Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and the broad thrust of the Bill. In terms of the structures which many local authorities have been working through, it is important to have them in legislation because much work has been done through strategic policies etc. in the better local government action plan in the past five or six years.

There are some issues which must be mentioned, the first of which is anti-social behaviour. All the Senators who have spoken before me today have mentioned this as a significant scourge on society. To a certain extent the local authorities see it as such a problem because they do not have the teeth to deal with it. I am not sure such teeth will be provided in this Bill. When dealing with criminal behaviour, the Garda clearly must be involved.

If we are to go down the road of strategising the problem and not go any further, we will not be taking enough action. I worked on a local authority until quite recently and we would sit down, get a plan together and produce a policy for driving an area for a particular period. However, if there is no capacity to deal with the issue, our action will not work. I do not mean to be a merchant of doom but I suggest the local authorities be allowed set up a committee for looking at and dealing with the problem with a view to resolving it adequately.

This is in preference to just giving the power to strategise on the matter. We all know the problem of anti-social behaviour is desperate and the people involved must be dealt with but the issue is how this can be done. Such action possibly needs cross-departmental support with regard to counselling or drug related habits etc. I am not sure the policy of buying a house in a private housing estate and putting offending families into it will resolve anything. At the end of the day we must remember such people must be put somewhere.

If we are to move people from a local authority house, what is the next stop and where will they end up? Many end up on the street or in flats throughout towns and villages — usually towns — where other people live. They seem to just squat in them. I am thinking of one example but most of us would have come across similar examples. The Garda must be involved but as a landlord, a local authority should have the powers to deal adequately with anti-social behaviour. Such a power is not mentioned in this Bill.

The legislation must be policy-driven and all local authorities will welcome the fact they are being given the powers to strategise and put policies in place. Many already have such policies in place. The issue of liaison with the Garda must be dealt with and there is a question of whether we need a garda in each area responsible for the matter. Will the policing committees deal with it? These issues must be fleshed out in the Bill because it will be a wasted opportunity if they are not.

Dysfunctional families are dysfunctional for a reason. Local authority staff should be allocated to the area, and the social workers in the local authorities such as Wexford County Council, for example, are fantastic. They do trojan work and although they probably need more support, they need to know where to bring such people. Transient housing is not dealt with in the Bill but we may need to go down that route as a stop-gap solution. It would not be rehab but I have a similar concept in my mind. These people need to have their hands held through what is a turbulent time in their lives. Their actions affect neighbours and there is no excuse for that. I would like to see the issue fleshed out and perhaps we could deal with it on Committee Stage.

I heard Senators mention today the issue of single fathers and single men. In Wexford town there are 600 single men on the housing list. There are more people looking for single-bed units or units for a single person to live in than there are on the family list. This tells its own story. One of the biggest pressure points in society now is the breakdown of marriage which creates significant pressure on people who cannot afford to fund two households. Such people need to be taken into consideration.

It is usually the mother who stays in the family home with the children and it is generally the man who moves out. I am not saying this is right or wrong but it is the reality. We must provide for these single men. I note that under section 22, the Minister is provided with the powers to regulate with regard to allocation. This needs to be added to and a particular policy must be put in place for single men.

When I say "single men" I refer to divorced men and those with families who wish to have access to their children but who may not have provision for them to stay overnight. This all leads to societal breakdown which we have a great opportunity to deal with in this Bill. We should include these issues because there are more problems than just a lack of housing. Such problems lead to other issues such as suicide, drug use and a general deterioration in the fabric of society.

I wish to discuss rural housing. Unfortunately I do not see it dealt with in this legislation. When I say rural housing I refer to rural towns and villages. There is a national campaign for local authorities not to destroy the landscape with urban sprawl and spreading out towns. This has led to a policy for high density housing. While it may suit the cities it is not going down well in rural towns. I brought a lady who had a serious housing need to a four storey block of apartments, which would not be considered high-rise in some areas, but it is in Wexford town. She had a dog, a child and a pram, and said, "Who will I bring up the stairs first? If I bring the dog up the child will be on his own". It reminded me of the story of the fox and the goose in the boat with the farmer and the grain crossing the river, and the problem of who to bring over first. She said she did not want it, even though it was a new apartment. We need to look at the design of our housing. Flats and apartments do not work everywhere. In Wexford town we have two unique developments where the door opens onto the street.

With regard to Part V, local development plans for local villages have fared quite well with social housing in recent years. However, the villages that did not have local plans, and where the local authority did not have capacity to deliver on local plans, got nothing. That has led to a burgeoning of one parish while another parish with a local school and plenty of capacity loses out.

Sewerage facilities need to be looked at. I do not believe our housing plan suits rural Ireland. The villages in rural Ireland are unable to house their own people, which is a shame. We need to look at that. If somebody is born in a village there should be a house there for him or her. They should not have to move to the next village which might be undergoing rapid development because it has a local area plan when there is no capacity to buy rural social and affordable housing.

The incremental purchase scheme is an excellent initiative. It is something we could look at in this climate for people in the private sector. From a conveyancing point of view it struck me as a new initiative. One could have equity in a house based on part payment; the deed would not be signed until the very end. It is a model that could be used in the private sector.

If no land is available, no land has been bought and housing has slowed down, Part V will not deliver in that regard. We need to look at the land bank situation and how we can buy more land. Given the fact that prices have dropped in recent times, it is perhaps a good time to buy.

I welcome the broad thrust of the Bill. Subject to the caveats I have set out, it is excellent legislation.