Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I and my party have serious concerns about this legislation, which fails to address the scale of the housing crisis facing the country, in particular for those who are homeless or on social housing waiting lists and those on low and middle incomes who are renting.

The economic recovery's most tangible impact is to make the prospect of home ownership and stable accommodation a more distant possibility than was the case previously. The Bill does not address the chronic lack of supply of housing units and the Government's inaction on this matter. The switch to the housing assistance payment, in the absence of any details of how it will work, smacks of a desperate move by the Government to try to massage the social housing waiting list figures. The Government's strategy should be to get its act together and pursue a viable housing strategy. My party has already put forward its housing strategy, which the Minister is aware of and from which the Government could draw.

The ultimate failing of this Bill is its complete lack of solutions to the crisis of adequate supply to the housing market. This is crazy in view of the major over-supply that existed during the property crash. The Government's plans to reform the housing assistant payment fail to confront the primary issue behind the housing crisis, the shortage of supply. Not only will the measures contained in the Bill adversely affect the cost of rent paid by the householder, but the sheer shortage of supply will severely reduce the number of people who can avail of the scheme. The volatility of the rental market at present, with rents reaching runaway levels, is severely hindering the capability of RAS and the rent supplement. Increasing rents are forcing tenants to pay a top-up from their social welfare payment, undermining living standards and driving tenants back towards substandard accommodation that is not approved under the scheme. Whereas I have seen this in places such as west Cork and in other rural areas, it is obviously far more acute in parts of Dublin, particularly on the south side of Dublin where property prices as well as rents are rising.

The Government has established HAP without any clear outline of what will happen to people who are moved onto it and off the social housing waiting list. The Minister's claims about transfer lists have not been supported with any clear guidelines or information. We appreciate that there may be extenuating circumstances by which continued breach of a tenancy agreement may require extraordinary action to be taken, but surely the focus should be on dissuading the tenant from committing such breaches. There must be an independent appeal mechanism to ensure the process is fully compliant with constitutional obligations. If a housing authority is to recover such a dwelling, who becomes responsible for housing the tenant who has been evicted? Removing people from their homes simply feeds into the cycle of homelessness and passes the problem back to the local authority which is legally obliged to house such people.

The most recent quarterly report from the property website daft.ieand written by Ronan Lyons, assistant professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin, identifies some alarming trends in the rental sector and states the country is in the midst of a serious housing crisis. The report also states rental prices are approaching the levels which obtained at the peak of the boom and that rents rose in all cities, with Cork and Galway experiencing a 6% rise, Limerick a 5% rise and Waterford a 1% rise. The biggest annual increase in rents - some 14% - occurred in Dublin and the trend in this regard is continuing. The supply of accommodation in Dublin must be quadrupled, otherwise those on lower incomes will be further marginalised and pushed out of the market. The lack of social housing means that there is now little or no safety net for a housing market that is fast becoming the preserve of a few at the expense of those on middle and low incomes. Homelessness levels continue to surge in the capital and across the country and Inner City Helping Homeless recently stated the issue had surpassed crisis point. Each day Senators on all sides express their concerns about the number of people - particularly in the capital city - who are homeless and sleeping rough.
There are over 90,000 people on social housing waiting lists and the figure appears to be increasing. The aim behind the new housing assistance payment, HAP, is to reduce these lists by transferring those on them to the new scheme and removing them from the register. This is merely massaging the figures. The Government has failed to clarify the status of people transferred from the current lists onto the HAP and how they will access permanent homes. The Minister of State's claim that they will be put on transfer lists must be confirmed. In addition, full details must be provided of how existing credits will be used.
Legislation introduced by the Government such as the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill has further exacerbated the problem by giving banks the power to repossess struggling homeowners' properties. There have been consistent delays in transferring NAMA properties, which only 500 being transferred to date, this despite the fact that ten times that number have been identified by NAMA as suitable for transfer. Perhaps the Minister of State might comment on this matter, either in her reply or on Committee Stage or on Report Stage because there is a serious roadblock in place.
In 2012 the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, stated 2,000 housing units would be made available in 2012 to people on social housing lists through NAMA. Two years on, the Government has made no progress in this regard. Only 450 properties have been acquired to date and this figure represents a tiny fraction of the actual number in need of housing. What is the position on NAMA which has huge numbers of houses in its portfolio? Is it selling these houses? There are certain towns and villages in west Cork where there is a need for social housing. Obviously, the position there is not as acute as in Dublin, but I recently wrote to NAMA to inquire why houses it owned in these locations were not being sold privately or to local authorities in order to alleviate this need. I have not received a satisfactory reply. Perhaps the Minister of State might address this aspect.
Overall capital expenditure by the Department has been reduced from €740 million in 2013 to €311 million in 2014. That is another serious issue. I was a member of Cork County Council for many years. At one point, with many other local authorities, it introduced a programme of acquiring land near towns and villages and providing serviced sites for those with housing needs. The programme worked admirably in places such as Skibbereen, Bantry, Schull and Clonakilty. The council purchased land in these areas and provided serviced sites which those who were on the housing list and trying to get onto the property ladder were able to buy at a reduced cost and then build their own homes on them. As a result, the numbers on the housing list decreased. I accept that many people would not qualify for such a programme. However, a percentage of those on the housing list are caught between two stools because they are not sufficiently well off to buy homes and get onto the property ladder. Perhaps the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government might re-examine the position in this regard. NAMA has land banks throughout the country. I am aware that it possesses several around Cork city. Perhaps the proposal I am making in this regard might be taken into consideration.
My party has outlined a series of steps which need to be taken to tackle the interlinked private and social housing crises. They include the establishment of a new social housing construction programme; the development of voluntary housing associations to a scale where they could access credit and start to build; the use of the tenant purchase scheme to fund future investments by local authorities; allowing families on waiting lists to move into vacant homes and defray the costs of refurbishing them from future rent payments; the creation of specialist NAMA transfer units in local authorities to spur on transfers; the easing of restrictions on planning permissions and reducing development levies; the reduction of windfall zoning tax to encourage development; the introduction of a vacant site levy; and the full protection of Part V and the establishment of Part V teams in each local authority area.

While I welcome the Minister of State to the House and the idea behind the Bill, I do not believe it comes close to solving the serious circumstances that obtain. There is a large number of people on the housing list in every town and village. It galls me that since the property boom there have been several empty houses in many villages and towns throughout the country, but perhaps not in Dublin, completed or half-completed. Something should be done in that regard. Is there a lack of cohesion between NAMA and the Department? Something is radically wrong if houses are left unoccupied for several years although they would be suited to greatly alleviating the social housing crisis.