Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue of the maintenance of social housing in Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown. I am a TD for the Rathdown constituency and there is often an assumption it is an affluent area only. I have to say I have made it my business to make sure those living in deprivation in my constituency know I will represent them in Dáil Éireann as the only Opposition TD and a new TD in the constituency, because many people in the community are simply forgotten.

My team and I have got a huge number of queries about this and I have visited some of the homes to see for myself. I have genuinely been appalled at the standard of accommodation that some of our social housing residents live in. The key issue is that they are simply living in substandard conditions and I would like to get into some of the detail around it. There are blocks of flats all with the same issues of damp and mould but tenants are sometimes told it is their fault when clearly these are structural issues. I have spoken to families who have been told that while their living conditions are inadequate, they are not eligible for transfer because they are in arrears. We all know the complexity and difficulty that people go through to get to a point of being in arrears and how difficult it is to get out of arrears. To compound this by stating their accommodation crisis cannot be fixed really is hugely problematic. Their health and well-being are severely impacted because they cannot pay rent for flats that are covered in mould and damp.

I will bring this to life for the Minister of State, because when I went for these visits, I spoke to some of the families involved. There were lovely moments with the children, speaking to them about their experiences. Despite all the odds, they really are thriving in various ways, but they are facing such awful challenges. Some children cannot bring their friends around to play. Their parents cannot have their friends around for a cup of tea. They have to time activities because the smell can be so unbearable at various times of the day that they cannot use certain rooms. They have to recycle clothes and toys because they get so damp and covered in mould. This is one of the areas where we really see the price of poverty; because they cannot fix these issues, they end up bearing multiple additional costs. We have massive housing lists but it is absolutely crucial that we have the funding available for local authorities to maintain the housing stock they already have. This does not mean we need to jack up the rents, as happened recently with Dublin City Council, but by funding it centrally as a core part of what local authorities do and should do.

I want to say from a human rights perspective how problematic this is. Obviously, we do not constitutionally recognise the right to housing, but if we accept there is a right for people to have a roof over their heads, if we do not provide for this and for adequate accommodation, it is so hard to realise the other rights that are fundamental to us, such as the right to education, the right to employment and the right to health. They are all impacted by the right to housing. Without a roof over our heads, it is impossible to realise them.

I want to name-check specifically St. Nathy's in Churchtown, which I found to be in a particularly dire condition. I also want to call out the work of local groups, including the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, that help families in the area. They see the situations that people live in, which are simply not mirrored in the private tenancies people enjoy in the same neighbourhood. This is simply not good enough for me. The State and the local authority as a landlord have to acknowledge this. It drives people into places of shame and stigma. As I have said, there are so many other ancillary and knock-on issues that people experience because of this.

We need to look at how local authorities can provide for adequate standards of social housing in the portfolio of offerings they have. Instead of saying we will wait for the next tranche of social housing, which again is an answer that some of these tenants get as they are told they will be available in the next tranche, we need to fix the conditions that people are living in right now.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Gibney for raising this important matter and giving me the opportunity to update the Dáil on behalf of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Critically, the management and maintenance of local authority social housing stock is, first and foremost, a matter for the respective local authority, in this instance Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, in accordance with section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. This includes activating and funding pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, implementing a planned maintenance programme and carrying out responsive repairs. Local authorities must also ensure their tenanted properties comply with the requirements of the Housing (Standards For Rented Houses) Regulations 2019.

Notwithstanding what Deputy Gibney has outlined on the statutory obligations, the Department also provides annual funding to local authorities, including Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, to complement the local authorities' own management and maintenance programmes. This funding is provided through the recent planned maintenance and voids programme, the energy efficiency retrofit programme and the disabled persons grant programme. These programmes, together with the Department's local authority estate regeneration programme, will provide €260 million to complement local authority social housing management and maintenance activities this year. This is an increase of almost €60 million on the amount provided to these programmes in 2025.

Ultimately, the selection of homes and the nature and prioritisation of works for inclusion in the programme is a matter for the local authority itself. In the past 12 years, the Exchequer has provided more than €31 million to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for its own social housing management and maintenance programme.

A further €6.3 million will be provided by the Department in 2026. This includes €1.3 million for the revised planned maintenance and voids programme, which was rolled out to the local authority earlier this month and will support bringing more than 70 vacant social homes back into productive use in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. Critically, the new programme will build on the strong progress made in tackling local authority vacancy levels. As I mentioned in reply to Deputy Sherlock earlier, we have the enhanced buy and renew scheme which will be coming on stream in the coming weeks, the vacant refurbishment grant, and significant funding through the URDF for vacant and derelict properties.

The planned maintenance and voids programme now takes a more evidence-informed planned maintenance approach and the local authority has updated its management systems, with a further €4.2 million being provided through the Department of climate, energy and the environment through the SEAI retrofit programme. That will see an additional €800,000 being fed through the disabled persons' grant programme.

The management and maintenance of housing stock is a statutory requirement and a matter for the local authority itself. My Department will continue to complement the efforts of the local authority through a strategic approach to ensure that the management and maintenance of such stock is kept to a high standard.

Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State for those details. I appreciate that funding is important but I assure him that the €31 million is not reaching some of the families that I am speaking to. I want to emphasise, as I did in my initial contribution, that this is not just about funding. The way in which some of these families are being treated is also an issue. There are complex ways in which people arrive into situations of deprivation and poverty. They do not want to be in arrears and for them to then be penalised for being in arrears and not be able to access other accommodation that is more suitable, which will then help to lift them out of all of the other elements of poverty, is problematic.

I am careful about what I raise in the Chamber as Topical Issues because I appreciate that a lot of this responsibility falls to the local authorities. However, in my previous role in the rights and equality space, I did some work with a group that was involved in a case that went to Europe. I want to reference that case because the obligation lies on the Government and does not just sit with the local authorities. The European Committee of Social Rights in 2017 found that Ireland violated Article 16 of the European Social Charter due to substandard social housing. The issues that I am seeing in St. Nathy's and other places in my constituency are exactly the same as the issues faced by the 20 different social housing estates that were involved in that case. They were dealing with damp and mould and with local authorities who simply failed to fix it. The knock-on impacts and the generational poverty that we are baking in those communities and those families is hugely problematic. This is something that the Government must take into account. It is not just about the local authorities. While I appreciate that it is their responsibility, ultimately, to carry these things through, they need to be given the support, with both a carrot and stick element, by the Department to actually deliver for these families.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Again, I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter and for her contribution. We are in agreement that the standard of social properties being rented out by local authorities should be such that tenants have a good quality of life and their well-being and mental health are being protected. It is not acceptable for anyone to live in damp, mouldy or substandard conditions. That is why the Government has stepped up with additional funding for 2026, with the provision of an extra €60 million for the planned maintenance and voids programme. It is really important that we have access to good quality homes that provide the required comfort levels for the occupants. These homes must meet the standards set out within the rented standard regulation. That is critically important and non-negotiable from the Government's perspective.

As I said earlier, as public representatives we all have an obligation to engage with local authorities and their housing sections, especially when these concerns are raised to us. We need to respond and I accept that point. We have taken steps to improve the system but the local authorities themselves have the reserved function to allocate their own resources to these types of programmes and to enhance the housing stock within their areas. I am sure that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has a lot more resources than we have in the west, in County Mayo, for example, in regard to property tax and resources generated on the ground. That said, I take the Deputy's point. We will continue to complement the work of the local authorities on stock improvement programmes. As elected representatives, we need to continue to hold the local authorities to account regarding the condition of their existing stock and to make sure it is up to standard.