Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

I wish to share my time with Senator Terry. While rushing down the corridor to get here, I heard a lot of shouting on the television. Senator Ormonde was speaking with passion. The only thing I heard was her reference to the reality on the ground, at which point I thought she was attacking the Minister, but maybe it was unwise of me to think like that. I have to agree with her in relation to the demand for houses that exists. There is a question of supply and demand in regard to social housing and housing in general.

On coming to this House I was under the illusion that it was a Chamber in which we could debate and tease things out. The whole debate on social housing infrastructure has been bypassed today because this Stage of the Bill has to pass through the House this evening. If I had my way it would not go through as quickly.

Let us consider the urban social housing problems that exist in every town, be it Ennis or Letterkenny. Recently in Letterkenny, we purchased over 100 excellently built houses from a private developer. However, the people living for the past 10 or 15 years in local authority houses – houses which may not be of the same quality as the new ones – put themselves on the transfer list for the new, high quality houses. All of a sudden, there was a movement from one particular housing estate in Letterkenny to a newer, brighter estate, maybe a mile and a half up the road. This movement created a void in the original housing estate, a place that may have a stigma associated with it, and people on the housing list are actually turning down the vacant houses there.

The reality of the problem is that we have no plan in respect of social housing. We have no vision. All we are doing is reacting to the demand and supply imbalance. We had an opportunity in the past five years to redress this problem and look at the human infrastructural project. I refer specifically to urban estates as I have not yet dealt with rural social housing.

There is a big drive for voluntary housing projects in rural areas. I do not know where the agencies concerned came from, how they are vetted or how they are formed. However, voluntary housing agencies are operating in rural towns and villages and providing social housing. That is not the way forward for the social housing project because the people who have been allocated these houses will never own them.

I would like a buy-out option in respect of voluntary housing because we have an innate belief in ownership. We like to own our houses and we are not actually providing people with that opportunity in rural areas if we just supply voluntary housing. I want this included as a technical aspect of this Bill.