Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's comment to the effect that no party has a monopoly on wisdom in the context of housing is appropriate. Numerous Governments over many years have made very positive advances in the context of housing. In fact, the very first Cumann na nGaedhal Government in 1922 introduced the £million plan, which was the first extensive social housing programme of the Free State and subsequent Fianna Fáil governments introduced very significant social housing programmes. It was the former Deputy Bobby Molloy who put in place the Commission on the Private Rented Sector and a Fianna Fáil Government that brought in the 2004 Residential Tenancies legislation, the Planning and Development Act and improved rental accommodation standards. This Government has progressed a lot of those earlier strategies very significantly. There has been a huge commitment to bringing these strategies forward. Mistakes have been made; there is no doubt about that. As far back as 1973 the then Government started to abolish rates for the provision of local authority housing and it was a Fianna Fáil Government in 1977 that finished that programme, which effectively made the local authorities dependent on central government for all of their housing funding. We have paid a big price for that.

I very much welcome the promised introduction of a deposit protection scheme. A lot tenants have been made homeless or have had to remain in unsuitable accommodation because they have not been able to get their deposits back. I also welcome the Minister of State's comments on the HAP scheme. It is a long overdue development that the system for dealing with the issue of social housing and social housing provision through other supports was brought under the aegis of a single Department. In the context of accommodation standards, I welcome the Minister of State's commitment to examining the feasibility of introducing a certification system. I have long believed that this is the best way to ensure that we have appropriate standards in the rented sector.

On the issue of homelessness, the ring-fencing of a supply of accommodation for people coming out of homeless services is an important development. I have been involved in the area of homelessness for many years and one of the major problems for people coming out of homelessness has been their inability to access to social housing supports. That is the way to end long-term homelessness. I must say that I do not agree with Father McVerry recent comments, although I fully respect him as a colleague. I believe that the housing-first approach and the measures this Government has put in place to ensure that a housing-led approach is on the agenda is the way to deal with homelessness. The commitment that half of all social housing allocations in the Dublin region and in Cork will go to those in homeless services is the way that long-term homelessness will be resolved but it has taken many years to come to that position.

I am taking the Minister of State's comments on rising rents in a positive way because he said that the Government is prepared to examine "all measures" to deal with the problem, including examining the issue of rent certainty. It is very important to distinguish between rent control and rent certainty. Rent control is categorically unconstitutional and was deemed to be so in 1981. I am not referring to rent control but to a modern-day version of that which is prevalent in almost every developed country with a significant private rental sector and which is about limiting the extent of increases in rents to a reasonable level. Nobody is suggesting that landlords are not entitled to a reasonable return on their investment but having looked at the Irish housing market over many years it is clear that we have engaged in boom and bust cycles that are no good for anybody. Regulating the level of rent increases and decreases will help to stabilise the overall housing market. I conducted research in 2003 into the idea of investment by institutions in the rented market, the conclusion of which was that they wanted to see better regulation and wanted to have some security in the context of rental yield. I believe that regulating rent increases is the way to go in that regard. Recently someone who was involved in the Commission on the Rented Sector asked me why the legislation at the time regulated rent increases only for a period of one year. The reason was that at the time the standard in the market was a one-year lease; had the standard been two- or three-year leases, we would have had two- or three-year rent certainty models. There is no reason we cannot revisit this.

I thank all of my colleagues who contributed to this debate. I have taken very extensive notes and if I had the time, I would respond to many of the issues raised. I will make a number of comments on the counter-motions that were tabled this evening. While I understand the spirit in which they were put forward, we are moving towards a new system of social housing provision whereby we are not looking at a quantum of €2.2 billion but at a sum that will lever further investment. I sit on the Dublin City Council Housing Strategic Policy Committee, SPC and am aware that the council has sought expressions of interest from the market for a housing scheme under which the council would provide land for housing. It is seeking partners to augment its investment and that is the way forward. In fact, that is what is happening at a European level at the moment with the Juncker plan. I want to see a new model of social housing provision because the old model does not work. As has already been alluded to by Senator Barrett, it does not pay for itself and is not the way forward. We gave houses away in the 1980s because they cost more to manage and maintain than they did to deliver.