Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am sure he, like many of us in this House, draws on the experience of his local authority days when it comes to housing matters. The Wexford County Council officials to whom I have spoken readily acknowledge that they have never seen the housing situation as bad as it is now both in respect of the homeless numbers and the number of people on the housing lists. I was contacted some weeks ago by a constituent from Wexford town who is waiting three years to be housed. What is most concerning is that this person is not even on the list; it takes five years of waiting before one is included on it.

All of this is happening at a time of relative wealth in our country. There is no doubt the downturn seriously affected many people, but it is interesting to consider the very good quality of housing that was built in our towns and cities in the post-independence 1930s and 1940s.At the height of the economic war with Britain, we were still building houses for our citizens. All of that seems to be absent from the programme.

I am concerned that the Government has abrogated its responsibility to some extent and is trying to pass on the obligation to provide housing to the private sector. The latter must play its part, of course, but the public sector should be the prime mover in ensuring that people are provided with housing and shelter. All through my life in politics, my philosophy has been that there are three areas in respect of which people have rights and entitlements. The first is the entitlement and the right to an education which equips them to work for themselves and to achieve success in their working lives. The second is the entitlement to work. The State does not provide jobs, despite what Governments of all hues often pretend. What it does is to facilitate the conditions and climate in which jobs can be created by the private sector. The third is that people are entitled to shelter. Unfortunately, we are failing in this regard.

I recall that when grants were available some years ago to encourage people to buy houses, a housing co-operative was established in my home town of New Ross. We launched a number of schemes with the assistance of the town council and the county council. Those schemes were very successful - similar ones were put in place in other areas - and they facilitated people whose circumstances in life were improving to aspire to home ownership. Very few individuals can do that now. In my early days in politics, county councils provided loans to those whose incomes were below a certain threshold and who would have found it difficult to meet the cost of a mortgage. What happened was that the council gave one a loan to be paid back over a 25 or 30-year period. One paid a 10% contribution in the first year and a 20% contribution in the second. After ten years, one was actually paying the full amount. A subsidy applied in respect of that scheme. I am of the view that new, informed, imaginative and intuitive thinking is required within the Department in order that we might develop schemes that can bridge the gap that has been allowed to develop.

In the past we had building societies which could compete with the banks. It is now very difficult for people to obtain finance. When I was younger there were many single-income households, whereas now there are large numbers of double-income households. Middle-class people who are on reasonably good salaries are finding it impossible to either obtain mortgages or meet their repayments as a result of the cost of housing. Variable mortgage rates are too high, but I will not go into that matter now. There also used to be licensed housing schemes whereby, if councils owned land, they would engage builders to construct private housing schemes. The councils would have an input in terms of ensuring that the cost of the houses involved would be reasonable. An agreement in this regard was reached in advance and the builder would only pay for the sites as he sold the houses. There are many things we could do that we simply are not doing. In far worse economic times than those we are currently experiencing, we were able to provide shelter for our citizens. Somebody needs to take matters in hand and ensure that action is forthcoming.

I supported Part V social housing when it was introduced. However, in light of the subsequent application of development levies, I must admit that the scheme had an inflationary impact on house prices. Anyone who thought that developers were, out of the goodness of their hearts, providing either extra sites or social housing was wrong. It was those who have subsequently become hard-pressed mortgage holders who, through their purchasing of houses under the scheme, provided the cash and the profits for the developers. The cost of development levies was added to the price of the houses and this led to further inflation. We need to completely rethink our approach to this matter.

I have some concerns regarding the vacant site levy. Urban regeneration is fine, but there are many people who do not have the wherewithal to pay this levy. In some instances, there are those who bought a field to build a house in and who now - with the property situated closer to the local town as a result of urban expansion - will be forced to dispense with it. These people may not be able to develop such sites and they will be forced to sell them. I am of the view that this is a real imposition on those who have worked hard all their lives to achieve certain aspirations.The State will now rely on them to do what it should be doing. I ask that much of this be re-examined. I acknowledge that some of what the Minister of State is doing is undoubtedly going in the right direction, but he must apply his personal experience through his work on Waterford County Council. These Houses have a cumulative amount of knowledge, particularly in the Seanad, from people who have come through the local government system or who have worked with various housing agencies. We should bring a little more imagination into a comprehensive approach to address the issue and not throw the problem and responsibility onto the private sector. It will not work. It is wrong and ill-founded.