Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Gould for tabling this motion. Before I turn to some of the particulars, at the heart of this is a discussion of what happened to public housing and how it has been allowed to be run down over the years. I will talk about the individual impacts that has on people who rent but part of that running down of public housing and the stock, not investing in, retrofitting or maintaining it, is running down the very idea of public housing. That has been part of an attempt over the years to try to say public housing does not work, we cannot have more of it, we need to rely more on the private sector and contract out to private contractors for maintenance or private landlords to provide temporary replacements for social housing. Running down our housing has also run down the idea of public housing. We should not let go of the fact that when a lot of public housing was built, it was of its time. At the time, it was of good, high quality. It was ahead of its time in a lot of instances. In fact, it was quite radical in many instances, when we took people out of appalling conditions in tenements and slums and provided good quality public housing we were proud of. What has happened since, especially in recent decades, is that public housing has been deliberately run down as part of a process of running down the very idea of public provision of housing. We should strongly oppose that.

An issue around this subject is the funding model for public housing and maintenance of public housing being broken and not being addressed. There is no detail on that in this motion - it is the only criticism I have of this motion. Successive Governments have failed in not having a sufficient model of funding in place. I am grateful for the extra time I have been given.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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You do not have to take it.

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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All of us will be very familiar with people coming into our constituency office to show us photographs, as Deputy Gould did earlier. I thank him and Sinn Féin for this important motion. There is damp rolling down the walls and the windows. There is black mould in the bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms. Clothes and bedclothes are made damp as a result. There is a prevalence of asthmatic conditions among children and older people. I do not know the extent to which this has been studied but anecdotally it is absolutely obvious there is a connection between the prevalence of asthma in working-class areas and council accommodation that is old, not well insulated or badly in need of retrofit and refurbishment. It is absolutely obvious, and it is outrageous that children, because of the conditions they are born in, develop serious asthmatic conditions. One issue really frustrates me because it happens again and again. When the maintenance section comes out to look at this, people are told to open the windows. I do not know how many times I have heard that. We have a back and forth between the council and the tenants, or the council and us advocating for the tenants, suggesting the problem is that people do not open their windows. How preposterous is the idea that if the windows are opened, it will solve the problem when, in many cases, we are talking about the winter months when it is freezing. That is not a joke. That is very often the response I get, and it is completely unacceptable. We need to do something about this. When the Minister of State spoke earlier about the increased investment and expenditure in this area, maybe he thought comments about how 25% of social housing stock is at B2 level were hopeful.

That means 75% of the 170,000 council houses in this country are below that level, and huge numbers of them are dramatically below it. People are living in poorly insulated homes, which very often results in damp affecting people's health and mental well-being, their children and the most vulnerable, whether the young, the old or the sick, because their homes are not properly insulated and have not been refurbished to the standards people should be living in.

In truth, the people who are sent around from the council are simply giving these explanations because they know the resources and budgets are not available, or because they are dependent on contractors, and it is about trying to get contractors rather than about councils having the maintenance sections they need to have, where there would be the direct labour of tradespeople, construction workers and people with the skills who could be directly deployed by the local authority. Instead, we are reliant on contractors, and that has to end. We need to rebuild our maintenance sections with the direct labour of tradespeople in order that we will not have to go through the added layer of having to procure contractors to carry out urgent repairs, refurbishments, housing adaptations, which were mentioned earlier, or whatever it might be. Elderly people, often with severe mobility problems, who cannot get into and out of the bath, for example, or where trying to do so is dangerous, are having to wait for a walk-in shower that is safe for them to use.

Turning to estate regeneration, at least in my area, it has long been identified in, for example, areas such as Sallynoggin and Monkstown Farm that some of the housing stock is totally unsuitable. What are known as the "maisonettes", or the "upsy-downsies", as some people refer to them in Sallynoggin and Monkstown Farm, were identified years and years ago as unsuitable. They are tiny spaces, almost all chronic with damp, and there are huge problems with the lack of soundproofing between units. Regeneration still has not happened to many of them, and people are living in absolutely intolerable conditions.

These matters are absolutely urgent, and I do not think the urgency is there. The Minister mentioned the budget increases but I took the trouble to look at the Estimates books for the past three years and the sum that has been allocated to energy efficiency was the same for the past three years, with an additional €2 million but that is a pittance. It was €85 million, it went to €87 million and then it was €87 million again. For planned maintenance, the figures were €30 million, €31 million and €31 million. There have been no significant increases. As for estate regeneration, the figure was €50 million for each of the three years.

Against the scale of what needs to be done, where 75% of the housing stock needs work to be done on it, such as improvements to the windows and the BER being brought up to the proper ratings, we have a long way to go. Certainly, in our area, a very small proportion of the old housing stock is up to standard. We need to invest more in this and have our own capacity to do it in order that we will not be reliant on contractors to the extent we are. Of course, all this, as well as the physical and mental health impacts on children, older people and vulnerable people, in many cases also means the poorest and most vulnerable people are hit with the biggest bills because, in a vain attempt to heat homes that are not properly insulated, people have to bang up the heating and spend ridiculous sums trying to keep warm homes that are not properly insulated or, in many cases, they cannot afford it at all, simply do not heat the home and sit there freezing, in some cases endangering their lives. They are certainly endangering their health and mental well-being, but in some cases, they are actually endangering their lives.

A hell of a lot more focus needs to go on this. We need to increase the levels of funding significantly above what they are for all these measures, whether retrofitting, estate regeneration or planned maintenance, and we need to recruit more people directly into the local authorities to do the work in order that we will not be reliant on contractors.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion. I have been involved in politics for 20 years, having previously been at council level since 2004, and one of the big issues I have seen with housing, even when we were building houses at the volume that was required, related to how to manage the housing stock we had. I recall, when I was involved in building houses, going back three months later to find some of the houses boarded up. From the very start, therefore, we have started off wrong by putting in place a very flimsy housing liaison officer system. If we take Galway county as an example, we have about five of them to serve the county. They, at one stage, were the people who kept their eyes and ears on the estates in order that standards within the estates and tenant behaviour would be corrected and kept right. Alas, that is now gone, because the housing liaison officers are tied up in paperwork. They are tied up sitting at desks, looking at computers, rather than being out on the ground and we need a lot more of them. Providing them is not a cost; it is an investment. I say that because we need to make sure tenants understand their responsibilities but we also need to make sure landlords, that is, the local authorities, understand their responsibility as well.

I know of houses built in Gilmartin Road in Tuam in the late eighties that we demolished five years ago. They were new houses at the time, built with taxpayers' money, and more new houses were built in their place. They had to be knocked down because they had fallen into disrepair, given they were not being managed by the local authority, which did not have the money to do it. Other estates we have built have gone that way as well. Then, when there is a drop in standards, some tenants are inclined to drop their standards as well, and that is when real problems are created in estates. The first step we need to take is make sure we empower the local authorities with the resources they need to manage the existing estates in such a way that standards will not fall, whether in respect of the tenancy or the quality of the building.

Some previous contributors talked about dampness and black soot on walls and other issues that arise, all of which is true and is happening in a lot of estates. In my experience, however, one of the problems is that we take out old timber windows and put in new, fine, sealed, double-glazed PVC windows, but we do not do what we should do around the windows to make sure, first, there is ventilation on the window and, second, that the damp courses are set up such that water will not come in. These are small things, but they cause real problems.

Moving on to the new housing estates we are building, this is another area where we are sleepwalking into another disaster over the next ten years. We are building houses at the pace that is required, and more if we could do it, for social housing, but we do not give the resources to the local authorities to start the management of these estates now, rather than waiting for five or ten years, when things will start to go wrong. The houses we are building now are more technical in nature. There is much more equipment and zoning of heating.

It is all technical and needs to be serviced, upgraded and kept right, otherwise we will lose guarantees. We have solar panels, batteries and all of this but how do we maintain them now? How do we train our tenants to know how to use them properly so they get the best value for themselves. We do not do that. We give people a tenancy agreement and we tell them what they are responsible for, walk away and do not come back until there is a problem. We are creating a huge asset in this country, which is our social housing stock. Taxpayer's money is being used to deliver it but we have to put the additional money in place now to make sure we manage it and keep it to the highest possible standards, the same as how anybody would keep their house rather than waiting for it to go into disrepair again.

The other issues I want to raise, which have been raised, are the housing adaptation grants, the mobility grants and the housing aid for older people. I raised them at the Joint Committee on Disability Matters with the then Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell. The review was completed in March and was with the Department for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, which was looking at the costs. I expected the review to be published within a month or two. I come across situations day in day out where people have bathrooms with baths in them and they want to get a wet room. It would cost maybe €7,000, €8,000 or €10,000 and they are not getting enough of a grant to be able to make the transition. It would keep people in their homes for longer, keep them out of hospital and would also save the State an awful lot of money.

Construction costs have gone up and the Government has not increased the funding to take care of that increase in costs. Income threshold levels also need to be increased to allow more people to get a better grant. The last thing I hope will not happen is that we say there is more money in the grant scheme and expect local authorities to provide that additional money as a percentage from their own funds because they do not have it. This has to a be real Government action to make sure these grants, which are very good, are appropriate. The staff in every local authority are doing wonderful work processing the applications, but at the end of the day there is so much more that could be done for people to keep them in their homes living independently for longer. It is one of the things that can be done very handily.

The retrofitting programme scheme for local authority houses is very slow. The local authorities say they have programme so they will not do anything with a particular house until it has been through the programme. That could be two or three years down the road. Again, this causes a huge number of problems because people are living in dampness or in the cold, with a range that is not working or a chimney that does not pull right. A lot of these houses still use solid fuel. We need to make sure we fast-track the retrofitting of the houses. We need to improve and increase the number of resources we have within our housing departments to look after all of that maintenance. We have to invest in it otherwise we are devaluing the national asset we have, which is our local authority houses. The most important issue is that we realise that is an asset we have. We are housing people but the houses are owned by the State and we need to maintain them. As a previous speaker said, if a private landlord had some of the local authority houses in the condition they are in he or she would be before the RTB and there would be serious ramification but that does not seem to happen when the local authority is involved.

There are a lot of things happening, as was set out by the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, earlier but not enough is happening and it is not happening quickly enough. Some of it is down to staff resources but there is also merit in building up our in-house maintenance teams in each of the local authorities. If we do that, over the next five to ten years we will have an efficient working maintenance crew in every municipal district that would be able to take care of problems as they arise rather than waiting for an engineer to go out and look at the problem, come back and have to do a bit of paperwork to get a contractor and it is then maybe another five or six months before anybody visits the site.

Finally, there is a vacant property grant of €50,000 and €70,000 for private houses but there are still vacant houses within the local authority housing stock. We have voids and the time it takes to turn the void into a habitable house again is way too long. We have people who are looking to get a social house and I have seen houses that have been empty for three, four or five years and that is not right. We need to be able to utilise our housing stock for the benefit of the people who need the houses. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to contribute and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank Deputy Canney for his words of wisdom.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I have been in the construction business all my life. Is the Government facilitating a one-stop shop cartel? Will the Minister of State clarify why the registered independent BER assessors are not permitted to provide the home energy assessment required to apply for a loan under the home energy upgrade loan scheme as the energy assessment can only be conducted by an SEAI-registered one-stop shop energy partner or community project co-ordinator? Is the Government saying an independent BER assessor who is subject to the same regulations and training as a one-stop-shop assessor cannot do an assessment on a house to apply for a loan? That to me is a cartel. That means the Government does not recognise independent BER assessors. That is a breach of competition law if that is the case.

Deputy Canney just said there is a hold-up with people to conduct assessments and with contractors to do work. That shows there is a people problem, yet the Government has closed the door on independent BER assessors. Does the Minister of State agree that BER assessors are more than qualified to provide the home energy assessments required under the home energy upgrade loan scheme; and that excluding those who are not on the SEAI technical assessment panel is anti-competitive and restricts choice for the homeowner? Again, it is about competition law. If there is only a one-stop shop dictating the rules to everyone, there will be very little competition. That means if I was the only building contractor available tomorrow morning, I could charge whatever I liked. That is wrong. How will we get retrofitting done if we have only one system to go through?

The same thing happened with pyrite. The Government only allowed certain engineers under its scheme to assess the houses. Now if you speak to anyone who has pyrite in his or her house, the cost to assess their house has gone through the roof. That is if they can get an assessor and they might have to wait months for someone to come and give them an appointment. The first thing the engineer will do is give people a price to assess their house and they can either take it or leave it because there might be no one else to assess the house. That is what the engineers are telling people. Again, the Government has tied this up. There are engineers in this country who are indemnified through insurance with building records going back years yet the Government says are not qualified to assess a building like that. We are talking about structural engineers, not textbook engineers, and they can get people out of a problem without looking at a book but by looking at the problem. Yet the Government is closing the door on them as well. How can we progress and make sure the retrofitting happens and that people's houses get fixed fast enough when all the Government does is to tie people up in bureaucratic paperwork and then it costs people an arm and a leg to get something done?

On the pyrite issue, the Government would not allow the foundations to be included in the scheme.

Any engineer would tell you that if foundations are out of date, the new structure is too big and will not work. However, the Government decided it knew best and went with one rule. If the Minister of State wants things to progress and for people to retrofit their houses, why can he not trust qualified people to do a BER assessment?

Electricians do spot checks on one or two houses to make sure they are doing the right readings. There could be a spot check to make sure that things are being done in accordance with BER rules. That is how we will get the most out of people and the most work done, rather than tying things up with paperwork and allowing inflation, something that is happening with BER assessors at the moment under the SEAI one-stop shop. I ask the Minister of State to examine this to make sure that people's houses can be retrofitted in a timely manner.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank Deputy O'Donoghue for sharing his time and Sinn Féin for bringing the motion before the Dáil. I would like to deal with some quick practicalities. I thank the housing staff, clerk of works and people I deal with on a daily basis in our local authority, Kerry County Council, who are engaged in spending the money they get from central government to do the works that are required in the council's housing stock.

We are falling far short all the time. I want to highlight voids. I hate the term "void"; a void is a fancy word for an empty house. I would much rather hear the Minister of State say that a local authority has so many empty houses. The term "void" is a fancy way of making a bad situation appear to be not as bad as it actually is.

A massive number of people under the remit of Kerry County Council are waiting for local authority houses. There is no reason in the world that local authority houses should be empty. I have canvassed a lot recently and can picture one housing estate – I will not say where it is – where three lovely two-bedroom houses in a row have lain idle for a very long time. That does not make sense to me. Six people or more could live in those houses if they were renovated quickly. It is not the fault of the local authority; it is the fault of management in government and the Department of housing.

Another thing which seems to have gone totally bonkers is the maintenance of local authority houses. I would like local authority housing to be treated in the same way as if they were privately owned houses. When a person is renting a property and a boiler is not working, the latches on the windows do not work, there is something wrong with the heating system or a door is catching, the person who owns the house is duty-bound, and rightfully so, to carry out the necessary repairs. In the case of a stubborn person who would not do that work, who would enforce the carrying out of the work but the local authority?

In Ireland today, there is one rule for those who own properties they are renting out and the rules are, rightfully, stringent. However, there is a different rule for local authorities which rent houses to members of the public who are on housing lists, and rightfully get a house. That does not make sense to me. If Sinn Féin is to achieve one thing tonight, it would be to highlight that local authorities are not treated the same as private people.

I mentioned doors, latches and windows. Until a number of years ago, it was the responsibility, and rightfully so, of the local authority to address a door that was sticking, where something wrong with the locking mechanism or there was an issue with windows or doors. Lo and behold, not only did the rules change but every local authority tenant was written to and told if their windows, locks or latches gave trouble, it was now their responsibility. Imagine the outrage there would be in Ireland tomorrow if somebody decided that every private property owner who is renting a property is no longer responsible for this, that or the other. There would, rightfully, be war about it. It happened with local authority houses.

People living in local authority houses do not deserve to be treated in a lesser way to people living in privately owned houses. That is not fair, equal or what renting a house should be about. Every person should be treated equally. I respectfully ask the Minister of State to examine this issue. If this motion highlights situations like that, it would be very important.

I ask the Minister of State to please do something about voids. I am not fighting with him about this but simply stating a fact. It is sinful to see bungalows for one or two persons or family homes lying idle. It is a shame. I think of young mothers and fathers, middle-aged people and older people waiting for houses and security. They are in every place where there is local authority housing, not just in Kerry but throughout the country. The Minister of State said he is serious about tackling the housing crisis. That is very easy place to start. The State owns the houses already; the Government should put them back into use.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this motion regarding the maintenance and repair of local authority housing. I support the motion and its call to significantly increase funding for a social housing retrofitting programme to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy poverty. However, I note the motion lacks a rural aspect, which is disappointing. Although there is no doubt that significant refurbishments are required to inner city dwellings, many rural dwellings also require significant funding and refurbishment, and this motion fails to address that in any way. I have been contacted by many constituents living in social housing that is not fit-for-purpose, with some living in horrendous conditions. Many are forced to wait long periods before the council is able to fix the problems or find suitable alternatives. In Donegal, this is made even harder by the fact that hundreds of houses across the county are affected by defective blocks.

Everyone has the right to feel safe, comfortable and warm in their own home, but many are deprived of this and many more struggle to heat their homes given continuous hikes in fuel costs. There is no doubt that we need to transition to a zero-carbon economy to ensure a better future and quality of life for everyone in the world. However, it is understandable that people, in particular those struggling to make ends meet, are apprehensive about this. This is because the average citizen is often expected to take the biggest hit for this transition. This is extremely unfair and completely unjust.

I have called on the Government many times to ensure that we are moving towards a just transition. However, that is not what is happening. Rural Ireland gets a bad rap for not caring about the environment, when nothing could be further from the truth. Many in rural Ireland work directly with the land and sea and care very much about the well-being of the planet, but many are also just trying to make ends meet. The truth is that sustainable energy in this country is limited to those who can afford it and contributing positively to the environment is limited to those who can afford to do so. The Government has made this the case and then wonders why rural communities are not getting on board with retrofitting, electric cars or the ban on turf cutting.

For many in rural Ireland, cutting turf is a cost-effective way of providing a source of heat and cooking for their homes, and for some it is an income. Anyone who spends a day in the bog will tell you the amount of work that goes into this. There is a reason that people across rural Ireland engage in this intense and heavy work for days at a time. It is because the alternatives are unaffordable. After the crash, in rural Ireland it was noticeable how many people went back to turf cutting. It was not the love of working on the bog, that is for sure. It was because they could not afford to heat their house without it; it was that plain and simple.

It seems that the Government has a real lack of understanding. Although I recognise the need to ban turf cutting, this heat and income source has not been replaced. Instead, people were forced to pay significant amounts for retrofitting and the ongoing cost of electricity. Government grants, like many other grants across housing, are limited to those who can already afford the costs. This makes a just transition difficult.

The energy transition process in rural Ireland has been overwhelmingly negative and the Government wonders why people are so against climate policies.

The just transition has become synonymous with job losses and lower living standards in recent years and the public is against the Government's climate action policies because of this.

I agree that good housing policy is not only about the number of homes delivered but the quality of those homes and the quality of life of those living in them. People should be supported and funding should be provided to enable them to make the necessary energy changes to their homes. The Government has a particular responsibility to ensure, through funding for local authorities, that those living in social housing have good quality homes. It is also important that the core policy of the Government is to guarantee access to affordable, sustainable energy. That will be achieved by breaking the link between electricity and gas prices. That would make it more realistic and we would see people across the country embracing renewables. The reality is that people cut turf because they cannot afford anything else and they do not have another affordable heat source. That is the problem. We are asking people not to cut turf and telling them to pay for electricity to heat their houses but they simply do not have the money. That is what it is about. There is no doubt that anybody who goes to the bog does not do so for the love of it and I know that from personal experience. People go to the bog because they cannot afford the alternatives. That is the reality and we have to make sure that people have an affordable alternative.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Deputy Pringle is bringing back memories for me now.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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My mother, as a proud Kildare woman, would probably concur with the comments of Deputy Pringle too.

I thank all of the Deputies for their contributions. I will respond to some of their comments before making my closing remarks. Quite a number of Deputies have raised the issue of apprentices and direct maintenance within local authorities. I raised this with officials during the briefing today as well because it is an important point. There was a time when there were maintenance crews within all of the local authorities who carried out small maintenance works to local authority housing stock, be that to drains, door latches, windows and so on. This is an important part of the issue. We have contracted out an awful lot of what used to be direct labour in local authorities. Many local authorities had small apprenticeship programmes too. That is something that should be given consideration because it would provide mobility and flexibility to carry out works and prevent houses from deteriorating further and becoming even more of a cost to the local authority.

Deputy Howlin raised the issues of anti-social behaviour and downsizing. The latter is something that we have all been hearing on the doorsteps in recent weeks. It should be reflected in local authority housing strategies into the future in terms of giving options to older people who want to downsize. A number of Deputies also raised the issue of substandard conditions in social housing, some of which give rise to respiratory conditions. This is still an issue in some local authority stock and is a particular issue in relation to Traveller accommodation. I have come across quite a lot of Traveller accommodation that is substandard.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan raised the issue of climate targets and the EPA report, which is a very pertinent point. He also spoke about the retrofitting programme and I will give some figures on that in my closing remarks. The figures are starting to move in the right direction, particularly in the last two to three years. Again, a number of Deputies raised the issue of the housing adaptation grants and the review of same. I will bring their questions on the status of that review back to the Department.

Several Deputies referenced issues with mould and poor ventilation. Deputy Canney raised some very important issues around the resources to manage housing stock, particularly new stock that is being constructed. He talked about having maintenance teams in place to ensure that tenants are aware of the new technologies that are driving the energy efficiency in their homes. I will take Deputy O'Donoghue's question on BER assessors back to the Department and revert to him on it. I agree with the points made by Deputy Pringle on rural housing. There is quite a lot of rural housing stock in local authority stewardship, social housing, that requires equal attention. While the focus of today's debate has been very much on urban housing, our rural social housing stock is just as important.

Again, I thank all Deputies for their contributions. I echo the comments made by the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, and reassert this Government’s commitment to tackling challenges in the housing sector, while also acknowledging the steps being taken by the Government to ensure strategic and informed programmes of planned maintenance work for local authority housing are implemented and supported by individual stock condition data and the appropriate ICT asset management solution.

We know inadequate housing conditions can have a real impact on people’s lives and the nation as a whole. We understand how important it is that local authority tenants who are occupying properties and paying their weekly rents are living in homes which provide good comfort levels for their occupants and that these properties are meeting the standards as set out in the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019. Local authorities, as landlords, must ensure their properties meet these minimum standards. That point was made by Deputy Michael Healy-Rae.

We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge in going from a predominantly responsive maintenance approach to housing stock management and maintenance, to a proactive and planned approach informed by stock condition surveys. Given the very significant investment into local authority stock improvement programmes since this Government has come to office, amounting to €558.6 million, it is expected that local authorities should be in a strong position to complete the transition to a strategic and informed planned maintenance approach by the end of the year.

This Government is also funding an extensive programme of regeneration to refurbish and-or replace older flat complexes in Dublin city, with excellent progress being made with projects such as O’Devaney Gardens, St. Teresa’s Gardens and St. Michael’s Estate in Inchicore as well as plans being put in place for refurbishment and rebuilding at flat complexes, including St. Mary’s on Dorset Street, Constitution Hill, Matt Talbot Court, Glover Court, Pearse House, St. Andrew’s Court, Oliver Bond House and Dominick Street West.

In Knocknaheeny, on the northside of Cork city, the Cork north-west quarter regeneration programme is well under way and includes the demolition of 450 houses and their replacement with 678 high-quality homes. A total of 121 new homes have been completed to date, with a further 103 homes due to be completed later this year.

The Sinn Féin motion, although not being opposed, does not fairly represent the efforts and progress this Government has made and is making. Sinn Féin makes the point that we need to ensure the social housing stock is maintained to the highest standard and we need to create a dedicated annual fund for local authorities to supplement their existing response maintenance budgets but this is already in train. Local authorities are being asked to ensure all their tenanted properties are in compliance with the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019. Dedicated funding is also in place, as has been outlined by the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, in his opening statement.

I reiterate that €90 million is available for the energy efficiency retrofit programmes, an increase of almost 40% since the new programme was implemented in 2021. A total of €50 million is available in 2024 for the regeneration programme which will provide funding for all projects in the pipeline, while €31 million is available under the planned maintenance and voids programme, with €5 million of this funding ring-fenced to help support the completion of stock condition surveys, the implementation of an asset management ICT system and an element of planned maintenance works as a result of these surveys this year. The disabled person grant scheme for local authority housing received a budget of €25 million, with a further €75 million available for the housing adaptation grant scheme for older people and people with a disability. That said, I note the points made by Deputies in relation to the review of that scheme. Very significant funding is available under the Department's new-build funding programme where existing and substandard estates and flat complexes are being demolished and new ones built. These figures do not include the funding local authorities provide from their own resources. To that end, and given the legal responsibility on local authorities with regard to management and maintenance, local authorities play a very important role in ensuring ensure adequate budgetary provision for the purpose of housing repairs and cyclical maintenance from their rental income.

This Government has supported the remediation of 10,820 vacant local authority-owned homes since coming to office. Again, these properties were raised by Deputies Canney and Healy-Rae, although the latter called them voids. The Government has delivered 5,766 retrofits to a B2 or cost-optimal BER and has increased funding year on year to support local authorities in their work in this area.

The Sinn Féin motion argues that there should be a significant increase in the funding for retrofitting and regeneration to speed up the delivery of much-needed refurbishment of older inner city flat complexes while also significantly increasing the funding for the social housing retrofitting programmes to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy poverty. Again, this work is already being done. Funding for retrofit has increased 40% over the past three years, with €90 million available in 2024. Furthermore, the ambition is to have 70% of local authority homes at A or B rating by 2030. Included in this are the 36,500 homes that are to be retrofitted under the programme for Government commitment. Funding for the national regeneration programme has remained consistent under Housing for All. This reflects the Government’s continued commitment to address physical, social and economic regeneration in the most disadvantaged communities, as evidenced by the recently opened Dominick Hall complex in Dublin's north inner city.

The funding for the programme is an integral part of the overall approach to regeneration and helps to leverage additional mainstream funding for the benefit of the relevant areas. I reiterate that the programme is under review to ensure that it continues to meet the overall objective of addressing the challenges faced by disadvantaged communities. I also reiterate that the work the Government has done since coming into office is working. We will continue to do everything in our power to support local authorities to ensure their homes comply with the relevant standards and provide good comfort levels for their tenants.

I thank all Deputies for their contributions, which were useful and informative. This has been a constructive debate, and I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Many of my colleagues have already spoken about the fact that some councils' best tenants, those who have been in houses the longest, are dealing with mould, the cold and an absolutely brutal circumstances. Like everyone else, I am sure the Minister of State has people coming to him saying that they have never looked for anything and they cannot get a window or door fixed. The biggest issue across the board is windows and doors. The Minister of State should talk to the housing department of Louth County Council. I can only say good things about the guys I deal with there, but I know they are robbing Peter to pay Paul. They do not have a decent budget to do what they need to do. This is almost hidden because we have such dysfunctional housing and rental sectors.

The one glimmer of hope was retrofitting. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the target was 36,000 houses by 2030. Louth County Council has a stock of 4,200. It is probably even somewhat more at this stage. Initially, the target for Louth in 2021 was 60. This rose to 105 in 2022 and was the same in 2023. Louth County Council was able to get 205 houses retrofitted in 2023. Other councils probably did not have this level of capacity, but Louth County Council was able to get its business done. It got 424 houses in total done up to the end of last year. That is spectacular work. It got 205 houses done last year. Its target was 105. Its target this year is 140, which is far fewer. This tells me that we have a problem. If the Government is talking about reviewing the system, it needs to look at Louth County Council. The latter has the capacity to do a hell of a lot more. Its work involved dealing with some of the issues relating to windows and doors, but not all of them. The council will state that in previous years, 35% of the houses dealt with were those that needed the most work and 65% were those that needed a lower level of retrofitting. The problem is that because of the situation with money, the council can only operate at a rate of 15%. I could talk about voids and housing adaptation grants but I am out of time, and not for the first time.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The Deputy is actually over time, and that is not for the first time either.

This is an important issue. The reason it is important is that it is simple to fix, and it could have been fixed. I am sorry the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, is not here because his party has been in government for 13 years. To be at this stage after 13 years is not acceptable. The Minister of State will know from his party's councillors in Mayo that the truth is being told here about what the housing stock is like. Simple maintenance jobs need to be done. I commend the workers involved. The problem is that in the past 13 years, the number of maintenance workers employed by the council has been cut back. There are not enough of them to do the work that need to be done. The other issue is that there is loads of money until you go looking for it. Then the council does not have money to do this, that or the other. That is wholly unacceptable when we have a surplus of €8.6 billion. It cannot be allowed to continue.

Sometimes, people in rural areas in Mayo and elsewhere wonder whether it is because they live so far out that they are completely forgotten when it comes to what needs to be done. People deserve to live in adequate conditions and should not have the wind blowing in through windows or doors or either electrics that do not work or are faulty. These are simple jobs. Councillor Gerry Murray of Sinn Féin highlighted some emergency cases a few weeks ago at a meeting of Mayo County Council, including one instance where one elderly person was left without heat over a weekend and another still had a piece of plywood covering a window almost a week after reporting that the window had been broken. I am dealing with a family in Ballina that has a problem with pyrite. We have to get the issue of pyrite in council houses sorted out. The houses of tenants who are paying rent to Mayo County Council are falling down and nothing is being done. These people have not been told when their houses will be fixed. We know we will have to get those houses fixed sooner or later so why not do them now? It is obvious that they are affected by pyrite. Why not get on with the work that needs to be done and let these people get on with their lives? That is just the council tenants. Will the Minister of State please escalate the pyrite scheme for council tenants? It is not acceptable to leave them in this limbo.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I want to let Deputy Pringle know, though he will probably hear later, that our motion applies to rural and urban areas. It applies to all 31 local authorities. We are looking for a major investment of money and additional staff to deal with housing maintenance issues.

No disrespect to the Minister of State, but his response and those of the other Ministers earlier show the reality of how out of touch they and the Government are with people who live in local authority houses and with the issues we are dealing with every day. I assume the Minister of State is out on the canvass. Every time we go canvassing, after getting people social, affordable or cost-rental housing, the next issue is maintenance. There are flats in Cork city that are split level maisonettes that were built in the middle of the last century on Noonan's Road, Cattle Market Avenue, Baker's Road and Clashduv Road. These are just examples. Residents in Noonan's Road had to launch a campaign. The conditions they were living in were atrocious. It is not only Sinn Féin or them who are saying it. The Cork City Council manager came to look and she could not believe the conditions people were living in. They are fighting a campaign. Another group of people in Glentransna, led by Christa Daley, one of our local election candidates, are campaigning about the condition of their houses. I do not want to criticise Cork City Council. It has a limited budget. The staff tell me that they do not have the money or staff to do the work. People are crying out.

Reference was made to the effect all of this is having on people's health. It is devastating. Children and older people especially are developing chronic asthma, COPD and other lung conditions. A two-year old child, Awaab Ishak, died in 2020 in England. It was eventually stated that this was due to the mould that got into his lungs. Children in our local authority houses are looking at that kind of mould every day of the week. I showed some photographs to the Minister earlier. The Government is shrugging its shoulders. It has a legal responsibility.

The Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, stated that the Government is moving from being reactive to proactive. It will take ten years at current funding levels to do what is needed. Even then, I do not know whether the Government will get there. It is too little too late. Let us be honest. The Green Party has been in government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for four years. They are the cause of the problem. They decimated local authorities after the financial crash with an embargo on employment and by cutting funding for local authorities. Local authorities are now working with skeleton crews. People are living in damp, draughty houses and spending every penny they have trying to keep them warm. They are trying to look after their children, and the Government is saying that Sinn Féin does not recognise what it has done. Is that it? We are not giving the Government a clap on the back. Will the Minister of State come down to Cork, go to Dublin or Mayo or anywhere and meet the families who are living in these conditions? He should stop looking for a pat on the back and come out and meet people because they are suffering. These are the facts. The Minister of State spoke about retrofitting 146,000 houses, 36,000 with a BER of B2 or better and another 36,000 to be done by 2030. The Government cannot reach that figure. Is the Government going to reach that target, because 2,400 per year will not get us there?

What about the other 70,000 odd people who are living in social housing? Where are they supposed to go? What about their children? There is an election at the moment for local authorities. People are asking these questions at the door. They want to know that if they vote for councillors in nine days time, can they deliver. We are saying that with a Sinn Féin Government and Sinn Féin-led local authorities, we will deliver for people in social housing. The Minister of State is talking about what the Government is doing. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have decimated local authorities. I feel sorry for officials who have tried to cover up the neglect of 13 years of Fine Gael and eight years of Fianna Fáil because they were the people who wrecked this country in the financial crash and the Green Party is propping them up.

There is a man, Finbar, who has had a stroke. He was in Mallow but he is back home and looking to go to suitable accommodation. He was offered a house nine doors down the road in the same block. How is he going to get into Mallow? How is he going to see his GP? How is he going to get his physiotherapy? He does not drive. He does not have a family. I know another lady. She is a victim of institutional abuse, savage abuse, and she has given accounts of it to the Oireachtas here. She cannot get accommodation. This is a lady who has been a victim and a survivor. Where is this Government for these people?

A lady contacted me last night from The Glen. In January there was a storm which broke the hinges in two of her windows upstairs. She has them tied on since January. What is she doing now? She is paying a man to fix them on Friday because Cork City Council does not have the money to do the work. It is a shame.