Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Bhain mé sult as an méid a bhí le rá aige ar an rún a d'ardaigh an Seanadóir Buttimer, mar cheist iontach gar do mo chroí féin í. Bíodh sin mar atá, tá ceist difriúl le plé agam os comhair an tSeanaid anocht, ceist faoi eastát tithíochta atá curtha ar fáil ag Clúid in Bundoran i gContae Dún na nGall. I wish to refer to the voluntary housing scheme that Clúid operates in the Silverhill estate in Bundoran, County Donegal. Clúid provided 46 houses in the estate. It receives funding of up to 90% of the total value for such developments. I understand in the region of €5.4 million was allocated for the scheme in Bundoran. The work Clúid has been doing, not only in the north west but throughout the State, is to be welcomed. The association has provided up to 3,000 units of social housing in estates and is to be commended on this.

Despite this, the tenants in the estate in Bundoran have serious problems that have been unresolved for many years. I have seen the estate at first hand and I spoke to people who are suffering because of the difficulties they are experiencing. The problem is that the ESB bills for heating the houses — they use a storage heating system — are excessively high, amounting to up to €600 every two months. My electricity Bill was posted to me just this week and it was close to the average for a house, that is, just above €100. These tenants were on the county council waiting list and have become tenants in the voluntary housing estate. The consequence of the tenants receiving bills of €600 is that they are forced to leave their accommodation. They are unable to afford to pay such large sums and therefore the houses are not meeting the needs of those on low incomes or the disadvantaged families for which they were designed to cater. A family left the estate in the past fortnight because of the electricity bills.

The affected families face problems as they attempt to be rehoused given that they have left their Clúid homes voluntarily, as stated by the county council. In some cases they have left bills unpaid. Other difficulties arise in addition to the high cost of electricity. Clúid has acknowledged that there is a problem and that the heating system it provided initially has not been the best, to say the least. It estimates it would cost approximately €250,000 to have the existing system replaced with a more efficient one. It has applied to the Department for this funding but it is not optimistic it will receive a positive response. I hope the Minister of State will have a positive response this afternoon.

Two other relevant issues arise, the first of which is that all the tenants are forced to pay €3 per week as a maintenance levy. They are questioning what it is for because there are many problems in the estate. One problem, for example, is that the smoke blows down the chimneys in a number of the houses unless the doors are left open. This is just making it harder to heat the houses. The second issue pertaining to the scheme, which is nearly eight years old, is that, under Clúid's terms of reference for each unit provided, €7,000 was to be made available to the community fund. This was to equate to €320,000 for community projects. There are many community projects such as the playgroup in Bundoran that could avail of this funding. That funding still has not been made available, and perhaps that could be investigated. I know I did not ask this in the question I have laid before the Seanad but perhaps those issues might be investigated as well.

I hope the Minister of State will have some positive response to make because this situation is forcing families on the county council waiting list into serious debt and to leave voluntary housing. It is a unique situation because Clúid has a good reputation, and for one reason or another this problem has remained unresolved for many years.