Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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The importance of every citizen having a safe and secure home cannot be overstated. Like the Acting Chairman, I am increasingly concerned about the critical shortage of social housing provision in the greater Dublin area and especially in my constituency. Some weekends, up to two thirds of those who contact me are in desperate need of housing. I am increasingly presented with difficult situations on the housing front.

In recent months, the number of homeless people in the Dublin Bay North constituency has been increasing. They are sleeping in cars, shopping centres or on the street. The spring count of people sleeping rough in Dublin in April showed that 94 persons were sleeping on the streets of the capital. That is the highest level since spring 2009, which shows that no progress has been made to reduce the number of people sleeping rough on our city streets.

The Fingal county manager, Mr. David O'Connor, recently told us that about 9,000 individuals and families are on the Fingal housing list. A recent meeting with the Dublin city manager, Mr. Philip Maguire, and Dublin City Council housing manager, Mr. Dick Brady, revealed shocking housing and homelessness figures for the Dublin Bay North constituency - which is housing area B of Dublin City - and for the whole of Dublin city.

There are just under 20,000 individuals and families on the Dublin City Council housing list, with a further 7,217 on the city's transfer list. In Dublin Bay North there are 5,152 families and individuals on the housing list and a further 1,124 on the transfer list. Some 236 families and individuals are homeless in area B out of a total of 849 for the whole city.

Many of the housing applicants I meet on the area B list have been on that list for between eight to 15 years. In one case last year, the applicant had been on the list for 18 or 19 years. While I accept the commitment of our officials, the policy response to these appalling figures by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council has been abysmal.

In 2011, for example, just 115 housing units were allocated in area B of Dublin city with a further 149 units in 2012 and just 68 units so far this year. If senior citizens' accommodation is excluded, the figures are just 67 units for 2011, 89 for 2012 and 45 so far this year. When the crash occurred in September 2008, we had up to 2,000 vacant housing units on the north fringe of Dublin city and the south fringe of Fingal. Over the last four or five years, however, many of those units have been occupied by investors with rent supplement tenants, by purchasers and voluntary housing agencies.

Clearly, however, only a resumption of construction and direct housing provision can hope to address this appalling housing crisis in area B, which is in my constituency. Some of those desperately searching for housing are constituents affected by cuts to rent supplement and the refusal of landlords to accept rent supplement. Earlier today, I tried to raise the issue of caps on rent supplement payments with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, but unfortunately my oral question was not reached.

Rent supplement, which was intended as a temporary measure, is increasingly being relied upon by individuals and families in the medium and longer term. Reduced caps are forcing many constituents out of rented accommodation into temporary accommodation or, indeed, into homelessness.

In Fingal, for example, where the caps have been set at €775 for a family with one child or €900 for a family with three children, the total rent demanded for properties in some areas far exceeds those amounts.

The recent death of Margaret Thatcher reminded people that it was her governments which abandoned social housing provision and began relying on private rented accommodation and the very expensive Exchequer-funded rent supplement, and in the process enriched the landlord class, which funded and, indeed, owned the Tory Party. From the late 1980s the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael led Governments, also very close to the landlord class, embarked on the same socially regressive policies in this country with a Government policy of abandoning capital investment in housing and a move to increasingly relying on the rental market. It is not working and the glaring failure of this can be seen in our constituency.

I see the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, beside the Minister for Social Protection. It has been mooted in the media in recent days that at least €1 billion or up to €2.5 billion might be available for construction projects to boost employment. I have been consistently referring to the need for this Government to kick-start a capital investment programme for social housing and I have repeatedly raised this with the Taoiseach on the Order of Business. Before Christmas he told me this would happen in 2013, but 2013 is becoming a stand-still year for the economy.

Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Deputy Broughan is one minute over his time.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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We urgently need a housing programme. The Minister has said she is tailoring the use of available Exchequer supports to prevailing conditions but that is not good enough.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Broughan for raising this issue. It is a critical issue for me as well as for Deputy Broughan and I strongly support the issue of construction whenever we have the funds to do it. I realise it is a particular problem in Dublin. This morning I met Dublin City Council assistant manager, Mr. Dick Brady, whom Deputy Broughan mentioned, and his officials regarding homelessness. The Dublin area gets approximately 70% of the money available for homelessness in the country. It is approximately €30 million again this year and it was similar last year. We will continue to work with them to address that issue.

The Government's housing policy statement, published in June 2011, reaffirms our focus on meeting the most acute needs of households applying for social housing support from within the resources available. Our social housing programme is framed in a manner which optimises the delivery of social housing and the return for the resources invested. We are tailoring the use of available Exchequer supports to prevailing conditions and exploring the full range of solutions to address housing needs. Delivery is being significantly facilitated through more flexible funding models such as the rental accommodation scheme and leasing, but we are also developing other funding mechanisms that will increase the supply of permanent new social housing.

Traditional models of large-scale local authority social housing construction are not feasible in the current economic circumstances, which is why the housing policy statement recognises that the approved housing body sector must play a key role in addressing social housing need. The Government is committed to exploring and developing such funding mechanisms as will increase the supply of new social housing. Such mechanisms will include options to purchase, build-to-lease and the sourcing of loan finance by approved housing bodies for construction and acquisition.

In this regard, I am conscious that the move from capital funded programmes of construction and acquisition by approved housing bodies to more Revenue-funded options presents challenges. I am therefore developing an enabling regulatory framework for the sector that will provide support and assurance both to the sector itself and to its external partners as it takes on the expanded role envisaged for it by Government and to underline its status as a viable and attractive investment opportunity for financial institutions. My Department is actively working with the sector on the development of a voluntary code which I expect most bodies will endorse. This code, which I hope to launch in the coming months, will serve as a learning opportunity for the sector and for my Department as we develop a longer-term statutory framework that will best support the enhanced role of approved housing bodies, AHBs.

I am satisfied that the widened range of schemes to facilitate social housing delivery, and the innovative approach being adopted, will enable us to maximize the delivery of social housing within the very burdensome current financial constraints. As soon as those constraints are beginning to lift we will review the construction area. The importance of a housing sector built on the pillars of choice, fairness and equity across tenures is central to the approach being taken by this Government to the housing sector. Providing local authorities and approved housing bodies with a suite of options that can be tailored to meet different categories of housing need is central to this Government's policy approach. We have to respond to the need that is there in whatever flexible ways we can to provide homes for people who need them.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for her response. We do have to respond to those who telephone us to say they are walking the streets or they are in hostel-type accommodation where they are very unhappy or frightened. It is a terrible situation in which to place citizens. Deputy Seán Kenny and I had a great predecessor as Deputy in our constituency - Conor Cruise O'Brien. In his political philosophy, one of his key arguments was that if one has executive power in government one is responsible for everything that happen in that area. This House is responsible for everybody who is homeless or in difficult housing situations tonight, and we must live up to those responsibilities.

In the context of preparations for the budget, which under the two pack arrangement is very early this year, is the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan pitching to the Minister beside her, Deputy Howlin, who I am sure is totally aware of this situation in County Wexford as well, for a serious new housing programme under whatever model the Government decides to proceed with? What kind of hope can she give to us? The Acting Chairman, Deputy Seán Kenny, knows inside out that in the second half of this year we have almost no prospects in Area B or in the Dublin Bay North constituency of receiving significant additional housing for 5,000 people. This is an emergency, it is a crisis. We have to try to address it. Has the Minister of State been speaking with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton? Unfortunately I did not manage to have the question of the problem with rent supplement debated on the floor of the House today. We are trying to address the vicious circle or catch-22 situation where family members are unable to work and are being placed in a situation where, to some extent, they are being used to put pressure on landlords and rental price levels, which is very unfair to them.

I welcome what the Minister of State said about the voluntary sector. I look forward to her bringing in the two housing Bills, which was mentioned yesterday, and the voluntary code. However 2015 or 2016 is too late for many of the people of the kind who the Acting Chairman and I represent. We need some kind of dynamic programme to be launched later this year, to be up and running and to deliver results on the ground. We have seen how in the UK the increasing use of emergency hostel or hotel type accommodation places major burdens on local authorities and the state. We are heading in the same direction. It is related to the first item that was debated here today, the private provision of pre-school facilities. Perhaps the private sector is making huge profits from a situation which should not exist.

Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Deputy Broughan is one minute over his time.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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I hope the Minister of State might have mentioned to our colleague, the Dublin City Council assistant manager, Mr. Dick Brady, this morning that we want to move to the transparent time on the list system as soon as possible. We were supposed to do it three or four years ago so that we know exactly what is happening on housing lists, yet the delays are interminable.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The last matter referred to by the Deputy is a matter for Dublin City Council. Different councils do things different in ways, but I hear what Deputy Broughan is saying. engaged with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin on the construction of houses. Deputy Broughan will be pleased to know that at the Labour Party parliamentary party meeting this morning we had a very strong debate on housing issues and the need for the provision of housing. It is a core value for us.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Fair play to the backbenchers.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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It was the backbenchers and the frontbenchers, but unfortunately Deputy Broughan was not there.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Deputy Broughan was not there. He could have contributed.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Minister, Deputy Burton is carrying out a review of rent supplement. I am not here to answer for her. We intend to transfer that clientele to the local authorities in the near future. I recently launched a housing-led policy on homelessness. All the research shows that if we can get people into homes as soon as possible rather than hostels for long periods of time that is a much more effective way of addressing their homelessness and of giving them a long-term sustainable and caring solution. We are working on that. We are going to spend less money on hostels and crisis intervention and more money on resettlement and support. That is the direction of the housing-led policy I have launched.

I am very hopeful that we are making good progress on homelessness including in the Dublin area where the predominant problem of homelessness is. This is a very important issue and I am glad Deputy Broughan raised it today. We are sourcing as much social housing as we can through NAMA.

We want to use whatever mechanisms we can use at present. Whenever some capital becomes available we intend to construct more local authority houses.