John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Fianna Fáil supports the Bill from this side of the House, as it builds on legislation introduced by it in 2009. While the Bill is worthwhile and will streamline matters, I wish to raise a few points about the 100,000 applicants on local authority housing waiting lists. I also want to ask questions about NAMA which does a lot of talking about the number of houses on its list but which seems to be slow in making deals or decisions on how houses can be reallocated to local authorities across the country. An example is Enniscorthy Town Council which purchased a number of houses from a developer who subsequently ended up in NAMA. The slowness of decision making in NAMA led to the local authority pulling out of the deal and deciding not to pursue it. It highlighted the difficulty of dealing with NAMA and the difficulty in NAMA making a quick decision. It is essential that it speed up the process. I am sure the Minister of State is in discussions on a regular basis with it. We are told it has more than 3,000 properties on its books that are potentially suitable for housing applicants. Wexford County Council and the three town authorities are not building or buying houses and are leasing few houses. I am sure the position is the same in other counties. The rental accommodation scheme works to a certain extent, but otherwise people have no hope of getting a house in the near future. I ask the Minister of State to ensure any decision NAMA takes is speeded up.

The Bill does not set out a definitive national standard for differential rent schemes. Every county seems to have a differential rent scheme. Wexford County Council has one, but it also has a scheme whereby tenants pay an extra €2 or €3 every week which goes towards window replacement, door replacement and the cost of repairs to the house. It is a good project, but, for some unknown reason, repairs have not been carried out in the past 18 months. There is a feeling the money taken in is being utilised to keep down the council's interest rate because of the high level of arrears. There is a need for a standardised differential rent scheme across the country.

While there are built-in allowances and hardship can be taken into account by the housing officer in the local authority, there should be an allowance where there is a disabled person in a family. Many families have a disabled people living in the house, which makes it expensive for them. There seems to be no built-in allowance to cover this fact. This aspect should be examined.

Local authority housing units are not exempt from local property tax. There is a vagueness about how local authorities will operate the scheme. The council states it must pay local property tax and it will obviously pass it on to the tenant. That will be a further burden on the tenant because local authority rents are extremely high. How councils will deal with this aspect should be clarified. Houses seem to be valued at €45,000 in the first year and €90,000 in the second. Perhaps the Minister might clarify whether this is laid down in stone. Can more be charged if a local authority housing area scheme is located in a particularly upmarket area?

I refer to the disabled person's grant. The Minister of State allocated some moneys to local authorities in recent months in this regard. The allocation to the council in Wexford was substantially reduced from €2.7 million to €1.2 million and the authority has written to old age pensioners who would normally qualify. Applicants for roof repairs, window replacement or door replacement have received a letter saying the file has been put on hold indefinitely and that the council cannot state when cases will be dealt with. It cannot accept new applicants from 1 May. People living in substandard houses are not in a position to carry out essential repairs and window and roof replacement. As a result, the housing stock will be further run down. In the past there was an initial and a follow-up allocation.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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There may be some money left.

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State should seriously consider this issue because people are on the list for two or three years and may never have repairs carried out. We may have to allocate new houses because of the substandard condition of housing.

In recent weeks I submitted a parliamentary question on the need for a new tenant purchase scheme. Tenant purchase schemes have ceased, the last of which ceased in December 2012. A number of people want to buy their homes and are awaiting a new tenant purchase scheme to be put in place. It is important to examine and implement such a scheme as quickly as possible. In his reply to the question the Minister said the Department was considering a new scheme, but I am not sure when a date will be signalled for its introduction. It is important to allow people to continue to purchase their homes. Most people in Ireland want to own their home and it also means they are removed from council lists. In the long term it will save councils money if we encourage people to purchase houses. In 1979 the half-price purchase scheme was introduced by the then Minister, Pádraig Flynn who was far-seeing.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It was called the sale of the century.

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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He introduced a scheme under which people could purchase their homes for half the valuation price. I think the Deputy was a Member at that time.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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And long before it.

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We all supported the scheme, for which the Deputy was vocal in his support.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I was, for different reasons.

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It was a great scheme in the sense that a number of people purchased their homes and were removed from the housing and house repairs lists forever. The Minister of State should examine this suggestion. I understand both she and the Minister are examining a scheme, but it should be implemented as quickly as possible.

The Bill will facilitate the introduction of a new local authority rent system under section 31 of the 2009 Act.

It will be administered by the housing authorities within their existing financial and staffing resources. That will not be a problem because in my county - I am sure it is the same in every county - there are a huge number of staff in the housing section. As we are not building any houses or renting houses, there will be an adequate number of staff to deal with this issue. The rent subsidy scheme is operated by the Department of Social Protection. Are there plans for that to be administered by the housing authority instead? It appears a little contradictory to have the Department of Social Protection dealing with this aspect while the local authority deals with rents and housing. The system could be more streamlined by having the local authority deal with the rent subsidy as well.

Will the Minister of State clarify how she intends to deal with the 100,000 applicants on the housing waiting lists? What discussions has she had with the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA? Are we nearer to a solution with regard to NAMA making properties available to local authorities? There are a number of housing schemes in my county that were under construction by developers but are now under the control of NAMA. For some unknown reason they are still locked up and lying idle at a time when there are a huge number of people on the housing lists. If that could be streamlined and there was a key to unlocking them, as it were, in terms of making those houses available, it would solve some of the problems in certain counties.

Generally, I support the Bill. It will be of benefit to local authorities. However, there should be a standardised differential rent scheme rather than a system under which each county makes it up as it goes along.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To take up Deputy John Browne's last point on the total number of people on local authority housing waiting lists, it is indeed a housing crisis. It is one the Minister of State inherited from her predecessors. It has continued for ten years because the previous Administration refused to do anything about it. The culture of dealing with local authority housing requirements was gone; the private sector was going to deal with it. The culture of building local authority houses and lending to first-time buyers through the local authorities was also gone, and remains that way. There is no easy way to deal with it. It must be dealt with in the old, traditional and difficult way.

I realise there is scarcity of capital at present for investing in local authority housing, but it is a very serious social and economic issue that can only be dealt with in one way. That means the Government at some stage will have to work out a programme that will be beneficial to people on the housing lists. Instead of being funded by the Department of Social Protection by way of rent support, it is the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, and the Minister for Social Protection has quite correctly said as much. It must be taken seriously. As Deputy John Browne said, local authorities have the staff to operate this and other schemes. The staff are in situ so there is no reason it cannot be done. There is no extra cost administratively.

The sad part of this is that a comparison with the 1980s is relevant. In a four-year period in my local authority area, a total of 1,200 houses were built by the local authority. In the same period, 1,500 Housing Finance Agency loans were issued to families on the housing list. That has not been equalled since then. What happened during the boom was just appalling. Houses became known as units. The first time I saw a reference to a unit, I knew we were finished. Everything went down the tubes at that stage. A unit is a one-bedroom apartment with a bathroom and a kitchen in which one cannot swing a cat. This was deemed to be the resolution to the housing problem because it was cheap and it was possible to put ten or 15 families into a space in which one would normally place one family.

What we are left with is both a social and an economic disaster. First, those houses are incapable of housing a family. In houses that were purchased and allocated during that time we have situations in which children of mixed ages and sexes are sharing rooms. It is utterly crazy. I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime. When I was a member of the local authority, which was quite a long time ago, one of the first issues we were instructed to consider in determining housing requirements was the sleeping accommodation of the family. That has all gone out the window. It is utterly crazy and dangerous. It is an appalling situation. We must move away from that nonsense.

There is no surplus housing on the periphery of Dublin, as all representatives in Dublin and the surrounding counties know. There is huge demand but there is nowhere to divert the people. We cannot divert them to the private sector. We cannot divert them to the NAMA sector because the housing is unsuitable. There is a dearth of family accommodation. That must be dealt with. There is a need for a cultural change in how we deal with this. In the past ten or 15 years we slid into the habit of pointing to the voluntary housing sector. The voluntary housing sector, some of which is good, is not the solution to the problem by a long shot. In fact, I am not the greatest fan of the voluntary housing sector. That is well known. I was an opponent from the beginning. As the Minister knows, I have pointed out some inadequacies in that area that have shown up over the years, and more will follow.

I strongly urge the Minister of State to bring control of the housing situation back to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, where it belongs. I agree with Deputy John Browne's proposal that local authority houses be sold to tenants. It should happen as soon as possible. It would remove that burden from the balance sheet. On foot of the memorandum of understanding there is a requirement for the Government to reduce borrowing and remove borrowings from the balance sheet. That can be done in a simple way by selling as many houses as possible. At the same time, if necessary, the local authority should provide the funding through the local loans fund where the banks are not doing so. There is nothing like a bit of competition.

I remember when the Housing Finance Agency was mooted in 1981. I was a great supporter of that scheme. I dealt with the first cases in which people applied for housing loans under that scheme and they are still in their houses. That is the case for thousands of people throughout the country. However, the wise guys came along afterwards and told people they would be paying until they were 90 years old because it was an income-related repayment system and if the income did not increase over a period of time, the loan repayments remained the same. The main aspect of the scheme was that it gave access to housing for families in need of a home. It did so quickly, effectively and efficiently, without placing a burden on their backs that they could not handle in the future. I believe it should be reintroduced and made available to families that are currently in need of a house. There are at least 100,000, as Deputy Browne said, and possibly more.

One of the criticisms levelled at those of us who promote the concept of greater investment in local authority houses is that there are people on the housing waiting lists who would not be on them if there were different social circumstances. That may well be the case, but our job as legislators is not to tell people not to change their circumstances but to attend to the problems that arise afterwards. It is no use to complain that if a family has split up and gone in different directions, where one house was sufficient for them previously they now require two houses of different types. We must deal with the situation as it is presented, not the situation that was presented previously. We must deal with the new circumstances and I strongly urge the Minister to do that. Again, that can only be done through a serious investment in the local authority house building programme.

I ask the Minister of State to take account of the numbers on the individual local authority housing lists in order to be able to assess the requirements in the various areas effectively. There will be those who will advise otherwise. I was a member of a local authority for a good few years, and it is a good few years since I was a member, but I know the requirements in this area have not changed. The difficulties were actually exacerbated by reluctance on the part of the former Government to address them in a meaningful way. It did not do so and consequently there is negativity and a lack of accommodation.

If a person is on the local authority housing list and qualifies for rent supplement, which is necessary because there are no local authority houses, he or she is caught in a poverty trap. If he or she moves at all, his or her rent support is removed. It is not that people are deliberately staying where they are but that they cannot move because they are caught in a poverty trap. If they do move out, their income drops because of the loss of the supplement from the Department of Social Protection.

When a person has a local authority house, provided there is a reasonable differential rent, that person will, without any encouragement from anybody anywhere, go to work to improve his position to the best of his ability. I have never seen it happen otherwise. I strongly urge that we recognise this now and enable people on the local authority housing list to have a means of housing themselves, by way of a loan or direct local authority housing provision, instead of keeping them in a poverty trap.

The tenant purchase scheme was referred to by other speakers, including Deputy John Browne. I agree with the points made. I would identify the total number of houses eligible for purchase under the scheme at the earliest opportunity and I would then ask for an assessment of the benefit that would accrue to the Exchequer on foot of the change to the balance sheet.

Reference was made to the disabled person's grant scheme, which has been opened and closed by turn for the past ten years. In any five-year period, the scheme was repeatedly switched off on the receipt of a certain number of applications by the local authorities, thus requiring applicants to make an entirely new application when the scheme reopened, perhaps six months later. I never saw such nonsense anywhere in my life. This has changed in the past year or so and the local authorities are keeping the relevant information on file such that it is automatically activated when the scheme is brought back online. I compliment the Minister on this. This approach could be taken in respect of many other schemes.

If the number of people on the local authority housing list had been counted more often during my time in this House, a premium would have been payable for them. Counting the people on the list does nothing at all. With modern technology, it should not be necessary to count them. There should be co-operation between the Department of Social Protection and the local authorities such that cross-checking would make it readily identifiable who is on the housing list, how long they are on it and how their housing needs can be met. This could be done with the touch of a button and with no research, counting or laborious administration. I ask that there be much closer co-operation between local authorities and the system itself. The system should be integrated so information will be available instantly. This can be done without problem with modern technology. Information could be kept up to date at all times, thus cutting out the nonsense of having to count the people on the list every three or four years to determine who is eligible, who is on the list and who has gone off the list.

Society can benefit greatly from a good, well-balanced housing programme for people in the income brackets that have not been accommodated at all in recent years. This is essential. I note that Deputy Finian McGrath agrees with me. The time he signed a document of support for a previous Government was crucial in our history. His signature handed all responsibility over to the private sector. Deputy Finian McGrath is a great supporter of the private sector and his signature was a manifestation of his support therefor at the time. I was appalled at the time that anybody should have thought that we would solve our housing crisis through the private sector. We had Part V, Part VIII and all sorts of parts, some of which were notorious and which were purportedly to solve our housing problem. Where are we now if there was a crisis then? The approach at the time did not and could never have solved the problem. It never will. Until we decide to tackle the problem in the old-fashioned, traditional way, it will not and cannot be dealt with. The Government has taken some decisions that are beneficial but there is a big one yet to come, namely, dealing with the big problem in the fashion in which it must be dealt with.

In recent years there has been a lack of funding for local authority housing. Deputy John Browne referred to the consequent uptake under the rental accommodation scheme. The scheme is not successful, nor does it work. No such schemes work because of their temporary nature. A person taking on a house under the rental accommodation scheme knows there is a temporary arrangement. He or she may not necessarily get on well with the landlord indefinitely despite the fact that the local authority is leasing the house in the first place and subletting it to him or her. The system is appallingly laborious and difficult and costly to administer. If we do not consider ways and means of regularising it somehow, we will have further problems that will be magnified well into the future. As a famous former Member of this House said: "A lot done. More to do."

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am sharing my time with Deputy Finian McGrath.

Everybody generally agrees that the synchronisation of the differential rents is good. It gives more scope to the local authorities to determine how to assess their rents. There are differences from area to area. I have examined some of the figures. The Dublin City Council figure is 15% and that for South Dublin County Council is 10%, which demonstrates a big difference. The figure for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is 16%. Is the Minister considering capping in regard to household incomes of a certain amount? If one is living in Dublin city, one has the same outgoings as one would have in the jurisdiction of South Dublin County Council. The manner in which this is dealt with should be considered in some way.

With regard to the payment of rent and how it is linked with the maintenance of local authority property, there have been mad circumstances in recent years in respect of people whose incomes required reassessment, probably through no fault of their own, and who have had to bring in their P45 and payslip every year to agree on repayments on arrears. Owing to their arrears, they cannot have essential maintenance work done on their homes.

It is being used as a blunt instrument by some local authorities, particularly Dublin City Council which is refusing to carry out maintenance on the homes of persons in arrears, which is madness. Where a person goes into arrears but is a regular payer, this should be taken into account by local authorities in the context of house maintenance. It is the responsibility of the local authorities to ensure good maintenance of properties into the future.

I have raised the issue of mould in local authority houses with the Minister of State on a number of occasions. Mould and dampness constitute a huge issue in the flat complexes in Dublin city, given the length of the council tenancy. I welcome the progressive move made by the local authorities in terms of inspections of private rented properties, many of which were deemed almost inhabitable. If similar inspections were undertaken of local authority housing, the outcome in terms of its condition would be the same. A number of local authority houses in Dublin south central are manky because of dampness. People who regularly have to clear out their wardrobes and throw out clothes, including bed linen, because of dampness are being told to open their windows and have more vents installed as that will solve the problem. However, despite their doing so, the problem has not been solved. There is a fundamental problem with some of these houses. The Minister of State has stated eligibility for funding provided for local authorities for retrofitting and insulation work will be extended to cover general local authority maintenance. However, this has not yet happened. I have had discussions with Dublin City Council which is reluctant to do this. The situation is crazy. Tenants are stressed out having to clean down every wall in their homes every six to ten weeks. Despite their buying products to help address to the problem, it recurs continually. The issue requires serious consideration by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government which should also be seeking money from the European Union to ensure local authority housing across the country is brought up to standard.

Those most in need of local authority housing are people on low incomes or in receipt of social welfare benefits. They can ill-afford increased ESB and heating bills. The point was made by an organisation that the increase in carbon tax would result in a further decrease of two weeks in the payment of fuel allowance for elderly people. From this point of view, there is a serious problem in terms of fuel poverty. It is important that the Government give consideration to this matter.

Mention was made by other speakers of councils selling properties to their tenants. This is madness. Much of local authority housing stock was sold off a number of years ago and we need to be more creative in terms of local authority tenancies and permanency in this regard, as the housing stock is depleted. There are now more than 100,000 people on housing lists and this figure will increase because people can no longer access mortgages and as more people become unemployed.

The provision of loans by local authorities was mentioned. However, if this were to happen, land and house prices would need to be capped to ensure they would not continually rise, as happened in recent years. I do not believe it would be a good idea for local authorities to give out loans of €300,000. This is reflected in the shared ownership scheme which was introduced to assist people on low incomes to get on the housing ladder. However, it was a complicated structure. Those who purchased homes under the scheme are now caught in a nightmare. Many have lost their jobs or their incomes have been cut.

If Bus Éireann gets its way, the income of its workers will be cut again. Based on the Tánaiste's response on the issue this morning, it is clear that the Government supports Bus Éireann in this regard. Many of its employees who purchased homes under the shared ownership scheme because they could not afford to take the mortgage route will be faced with serious mortgage difficulties if the cuts are implemented. This is a huge problem. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government must intervene and address this problem on behalf of the people concerned who have no access to the insolvency process.

On the RAS, I have always believed it has only served to line the pockets of developers and landlords. While their properties are required to be of a particular standard, which is good, this is easy money for them. The only good thing about the RAS is that a person does not have to remain unemployed while living in a home under the scheme, which helps to remove people from the poverty trap. However, there is a need for review of the rent supplement scheme and allowances to which a person living in a RAS home loses entitlement should he or she gain employment.

There is a need for serious investment in house building. I do not believe local authorities should be selling off homes but should instead be holding on to their assets. There is need for a review of the overall housing strategy, given the crisis in this regard. I received a telephone call this morning from a woman who told me she called her house "heartbreak hotel" because four or five of her adult children had returned to live at home, owing to marriage break-up and so on, because they were unable to access local authority housing. This requires a more detailed approach than bland statements.

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Second Stage debate on the Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013. This is another important debate in the current economic climate and the context of the huge housing shortage. There are thousands of people on waiting lists for local authority homes and many residents are in mortgage distress, some of whom face repossession and other horrific problems. That is the reality for many and the Government needs to wake up to it.

This is a technical Bill which amends section 31 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 which relates to local authority rents and facilitates significant harmonisation of the approach taken by housing authorities in determining rents for their accommodation, while also providing elected members of local councils with some discretion in setting the rent parameters in their areas. This issue has been the subject of debate in the House for many years. Having served for five years on Dublin City Council, I support the giving of power to local authority members.

The Bill amends the text of section 31 as follows: "That the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel prevents the enactment from being commenced in an orderly sequence". It also deletes from section 31 the text which conflicts with the rents system, whereby charges are determined by reference to household composition and income and, where applicable, the cost of facilities provided for dwellings. I note that the Government wishes to enact the Bill quickly so as to remove the obstacle to harmonising local authority rents as the next stage in a series of social housing reform measures provided for in the 2009 housing Act. Early enactment of the Bill will enable the new rent system to be introduced from January 2014.

The harmonisation of rents is also an essential measure in paving the way for the introduction of the housing assistance scheme which will transfer responsibility for long-term rent supplement recipients from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities.

These are the important issues in the legislation that we need to discuss. We must also face the reality that there are many people in local authority housing, particularly social housing projects. In my constituency of Dublin Bay North a group of senior citizens in St. Anne's Court in Raheny, whom I met recently, have major problems with dampness and leaks in their accommodation and need support. When we discuss legislation, we should think of the people directly affected by the debate that takes place in this House. I am standing up for the residents of St. Anne's Court who do not need talk or waffle about legislation, rather they need our support and action. That is an important point to make.

I wish to focus on the issue of housing, particularly for people with disabilities. The housing adaptation fund within the remit of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is being cut by 40%, from €54 million to €34 million nationally. This fund is allocated to local authorities to provide for adapting private housing to meet the needs of disabled people, ranging from children born with disabilities to older citizens who have developed mobility issues and everyone in between. The fund tended to run out mid-year in most local authorities and as it is being cut by 40%, God only knows how long it will last throughout the year. This directly contradicts the policies on people with disabilities brought forward by the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan; the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. The national housing strategy for people with a disability 2011 to 2016 identifies nine strategic goals, the top three of which are related to providing adequate housing or for housing adaptations for people with disabilities, the fund for which has now been cut by a factor of 40%. It is also important that this issue be raised.

We cannot have a society that constantly discriminates against adults with a disability. I raised with the Tánaiste this morning the issue of provision for young children with Down's syndrome. The Government needs to examine the provision of resource hours, which are badly needed. Every year between 120 and 130 children with Down's syndrome are born in this country. Of that number, eight will have access to good services. I acknowledge that there are good examples of services being provided in the primary sector, but children with Down's syndrome are excluded. I thank my colleagues for the massive turnout last week at the meeting at which we met the parents. Let us unite on this issue because we can do something about the provision of resource hours for people with disabilities.

On the broader housing issue and needs in society, in 2011 there were 43,578 households with children identified as being in need of social housing. On further examination of the details, 57%, or 24,819, of households with children identified as being in need of social housing had one child; 27.1%, or 11,792, had two children; 10.2%, or 4,434, had three children; while the remaining 5.8%, or 2,533, had four or more children. The number of households with children identified as being in need of social housing has increased by 57.3% since 2008. We need to be radical, creative and to do something about this issue. We must examine how money is spent on providing for the housing needs of the people concerned. In 2011, 28.9%, or 12,998, of households with children identified as being in need of social housing were in County Dublin; 66%, or 28,768, were one-parent households; while the remaining 34% were two-parent households. Once we know the facts and the reality, we must come up with a strategic plan. The Bill is part of that reaction.

When one digs deeper into the legislation, one notes that the Minister has the power to make regulations prescribing the specific matters each housing authority must include in its rent scheme. Certain text in section 31 of the 2009 Act precludes it from being brought into operation in a way that will ensure a clear statutory basis for housing authorities to charge rents during the transition from the current basis. The Bill also seeks to amend section 31 in order that the provision can be brought into operation in a sequence that will ensure a clear statutory basis for housing authorities to charge rents during the transition to the new regime. Section 1(a) of the Bill proposes an amendment to section 31(5) of the 2009 Act by way of the substitution of a revised provision for paragraph (a) which requires a housing authority, not later than the date prescribed by the Minister for the purposes for the section, to make a rent scheme providing the manner in which rents and other charges will be determined. These are the nitty gritty details of the legislation.

Budget 2013, published on 5 December, provided for significant cuts to the overall social housing budget. A total of €585 million has been allocated for housing measures in 2013, a reduction on the allocation of €691 million in 2012. Since 2008 the budget allocated for the overall housing programme has been cut by 54%, from €1.5 billion in 2008 to €585 million in 2013. The consistent reductions in capital expenditure on social housing since 2010 fall into line with Government policy. This is to reduce the total number of new build housing units and direct capital investment in housing by relying on the private sector as the source of social housing units, through initiatives such as the rental accommodation scheme and the leasing scheme. We must be radical and creative, but we must also be compassionate, as we have a major housing problem. Sadly, those who acted madly during the era of the property bubble have caused damage, which is an important point. These issues must be dealt with in a strong and comprehensive manner.

I thank the Chair for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate, but we must ensure that when we talk about housing, we consider those who are not able to get a loan or a mortgage; they are the ones we must support.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The next speaker is Deputy Joe O'Reilly who I understand is sharing his time with Deputies Gerald Nash and John Paul Phelan.

Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the legislation, the primary objective of which is to achieve a level of harmonisation of local authority rents at national level to prevent huge variations from area to area. This has merit and is a worthy exercise. It is important to stress that this will not preclude the determination or the drawing up of a rental scheme by local authorities; this will remain as one of their reserved functions. It is critical that any assessment of local authority rent charged to an individual takes account of his or her ability to pay. That is what differentiates social housing from private housing and that objective is central to the new legislation. There will be a differential rent scheme to the extent that a person's ability to pay will be the key determinant. The Bill will seek to ensure there will not be a huge variation in rents from county to county.

The Bill aptly and correctly brings the rent allowance or rental support scheme that is partly within the remit of the Department of Social Protection under the umbrella of the local authorities.

It is important that this happen. Wonderful things have been happening in the Department of Social Protection under the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, particularly the job activation schemes, which fit job and training opportunities to the individual and focus on the individual not as a recipient of welfare but as an active jobseeker. That has to be the philosophy. Everyone presenting for a rental subsidy should also be assessed individually and if appropriate accommodation is available within the local authority housing programme that should be the logical first response. Rent subsidy should be the second response when there is no possibility of providing accommodation from the local authority housing scheme. Human factors have to be considered too, such as where children are going to school. A case-by-case holistic approach is needed, which is similar to that required in job activation.

For too long we were inclined to dish out various welfare payments, whether jobseeker's allowance or, in this instance, rent allowance. Each application needs to be assessed on the basis of where the children are at school and whether they are well established in a social infrastructure. It is not reasonable to uproot children and take them to another town just because there is a local authority house available there. That would not be acceptable. We should have much more integration of services and interdepartmental cohesion. Bringing all payments connected with housing under the umbrella of the local authority is a great example of the reforming agenda of this Government, which is working in a range of areas. It is the job of the housing officer and his or her staff to study each individual case to see, as a first option, if there is appropriate local authority accommodation and to consider rent allowance as the second option, and then to monitor the transition to local authority housing as the case may be. It can happen that some local authority houses are vacant while, in parallel, people are on rent allowance, and the two things are not knitted together.

The RAS is a very good scheme for cases in which local authority housing is not the correct response. Integrating the RAS, the housing assistance scheme, the rent supplement scheme and housing policy generally is necessary and the Bill will achieve that aim. It is reforming legislation. We must recognise that the rental accommodation market has increased radically. The number of people renting in Ireland in both the private and local authority sectors has increased by 47% since 2006. To an extent we are becoming more like the continental Europeans and house ownership as a first option is fading, maybe out of necessity in many instances. We have to accommodate this new reality. That is why I am delighted there is an integrated response with an in-house one-stop shop in the local authorities.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this technical Bill. Housing, and public housing in particular, has been of concern to me for some time and was one of the core reasons for my entry into public life 14 years ago. Having a place to call home involves much more than bricks and mortar. It involves building communities. We spend so much money each year bailing out private landlords from the taxpayer's purse and entering into long-term lease arrangements, whereby the tenant will never end up owning his or her home but the taxpayer will pay the rent for 20 years, that it is becoming unacceptable. To institutionalise this approach in the absence of comprehensive local authority house-building programmes is a step that we need to reconsider. It is not sustainable and represents in the long term bad value for the taxpayer's money and probably a bad direction for society and the citizens who depend on public housing. We should not seriously consider institutionalising what should be a short-term solution to a situation in which people find themselves.

In recent years the State has removed itself from the business of constructing local authority houses. The policy was initiated by the recent Fianna Fáil-led Governments and it has been continued out of necessity because of our economic situation. We should develop a new local authority house-building programme, for several reasons. So many people on local authority housing lists depend on rent subsidy and State supports that it would be better for society and for those citizens to have a house they can call their own and a community in which they can plan and develop their lives.

One of the major contributing factors to the unemployment problem is the fact that tens of thousands of construction workers lost their jobs between 2008 and 2011. We need to find a way for the State to invest in getting those skilled tradesmen and construction workers back to work. There is no better way to do that than by developing a series of local authority direct house-building schemes in the next few years. It is a question of building communities and not just houses. The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy O'Dowd, and I are very familiar with the various estates we represent in County Louth - in Dundalk, Ardee, Drogheda and so on - where there were progressive house-building programmes since the 1930s but where there has been a lacuna in recent years. Those communities are the best one could hope for. They have produced some of the best families, some of the best citizens.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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They have also produced some of the most responsible voters.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Indeed, and some of the most responsible citizens.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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They have produced some of the best Deputies too.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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By building local authority houses we also give people the aspiration to own their own homes, which is important. If we are to build a series of local authority housing developments we need to be sure to ring-fence the proceeds of those sales to ensure we continue to reinvest in replenishing and replacing the local authority housing stock that we are removing.

I accept and appreciate the motivation behind this technical Bill. It is important to address these issues but we should have a serious conversation about the need to develop local authority house-building projects. The voluntary housing sector does an excellent job but at last count there were approximately 600 voluntary housing agencies, some of which have been inactive in recent years.

The voluntary housing groups are still using State support to build the kind of houses we could build through our local authority structures. The State should not continue to opt out of directly building local authority homes in perpetuity. The construction of local authority homes for several years could give people some hope that they will have permanent residency and some control over their lives. As it stands, the excessive reliance on rent supplement, long-term leasing, RAS, the rental accommodation scheme, and so forth, which I accept have their benefits, is not the optimum use of State moneys for the purposes of building communities. The Minister of State with responsibility for housing and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform recognise this. I hope they will also recognise the potential of the direct building of local authority housing schemes over the next several years both for the construction industry and the communities we represent.

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013 is a technical Bill and its purpose is to make several changes to section 31 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 in respect of the harmonisation of rents across different local authority areas. I have no difficulty in supporting this but there are several issues which I want to raise.

I agree with Deputy Gerald Nash on the role of local authorities in the provision of housing. The reality is that housing departments in local authorities are in a critical condition. One of the less commented upon aspects of our economic difficulties is the fact local authorities are just not constructing houses while housing departments are managing and transferring local authority tenants between existing units and cannot provide any additional accommodation. I also agree with the Deputy on the RAS and long-term leasing that they individually have some merit, certainly at a time when the State cannot provide significant investment in the construction of local authority housing. There is a need for the Department, however, to look towards the return of local authorities in the direct provision of accommodation units for families and individuals in the next couple of years. While RAS and long-term leasing are useful in providing accommodation for thousands of families, there is still something deep in the Irish psyche about home ownership and the benefits it brings to communities.

There was much comment recently following the death of the former Prime Minister in our neighbouring jurisdiction, Margaret Thatcher, who introduced - and by doing so assured her subsequent re-elections - a scheme that allowed local authority tenants to purchase their own local authority houses. We were actually ahead of them in that regard. However, now with the RAS and long-term leases, local authority tenants do not have the prospect of purchasing their house. It means they do not have the responsibility of looking after it, looking after the community in which the house is located or have the opportunity to set down permanent roots in a locality. We need to return to allowing local authority tenants to purchase their own homes. I accept pressures for finance are significant - nearly every debate in the House is premised on that - but it must be examined by the Government.

I agree with Deputy Finian McGrath on housing adaptation grants. There are increasing numbers of people eligible for these grants who are being told more or less that unless they have some critical medical condition they will not see the adaptation work done in the next couple of years. It is not fair to build up the hope that there is a scheme in place but it is constructed in such a way that one cannot access it. Again, I know funding has been reduced but extra provision needs to be given to local authority housing departments for housing adaptation grants.

I acknowledge the need for the introduction of the local property tax and that it was contained in the memorandum of understanding with the troika. However, there is still some disquiet about the classification of unfinished estates. Obvious errors seem to have occurred between the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and local authorities - with each one blaming the other - resulting in people in estates which are clearly unfinished having to pay property tax. This is despite being told they would not be subjected it to earlier because their estate was unfinished. The Department and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing need to re-examine the classification system to ensure unfinished estates are exempt as was the original intention.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013. Listening to Deputy Gerald Nash, I had to smile at his proposal for a local authority house building programme when the fact is the programme has already been privatised. That privatisation is being implemented and overseen by a Labour Party housing Minister, Deputy Jan O’Sullivan. If Deputy Gerald Nash and the Labour Party want to ensure there is a local authority house building programme, they have the power to do so as they are in government. However, there is no programme in place. In my local authority, south Tipperary, no moneys have been provided for the building of local authority houses. The only ones becoming available for tenants are those returned to the local authority, mainly on a tenant’s death or moving on after purchasing a house.

That is a very small proportion of the returns to local authorities.

The rental accommodation scheme, RAS, is in fact the local authority house building programme, and nine out of ten housing applicants are being offered tenancies under the RAS, but local authorities are entering into long-term lease agreements with landlords and putting local authority tenants into those houses. Effectively, they are paying the mortgages for those landlords. In ten, 15 or 20 years from now the local authorities will have paid the mortgages for those landlords and they will not have any ownership rights in respect of the houses. That is outrageous, particularly when the Labour Party is in government and holds the housing Ministry. We are paying the mortgages for landlords. Tenants are responsible for all their own repairs. Nothing is done by the landlord, although technically the landlord is responsible for the repairs but in the real world the tenant, in practice, is responsible for all repairs. Also, the tenant does not have any right to purchase the house, irrespective of the length of time he or she is in the house. We should be clear that what has happened under this Government, and commenced under the previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government, is the destruction of the local authority house building programme and the substitution of that programme with a privatised housing system for local authority housing applicants.

Another element of this programme, again introduced by the previous Government, is the income limits for housing applicants. Those income limits have been in place for over two years. They have not been increased but we can take it that if the medical card limits are anything to go by, they will not be increased for years to come. The income limits for medical cards have not been increased since 1 January 2006 and any changes made in the recent past were to ensure it is more difficult for applicants to get medical cards. That is the current position with income limits for housing applicants. For instance, a family of two adults and two children must have an income of less than €27,500. That means that a significant number of applicants are being refused based on their income. They are supposed to be able to provide accommodation from their own resources but it must be remembered that persons in that position will not get rent supplement and will be trapped in what I might call a twilight world for the rest of their lives. They are forced to rent in the private housing market without any rent supplement or permanency of any kind. The landlord can decide to sell the house at any stage and they would have to move on. That is another element in the privatisation of the housing programme at local authority level.

Another issue that has arisen recently concerns single parents. Many single parents are being told by local authorities that they are adequately housed at home. For instance, a single parent living at home with their father and mother will be told by the local authority that they do not qualify for housing because they are adequately housed at home. That is not acceptable and it is not right. It should stop, and the Minister for housing should ensure it stops. The income limits are seriously impeding ordinary people who need and are entitled to housing, and for whom housing should be provided by local authorities.

In the past a local authority tenant who was working would have been able to get a local authority loan or a loan from another mortgage supplier either to buy the local authority house or a private house. We now find that even though a payment such as family income supplement, FIS, is taken into account to determine a tenant's rent, it is specifically excluded if the tenant is an applicant either to a mortgage company or the local authority for a loan to purchase that house. I know a number of those people. They have been in and out of my office. In one case a tenant was paying €120 a week for rent. In another case the tenant was paying €105 a week and in another case, the person was paying €95 a week. They would be well able to pay a mortgage. In fact, they would be paying less in mortgage repayments than they would as renters from the local authority. They are being excluded and refused loans not just from the finance houses but from the local authorities also. That should be examined urgently.

A number of speakers referred to the disabled person's grants. That is a serious issue for local authorities in terms of jobs. The entire local authority construction house building programme is a jobs issue as well. It would help to take significant numbers of people off the live register, particularly former construction workers, if we had a proper house building programme, a proper grant system for disabled persons, and housing for older people.

Last year in south Tipperary we had a €3.1 million allocation for disabled person's grants and housing for the elderly. That has been slashed this year to €1.25 million. That is a reduction of €1.8 million, which means that only emergency cases and a small number of priority one cases can be examined and dealt with this year. It also has a knock-on effect for employment and will ensure, unfortunately, that people who were involved in this type of construction work in the past will join the dole queues, which will cost the State money. That is very shortsighted and is an issue that should be examined urgently.

The position on the purchase of local authority houses is that currently there is no local authority purchase scheme. The Minister of State announced that there would be a new scheme but that was well before Christmas of last year. We have not yet seen the details of that scheme, and I hope the Minister will introduce a scheme in the near future.

I ask her to introduce a regulation which would allow local authority tenants to purchase their houses in the old way through the rent, because the difficulty in getting loans is a huge problem for people who want to purchase their houses. They cannot get loans from either financial institutions or local authorities. People are paying significant rent, but would have less to pay if they had a mortgage. When the Minister of State introduces the new purchase scheme, which I hope comes into place quickly, she should also introduce a payment method other than by way of mortgage for tenants who have been paying significant rents, have good rent records and would be well able to pay for the purchase of their local authority houses.

With regard to rents, part of the reason for the Bill is that the powers that be want to ensure local property tax will be paid by local authority tenants. The current situation is that the local authorities are liable for the charge. A number of county managers have said publicly that they intend to increase local authority rents to cover this. This is wrong. We all recall that the current Taoiseach said a number of years ago that it was morally wrong, unjust and unfair to tax a person's home. The local property tax is morally wrong, unfair and unjust and should be abolished. Certainly, local authority tenants should not be forced to pay this tax.

I welcome what Deputy Gerald Nash has said. I hope he will bring his views to his parliamentary party and to his Minister and that we can return to a situation in which we have a real local authority house-building programme. We should allow local authorities to build houses rather than privatise the housing programme and pay landlords. We want a situation in which local authorities ensure that people who are not in a position to build or purchase a house of their own will be provided with a house by the local authority. There is a further element to this. We are paying something like €400 million to landlords under the rent supplement scheme, money which could be put towards the building of local authority houses. This would also help get people back to work. It would take construction workers off the dole queues, save the State money and provide housing for people who cannot afford to build housing from their own means.

There have been significant reductions in rent supplement over the past few years and we now hear that under-the-counter payments are being sought. Private tenants in receipt of rent supplement often have to top up the rent for their landlords. Everybody is aware this is happening. All Members have had visitors to their clinics explaining this is happening. It is time the Government dealt with this situation.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013. I welcome the fact that the saner and more sanguine Minister in the Department, the Minister of State, is always rolled out to deal with the tricky issues, rather than the senior Minister, or Big Phil, as I call him. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd is often here to do this and I look forward to working with him on the Bill.

The Government wants to enact the Bill quickly in order to remove an obstacle to the harmonisation of local authority rents as part of a series of social housing reform measures provided for in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. Early enactment of this Bill will enable the new rent system to be introduced from 1 January 2014. The harmonisation of the rents is also an essential measure paving the way to the introduction of the housing assistance scheme, which will transfer responsibility for long-term rent supplement recipients from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities. I welcome that as it is long overdue. I have often said the HSE should not have anything to do with this as it has enough to do in managing its own area. It should be the function of the local authorities to deal with housing.

I come from the voluntary housing sector and I am chairperson of a group which built 14 houses with a number of committed and courageous volunteers. This project is one of the most satisfying and gratifying projects in which I have ever been involved. We later added three further houses to the original 14 for people with special needs. While I am not around a lot to deal with the project, the volunteers do a tremendous job and we have a wonderful relationship with the tenants, who have come from all over the world. Some were exiled abroad and came home to live in their native county. Others were not even remotely associated with Newcastle or Tipperary, but they are as happy as Larry in their houses. It is sad to see so many problems related to housing. I was a board member of the Irish Council for Social Housing for a good number of years and I commend the work that was done by that council. I cannot remember the name of the former chairman, but he was a wonderful man and there is a wonderful staff there under the leadership of the CEO, Donal McManus.

There were approximately 300 smaller housing groups in the country but, as happened with everything else during the Celtic tiger era, bigger groups wanted to come on board. Like vultures, they could not get enough money from the Department and could not build enough houses. They were developers who wanted to get into the voluntary sector. These were home-grown companies, but then others came in from overseas. These set up in various areas, but they did not have the same enthusiasm, passion, sentiment or intent as local voluntary housing associations which were setting up homes for people who needed them in their own communities. These new groups were out to make money and to take over everything. They almost ruined the smaller organisations. These people were not volunteers but were working full-time at this. When I was involved and attending meetings, those on the boards were ordinary people who were volunteers, but these new people were full-time business people who would arrive at board meetings with their briefcases and with all the facts and figures. They were whizz-kids and sometimes had people seconded from the Department on their boards. They professionalised the situation, but not always for the better and often for the worse.

I have often heard Deputy Bernard J. Durkan and others criticise the voluntary housing sector, but I always defend it. There is certainly room for criticism now, because some of the companies that became involved have left a bit of a mess behind them. I am aware of a situation in my county in which Foscadh Housing Association is demanding property tax from tenants and taking it from their rent. Deputy Seamus Healy referred to the fact that some county managers have suggested they will increase rents. I understand the Minister has given a derogation for this year to all voluntary housing schemes. How dare these people take property tax from the rent? How dare they act like this? They are acting worse than any landlord and are treating people with disdain and discourtesy. Sometimes the estates in question are unfinished. The one for which Foscadh is responsible is unfinished. It would fit these people better to finish the estates and then have them taken over by the council if necessary rather than threaten and intimidate people to collect this money. I suggest they are collecting it illegally, because it is not due or payable until January.

It is a pity because a great deal of good work has been done and is being done in the voluntary sector. The Celtic tiger brought more trouble than gifts to the country. As these companies were not making enough in the private sector, they decided to move in on this area also.

I welcome the new legislation for local authority rents, as set out in section 31 of the 2009 Act. It differs from the existing legislation, as set out in section 58 of the 1966 Act, in a number of respects. The making of a rents scheme is now a reserved function of the housing authority. This gives the elected council a role in determining the authority's rents policy. Cuirim fíor-fáilte roimh an méid sin. This is very good. Elected members need more powers, as they deal with this area on a daily basis. Like Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan and every other Deputy in the House, I deal with these issues every day. It is only right that council members should have a say. That provision definitely has to be warmly welcomed. As many have said, rents have increased. It is sad that the local government building programme has been abandoned.

I find it very difficult to contrast two statements made on a continuous basis. I refer to the Government's five point plan, on the one hand - I do not know how many plans there are in the programme for Government - and its support for small business and job creation, on the other. Jobs were always available for small and not so small builders when houses were being built by local authorities.

The slashing of the moneys available for disabled person's grants and housing adaptation grants has been mentioned. It is total nonsense because it destroys jobs, small self-employed business people and sole traders. When they employ tradespeople to do these works with them, they pay their tax, rates and insurance, etc. They spend money in the economy. The denial of small aids to those who need them is even worse. I refer to people who could live at home if their houses were adapted, for example, with the installation of a shower or special bathroom. If we can keep them out of nursing homes and hospitals, they will be happier and healthier. They want to be in their own family environments. The lack of joined-up thinking in this regard on the part of the HSE, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the housing agencies is totally counter-productive.

As Deputy Seamus Healy mentioned, an allocation of €3.1 million was available in south Tipperary in 2012. I compliment officials in South Tipperary County Council who are working under the guidance of Mr. Aidan Fennessey and his staff. I refer to the occupational therapists, for example. When people apply for a grant, they are put in touch with the selected contractors on the council's list, but the grant never covers the cost of the work in full. People have to put their hands in their own pockets also. That is not bad either. One does not appreciate things if one gets everything for nothing. If something has to be paid for, that is okay, as long as it is within reason. The allocation in south Tipperary was slashed to €1.8 million this year, although there was a huge overhang from last year. I do not know how it will manage this year as a result. It stopped receiving applications in March, less than three months into the year. It was not even allowed to keep anything back for emergency cases. When a person falls and breaks a hip or there is some other emergency, he or she is told to wait until 2014 before he or she can make an application. That is very unsatisfactory and counter-productive. It is wrong and should be changed. There should be an emergency fund. In some cases, a house could be adapted for €2,000, €3,000 or €4,000. A bathroom could be adapted or steps could be built for a small amount of money. That would allow people to recuperate at home and return to normality.

Local authorities are not building houses. Until recently, they were building houses with baths in them. At the same time, we were giving millions to local authorities every year for the conversion of bathrooms. They were installing walk-in showers, for example. What thinking does that demonstrate on the part of the Department or the architects who were designing houses? We are all getting older and know that as we go along, it will get harder to get into a bath. That applies even to those of us who have not yet reached our 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s. I cannot understand why the local authorities did not have a policy of installing level-access facilities such as walk-in showers. Many people have to apply for grants to have these works done as they get older. They and their families might have to look for grants, for the support of public representatives, for doctors' letters or visits from occupational therapists. The saga can take two or three years. There is a cost associated with the removal of baths, which might not even be in the house. I have seen houses in which bathroom windows cannot be opened without having to stand in or reach over the bath. Windows have to be opened, especially in bathrooms. I condemn out of hand the architects who designed these bathrooms, those who signed off on such designs and those in the Department who accepted the tenders and designs.

There are many questions to be answered about architects' designs. Even in our heyday when we had money, I could never understand why the design used when a scheme of five or six houses was built in a village could not be used again two years later when five or six houses were needed in another village. In cases where there was the same demand for housing a new set of architects was asked to compile a new set of drawings and designs. I am sure the design could have been adapted if the footprint of the site was too small. It was a racket. Architects got money they should not have received. It was a waste of the Department's money. I am saying this as a person who worked in the voluntary sector and did all of this work. We had to employ architects and get the site. We had to fight for planning permission. We had to pass all of the tests, rightly so, and the Department got value for money. We are maintaining the stock and looking after the tenants. We should, therefore, start supporting local development once more. Since the end of the Celtic tiger, people have started to volunteer again. I salute those in many communities who are ready, able and willing to participate. We also had to hire a builder and had to have our snagging list. We had to hold meetings and apply to have places taken in charge. We dealt with it all. It was not very easy, but we did it.

A similar scheme was built in my sister or brother community in the other half of the parish. I refer to a lovely scheme in Ballymacarbry, County Waterford, which was opened by President McAleese in one of the last events of her Presidency. It was provided by people who had volunteered in the same way and the same architects were involved. We gave them a small hand and some encouragement. I salute those involved. As I said, when the Government used to do this, different architects were involved and a different design was needed for every scheme. I do not know why that was the case.

I would like to speak about high rents and valuations. We all deal with variations in rents on a daily basis, as Deputy Seamus Healy said. If I do not meet the people who come about rents, the staff in my office meet them. I hope the new policy under the Bill will deal with such cases, as the position is not very fair. It seems to be unjust also. In fairness to the officials in the local authorities, I have found them to be helpful in dealing with many issues in the housing sector. They cannot operate with their hands behind their backs and cannot operate with slashed budgets. Such reductions have a knock-on effect. They are human also. They have to listen to the pleas of families, read the letters from doctors and deal with the representations of public representatives. They would prefer to get the work done than to refuse people.

The RAS has been mentioned. Everything has moved to the RAS because no houses are being built or bought. It is a pity that no fund is available for the purchase of property because exceptional value is available. People who are living in single cottages in the country come to my clinic on a weekly basis because they want to move out of these lovely homes. They want to know whether the council will buy their houses and plots of land. The council has received many applications from people who want to live in the areas in question. Exceptional value for money is available as a result. It is a shame that the council does not have the funds to buy these houses.

Everything is down to the RAS, which is a good scheme and I am not going to knock it. I salute Mr. Seán Lonergan and Mr. Michael Fitzgerald who run the scheme for South Tipperary County Council. They receive great co-operation as they organise it and many good landlords are dealing with them. However, there are some rogue landlords also. When the deal is signed and the tenant accepts it for ten or 20 years, these rogue landlords abandon the tenant and fail to do any maintenance works, etc. It is not fair and it damages the entire system. However, that is not how the good landlords operate. The RAS has been an effective scheme and I would not like to see it become the Government's only means of sourcing local authority housing. It involves the acquisition of parts of housing estates.

I would like to speak about the Part V planning scheme under which local authorities obtained some houses to sell at a lower cost. It was belatedly introduced.

They were successful schemes. While I admit it came very late in the day when most of the mad development had already taken place, and the bad developers would not engage with it, it was an effort nonetheless. I am disappointed the Bill does not consider something along the lines of what happens in England when developers want to build. No doubt that will happen again in this country, and the sooner the better for all of us, although it should not happen in the mad way it happened previously. Planning must play a huge role in this regard.

There should be community gain. I made submissions to the last county development plan in my area seeking that no schemes of houses containing more than 30 houses would be considered in rural villages and small towns. A developer wanted to build 200 houses in my village. We held him up for nearly two and a half years while we sought a community plot for a playground and a crèche, and the next thing he got planning permission for 99 houses, which was far too many. The village had a local authority estate of 32 houses built in the 1970s, another beautiful estate of 17 houses, and another estate of 34 houses, which was the type of development we could handle. We had worked with a good developer, and we now have a community house and all the facilities. However, this latest developer did not know who we were. He flew down in a helicopter and saw the field, and when it was pictured in The Irish Timesa few months later it was in flood. Despite that, he had a sign up on the wall which read "Houses for sale". They must have been some kind of water homes or maybe he thought he was in Venice. In any case, he got his planning permission for 99 houses and he has now gone missing. We have got the site and the council has co-operated.

There should be stipulations in this Bill and future Bills to ensure there is community gain. With the turning of the sod, when the houses are being built, it should be ensured that playgrounds and community facilities such as sports halls are part of the plan. A group from Finland visited my area recently and I understand they visited Dublin and Deputy Wall's constituency also. They came to look at the wasteland that was left after the Celtic tiger, and they could not believe it when they saw houses built in the middle of nowhere with no facilities - no shop, church, hall, school or anything else. These are now what are described as ghost estates and the State has to pick up the cost of fencing them and making them secure.

There should be community gain in the Bill. I do not know if the Minister can accept amendments, but he should. I am not knocking developers, because we need developers. However, developers got rich and there were many developers who, if they did not get rich, did okay, employed people and paid their taxes, rates and everything else. They worked with the communities, as we worked with Newcastle Construction in our village. I was able to show the people from Finland how we got a site and the support we needed for a playground, how we got the community house through the council and how we got different supports from one developer. On the other hand, another developer treated us with disdain and contempt, and when he left he told me we could do what we liked with the land as he was off to Poland. I told him we would put sheep back on the land as there had always been sheep there. This is the damage that greed did.

The legislation must be in place for the local authorities, when granting planning permission, to allow for community gain in regard to any of these developments. We have learned costly lessons with the ghettos we have created and the mess left behind. I am surprised there is no cognisance of this in the Bill.

Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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The Deputy has one minute.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I have a lot more to say and thank the Acting Chairman for his forbearance. County managers are saying this, that and the other with regard to the property tax and local authority tenants. I have always believed that if we have a property tax, everybody who has a home should pay something. I do not know what way the local authorities are going to deal with this. People have purchased their houses through the schemes. We have had fire sales in the past in order to sell of some of the housing stock at reduced prices. People like to own their own homes in Ireland, but why should one person pay property tax and another person pay none?

Although I do not have much time, I have a lot to say about repossessions. Laws were passed here to allow roving gangs to operate. This happened yesterday in Lucan, where ten individuals in balaclavas arrived in a big van, accompanied by the sheriff and gardaí. There was a poor woman in the house with two small babies and her grandmother, but they burst in the door with force. That should not be happening. Cromwell is long gone out of this country. Are we going to allow these thugs to behave in that way? It is State terrorism, nothing else.

I heard that Deputy Keating attended the scene. I hope the Minister of State is hearing this at his parliamentary party meetings. This should be stopped. That the banks we are bailing out should go in to evict someone like that in the early morning, with balaclavas-----

Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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The Deputy should conclude.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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We have a police force and an Army to assist it. We do not need the third force militias who have been going around the country dealing with farmers, repossessions and everything else in recent years with a free will. We cannot have this going on.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Tá ceithre bliana déanta agam istigh anseo mar Theachta Neamhspleách don dáilcheantar Baile Átha Cliath Láir. Ceapaim go mbíonn cúrsaí tithíochta i measc na fadhbanna is mó a ardaítear liom gach lá. Every single day, my office gets numerous calls on housing matters and problems of one sort or another relating to housing. I would love to see a strenuous and comprehensive campaign and programme to take on all of the aspects of housing, whether it is local authority housing, private rented housing, ghost estates, the role of NAMA or the housing associations. An ancillary problem that is very bad in Dublin Central is the issue of waste management and illegal dumping, which is becoming almost a plague in certain parts of the inner city. It keeps being pushed between the local authority and the Department and there is not a very strong programme to deal with it.

In considering the Bill, one issue is the harmonisation of rents with the local authority and the housing assistance scheme. I know the Bill will see responsibility for long-term rent supplement recipients moving from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities. One point that is very positive about Bill is that it will take into account the financial circumstances of households. We know that household circumstances do change in the changing economic climate of today. Therefore, a rent that was appropriate at one time in a particular circumstance will not be appropriate at another time. The issue of dependants is another that comes up constantly, particularly with regard to how many people are on the floor and off the floor. We need a very efficient system to deal with this.

I deal with the Dublin City Council offices in Sean McDermott Street, Parnell Street, Cabra and the Civic Offices. I want to acknowledge the co-operation of Dublin City Council and the hard work of the staff when I and those in my office are in touch with them on the variety of issues that arise when dealing with housing.

With regard to estate management, it is a feature of the local authorities that they have a method of dealing with issues that arise. Much of this has to do with anti-social behaviour, violence and drugs. At least when it is local authority housing there is a mechanism under which the tenants and the local authority can be brought in and there can be a mediation process which will deal with the issues. We know there are certain tenants in local authority areas who cause havoc for the other residents living there and make life unbearable for those who want to live their lives in a peaceable way.

There are a number of "buts" that have to be addressed when it comes to local authority housing. First, there is a major shortage of public housing in Dublin Central, where there are more than 2,300 households on the north inner city housing list, which covers just one part of the constituency, and more than 800 of those have been on that list for over five years. At the same time, there are at least 120 vacant council housing units in the area but Dublin City Council does not have an adequate budget to bring them into use. It is very disappointing, when going about the different complexes and housing estates in the constituency, to see these perfectly good houses and flats boarded up when some work could turn them around quickly. In fact, the turnaround period is getting longer. There are places waiting over three years to be turned around when, at the same time, we are looking at very long housing lists. It comes down to a funding issue. Dublin City Council is dependent on an additional budget from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to hire contractors to carry out this work. As a result of that shortage of public housing, people on the housing list are being directed more and more into the private rented sector. More than half of households in the north inner city are in private rented accommodation. This now seems to be Government policy, because the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government housing policy statement in June 2011 foresaw an even greater role for voluntary and private housing sectors in meeting housing needs in the future. That will mean an increasing reliance on the private housing market at a time when supply in that area is under fierce pressure in the city. We know the pressure on the private rental market in Dublin is leading to higher than expected rent increases.

This morning I read the report from Threshold containing its latest figures. The latest index figures reveal an overall average monthly rental figure of €785 on a mid-adjusted basis. However, rents in Dublin are averaging €974. Nationally rents have increased by 2% compared with the figure in the first quarter of 2012. We know there are large numbers of landlords who are not registered with the PRTB. This means their tenants are more likely to make up top-up payments which mask the real rent levels. The bottom line is, however, that rents are too high. The PRTB index shows that the strategy of the Department of Social Protection aimed at bringing down rents by reducing rent supplement has not worked because rents are staying stubbornly high. I agreed with the Minister because I thought that bringing down the level of rent supplement would bring down rents because people were paying far too much for the accommodation they were getting. However, the strategy has not worked and must be looked at again. I also see tenants trying to negotiate with some of these landlords on retns and other issues being put at a very strong disadvantage.

As I have been trying to raise an issue during the Topical Issue debate for the past two weeks without success, I will talk about it today. It concerns an alarming report on housing from Dublin City Council. It was produced with funding provided by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government for Dublin City Council on an intensified inspection system. The council inspected over 1,500 private rented dwellings, mainly in two areas in the north inner city that are notorious for having very poor landlords. It found that over 90% of flats did not meet basic standards; therefore, 90% of people in certain areas are living in accommodation that is completely unsuitable. Some of the problems in 1,400 of the 1,500 dwellings include unsafe electrics, no private bathrooms, rooms without windows, damp, mould and inadequate heating. What is happening in these parts of the inner city marks a return to the tenements about which Seán O'Casey wrote in plays such as The Plough and the Starsand Juno and the Paycock. We are back to slum conditions which I see in my constituency. Tenants will rent perhaps one or two rooms and then sublet; sometimes there are no adequate figures for how many people are living in some of these tenements.

Landlords were served with over 1,500 notices to improve their flats, which is fair enough. This new system of inspection involves choosing an area. What is alarming, however, is that under the inspection programme, a property cannot be re-let until it is brought up to standard but existing tenants can remain in situ. The tenants in the 90% of accommodation that is substandard are forced to continue living in it. All it takes is for the unsafe electrics to go on fire and we will have a situation akin to what has happened in factories in Bangladesh. It is appalling. I welcome the money granted, but there is no point in finding out that something is wrong unless the system is in palce to do something about it. That is the issue.

I have another question about some of the landlords involved: are they tax-compliant? Again, I do not think we know the answer because so many of them are not registered with the PRTB. The report also states 75% of those landlords in Dublin who split houses into flats did so illegally. Therefore, in addition to tenants subletting, landlords have gone down that road also.

I know that some tenants in private rented accommodation are causing untold problems for the communities in which they are living. I hear about these problems at every community forum meeting I attend. They range from anti-social behaviour, violence, dumping to total and utter disregard for the community. Unlike local authority housing, there is no redress system. One community had to wait over one year before it, the local authority and the Garda eventually got the landlord to do something about it. In that year the lives of people living on either side of this particularly unruly rented dwelling were made miserable. It affected their mental health and shattered their peace of mind. There is a real need for this issue to be dealt with and I do not know if the PRTB can take it all on. Again, it goes back to the increasing demand on the private rented sector because local authorities do not have enough housing available.

In parts of the inner city there are lovely apartment complexes that are beautiful inside but which have no play areas or open spaces for children. Some of these apartment blocks house single people or couples who have no children; therefore, they are not particularly interested in having a play area and do not want to hear children kicking a football around. The lack of adequate play spaces for children living in apartment complexes is causing problems. We are talking about encouraging people to exercise more and children getting out into the fresh air, but if they are living in some of these apartment complexes, there is no safe area for them to play in.

There is no doubt that there are problems with homelessness. Again, this is happening at a time when budgets are decreasing and it is in the inner city and parts of central Dublin that there is an amount of accommodation available for homeless people, which is valuable. However, homelessness is not confined to Dublin city; it affects other areas also. Therefore, these facilities must be spread. They are very welcome, but there is a need for more of them and we need to look at where services are being provided.

We know the housing associations are doing great work, but I would like to see regulations in order that if there are problems with tenants, there will be a mechanism in place to address them. In 2012, 484 NAMA properties in the Dublin City Council area were identified as having the potential to be used for social housing. This is another process that is proving to be incredibly slow and very cumbersome and awkward to deal with. We have people with housing needs and housing is available in some cases, but the dots are not being joined. Housing is a huge issue. There are so many pieces of the jigsaw, but they are not coming together. There is, therefore, a need for a comprehensive programme on housing generally.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Admhaím i dtosach go bhfuil an cheart ag an Teachta sa mhéid a dúirt sí faoi thithíocht agus daoine ag lorg tithe, go mórmhór ina dáilcheantar féin. Tá an taithí chéanna agamsa i gContae Lú le blianta fada anuas. Aontaím go bhfuil sé an-tábhachtach go mbeidh daoine a bhfuil tithíocht ag teastáil uathu in ann í a fháil chomh luath agus is féidir. Rinne an Teachta pointe maith maidir le tithe atá dúnta suas agus atá ag titim as a chéile mar nach bhfuil an t-airgead ag an bardas ná ag an comhairle contae chun iad a dheisiú. San am céanna, tarlaíonn antisocial behaviour timpeall orthu. Tuigeann gach éinne ansin nach bhfuil meas ag an bardas dáiríre faoi thimpeallacht na ndaoine sna háiteanna sin. Mar adúirt an Teachta, níl sin fíor agus ba chóir go mbeadh athrú polaisaithe ann. Tá an cheart ag an Teachta sa mhéid sin.

There has been virtually unanimous support for the Bill. Local authority rent policy is a very important element of the social housing framework and it is encouraging that there is widespread support for its harmonisation. I note that Deputies have welcomed the fact that local authority members will now have a statutory role in determining policies at local level. This will bring greater transparency and accountability to local government.

Deputy Catherine Murphy inquired as to why the Bill proposed to delete paragraph (b) and text in paragraph (e) of subsection (6) of section 31 of the 2009 Act. As Deputies are aware, the new rents system under section 31 will retain the essential characteristics of the existing arrangements for charging local authority rents, that is to say, rent is based on household income and, thus, related to the tenant's ability to pay. The references to market rents and the cost of providing social housing support in the text being deleted from section 31 run contrary to this approach.

A requirement to apply such rent setting criteria would inevitably weaken the link between income and rent charged and for this reason the Minister proposed to delete them from the legislation.

Deputy McLellansaid that foster care allowance should not be included as reckonable income, presumably for rent purposes. This payment is disregarded in the determination of income for social housing assessments and for eligibility to purchase under the new incremental purchase scheme. It is the intention that the regulations to be made will provide that foster care allowances will be disregarded in determining household income for rent purposes.

Deputy Boyd Barrettstated that local authorities charge public sector workers higher rents than other workers because they do not deduct the pension levy. The harmonisation of rent procedures under section 31 of the 2009 Housing Act extends to the calculation of reckonable household income and the necessary regulations will provide that rent will be assessed on net household income, that is to say, after tax, the universal social charge, PRSI and the pension levy have been deducted. He also asked if rent levels are to go up or down. The intention is to apply section 31 to harmonise rent rates across the country in a way that is broadly neutral as regards total local authority rental income. This means that some households will face higher rents while the rent payable by other households will fall. The regulations will provide for a phased introduction of material adjustments to rent levels in individual cases.

Deputy Cowencalled for the differential tax rates set by individual housing authorities to be published so that people could see the different rates being charged across the country. The harmonisation of differential rent under section 31 will reduce substantially the differences between individual authorities. Section 31 provides that each authority must specify its differential rates in a rent scheme that is available for inspection on the Internet and in the council's public offices.

A number of Deputies asked about the implications of the new property tax. Section 31 of the Act predates the new property tax legislation. Housing authorities are liable for this tax in respect of their residential accommodation, other than that provided to cater for people with special needs. The valuation of each liable local authority property is set at €50,000, giving an annual tax liability per liable property of €90 per annum up to the end of 2016. The Government recently indicated its intention to move, from 2014, to 80% retention of all property tax receipts within the local authority area where the tax is actually raised. The remaining 20% of the tax collected nationally will be reimbursed on an equalised basis to local authorities within the context of the annual allocations of general purpose grants, which will increase further the percentage being retained in many cases. This means that at most, housing authorities have to find a net €18 per annum or 35 cent per week to meet their property tax liability for each of their dwellings. The introduction of the new rents system will not affect the capacity of housing authorities to raise the funds needed to pay property tax liabilities.

As the Bill before the House has one substantive section only of a technical nature, it is understandable that Deputies covered many issues of social housing policy in their contributions to the debate. These points have been noted by our officials for consideration in future implementation of the social housing agenda. Points were made by Members on all sides of the House, particularly from Deputies whose local government experience would help them to understand and appreciate all of the issues involved.

Many points were made about the operation of the rent supplement scheme, which is the responsibility of the Minister for Social Protection. This is a worthy scheme for short-term income support but is not designed for households which need support to meet their housing needs in the medium to long term. This was the basis for the introduction of the rental accommodation scheme in 2005 and is the reason the Government has decided that long-term rent supplement cases should in future be dealt with by local authorities as part of their housing functions. The introduction of the system of housing assistance payments will bring about a major change in the way in which social housing support is provided, signalling the most important shift in social housing policy in recent times. It involves a programme of work that would be difficult in any circumstances but at the present time provides a challenge for all. The proposals for housing assistance payments are being progressed by a steering group comprising officials from my Department, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, City and County Managers Association, the Housing Agency and the Revenue Commissioners. My Department is preparing legislative proposals to underpin HAP and it is intended that the general roll-out and transfer of responsibility under the scheme will begin in 2014.

Deputies have urged the Government to return to large-scale local authority house-building programmes of the past. In ideal circumstances, there would be a notable ongoing programme and it is intended to ramp up construction as soon as possible. In the meantime the Government is determined to ensure that the social housing programme optimises delivery of social housing and a return for resources invested. To achieve this we must tailor the use of available Exchequer supports to prevailing conditions and explore the full range of solutions to address housing needs. The Government is committed to responding more quickly and on a larger scale to needs through a variety of mechanisms, including through increased provision of social housing. This delivery will be significantly facilitated through more flexible funding models such as the rental accommodation scheme and leasing but the Government is also committed to developing other funding mechanisms that will increase the supply of permanent new social housing. Such mechanisms will include options to purchase, build to lease and the sourcing of loan finance by approved housing bodies.

There is obvious potential for the Government's objective of sourcing and providing suitable residential units for use as social housing to be aligned with the commercial objectives of the National Asset Management Agency. NAMA said in 2011 that it would provide units for social housing. A steering group comprising Department officials, representatives of NAMA and the Housing Agency have been working with housing authorities and approved housing bodies in identifying properties which would be appropriate in terms of meeting this objective. Progress has been slow, mainly due to the complexities of getting agreement from multiple parties operating within an environment subject to a range of legal and financial constraints. However, the establishment by NAMA of a special purpose vehicle to facilitate the leasing of units will speed up delivery. NAMA has completed or contracted 339 properties to date for use as social housing and continues to work closely with the agencies concerned to identify additional units. The figure of 110 units referred to in the debate relates to the first three months of this year - 60 completed and 50 further contracts signed.

Deputies Durkan and others raised the tenant purchase scheme. While the 1995 tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority houses closed for new applicants in December 2012, two incremental purchase schemes remain in operation - one for newly built local authority houses and the other for local authority apartments. It is intended to advance the necessary legislative proposals as soon as practical to underpin an incremental purchase scheme for existing local authority houses. Such a scheme will involve discounts for tenants, linked to household income and a discount-related charge on the property that will dwindle away over a period unless the house is resold or the purchase fails to comply with the conditions of sale. The precise terms of the scheme will be set out in regulations, hopefully before the end of this year.

The possibility of European Investment Bank funding for local authority housing was raised. The Department is currently engaged in exploratory talks about the possibility of seeking EIB or ERDF funding over the period 2014 to 2020 that would support a major programme of retrofitting and refurbishment of social housing accommodation in large urban areas in a manner compatible with our overriding objectives. Proposals are at an early stage but the Minister wants to assure the House that every possible source of funding for social housing will be followed up. There will be opportunities to debate social housing policy in more detail in this House at a later date when a substantive housing Bill is published later this year on the new system of housing assistance payments.

I thank all Deputies for contributing to the debate on this technical Bill and look forward to the co-operation of the House in ensuring its early enactment.