years who have the same problem with mould. They are constantly wiping down the walls, using chemicals to remove the mould but it keeps returning. It is going onto their bedclothes, mattresses and is becoming a nightmare for them.

There is no recognition on the part of the local authorities that there is a problem. I contacted the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to see if there is a list of complaints made about mould but was told there was no list. There must be a list because complaints are being made every day of the week. The person in Pim Street to whom I referred has been making complaints for the last two years. There is something wrong somewhere.

A root and branch analysis is required to identify where the problems are and then they should be addressed. Next year is too long to wait for some people. Is there some way, in the short term, that tenants can access grants?

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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We want to gather the information, as the Deputy said, and find out where the problem houses are located. We have asked the local authorities to do that. This year I hope to be able to divert to occupied houses some of the money that would have been used for "voids". I also hope to develop programmes with the information we are gathering from the local authorities. It could be very cost-effective if, for example, there were a number of houses in a particular area and a single contract could cover the work on them. That could save a lot of money. The point about households saving money on fuel costs is also very important. A lot of the older local authority houses have very low BER ratings and are very energy inefficient. If we can improve them significantly, that will save money for householders as well. Like Deputy Collins, I have been shown many photographs of houses with serious mould which is very difficult to live with. People paint their houses but must do so again within a very short period of time. It is a genuine issue that we will address as best we can.