Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to the Minister of State for my delay in arriving. I meant no disrespect to the protocol of the House. I was protesting at the gate with the West Cork Alliance which is protesting against the cuts to rural transport, the fishery cuts and cuts in home care provision. I also spoke about the abolition of the town councils and said, speaking thorough a megaphone, that this Government has a slash and burn approach to all these cuts. I do not include the Minister of State personally in that comment because I know what an outstanding politician she is, having sat on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children with her.

Fianna Fáil passed the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, which this Bill amends, in order to update and consolidate housing law. The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 amends and extends the Housing Acts 1966 to 2004 to provide local authorities with a framework for a more strategic approach to the delivery and management of housing services. That framework provides for the adoption of housing services plans, homelessness, action plans and anti-social behaviour strategies, for new more effective methods of assessing need and allocating housing, and for a more effective management and control regime covering tenancies, rents, etc. Fianna Fáil supports this technical Bill which builds upon legislation introduced by us in 2009. The topic raised, however, illustrates the failure of the Government to tackle the housing crisis in the country with 100,000 applicants on the local authority housing waiting lists.

The failure of the Government to use NAMA properties to help address the problem is a damning indictment of the failure of the imagination of the Government to confront the challenges facing it. Local authority rents also raise the question of the impact of the property tax on council coffers and the approach taken by councils to imposing the charge or absorbing it into their own balance sheets.

In respect of property tax and rents, housing units are not exempt from the local property tax as they are from the local authority charge and the authorities involved will be charged for the due sum. The Bill does not refer to the impact of the property tax on local authority tenants.

The Bill makes no reference to the impact of the property tax on local authority tenants or to the varying approaches taken by different local authorities, with some adding the charge on to the annual rents and others absorbing it directly on their bank sheets. The local property tax on local authority housing will be €45 this year and €90 in 2014, with unknown increases due in the coming years as the Government inevitably hikes up the tax.

If local authorities pass these costs on to ordinary homeowners, it will be another sharp blow to the already struggling low-income households across the country. The decision to impose the local property tax on local authority homes will generate real financial difficulties for embattled councils, which have already had funding slashed.

I wish the Minister of State success in her political career and as a Minister. Hers was a well-deserved appointment.