Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for this important debate on housing and how to address the major challenge facing us. I acknowledge the priority that the Government is giving this issue as well as the Minister's personal commitment to it.

The Minister has outlined the various actions under the action plan's five pillars. The first pillar is addressing homelessness. Every Member agrees that seeing young families in emergency accommodation is unacceptable. We acknowledge that there are complex issues in the case of some homeless people, for example, they may have medical needs or addiction issues. I welcome the fact that the HSE is now engaging in a positive way with Departments to address some of these homelessness issues. Having served in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, I know that it and the Minister cannot tackle homelessness alone. It is a complex and personal issue for many of the unfortunate people in question. They require ongoing support if they are to address their homelessness. I welcome the Department of Health's engagement in this regard.

The second pillar is accelerating social housing. This is welcome. An ambitious programme of social housing has been approved for various local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, around the country. I will refer to this in greater detail shortly.

The third pillar is building more homes. Critical to this is addressing the issue of supply in the public sector, which provides social housing, and in the private sector. The Minister knows that we must build the right type of houses in the right places. There is a strong role for the Housing Agency in identifying these requirements and utilising that information to allocate and prioritise funding where it is needed.

The fourth pillar is improving the rental sector, which is under significant pressure, be it in the private sector, student accommodation or so on. As the economy grows further, that pressure will increase. This matter requires constant attention, evaluation and review. Expanding on the work of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, which is the Minister's intention, will help to improve capacity in that regard. The fifth pillar involves the utilisation of existing housing. This is critical. It is a no-brainer that we sweat the assets we already have, be they private or public. Much progress has already been made in the public sector, where, under the previous social housing strategy, thousands of void houses have been turned around, especially in the Dublin area but also throughout the country. This is welcome progress on which we need to continue to expand. Given the extent of our housing lists, it is unacceptable that there are vacant, boarded-up council houses around the country. This will require continuous attention and evaluation.

When I was in the Department, I proposed an asset management system for our social housing stock. The Minister may have already taken this on board. Unless the voids that have been turned around, even in the past year, are managed as assets, properly maintained and kept up to date, we will have to work on them again down the road. It involves a huge capital investment on behalf of the taxpayer. A maintenance and asset management plan, similar to that introduced for Irish Water, is long overdue. Unless we have such a plan, we will not put a value on the assets. If that asset management plan and system had been in place ten or 20 years ago, boarded-up units would not have been allowed to reach their current state of degradation. In addition, local authorities would have been benchmarked and measured in accordance with their asset management plans. It is essential that, as we turn local authority voids around, we benchmark the investment and introduce an asset management system that holds local authorities accountable in respect of the cost of the upkeep and maintenance of stock and also regarding how long it takes to turn a house around once it becomes vacant. Any public representative here will tell one that if a local authority house that becomes vacant is not upgraded and re-let in the short term, it can become derelict, thus costing more to the local authority and, in turn, the taxpayer. I ask the Minister to focus on an asset management system within the Department and local authorities.

I note that the Minister has allocated €70 million to the Housing Agency to acquire further housing units throughout the country. The agency will determine the right types and locations of houses. That is on top of what has already been approved under the previous social housing strategy for acquisitions for the approved housing bodies and local authorities. A problem persisted in respect of the latter in that some local authorities were competing with approved housing bodies to purchase the same properties. Therefore, what the Minister has done here represents the correct approach. He has brought in the Housing Agency, which is independent and will buy the right properties at the right price in the right locations. This is a welcome development under the new housing action plan.

With regard to Part V, some progress has been made on removing the cash-in-lieu provision. The Minister referred to this in previous debates in this House. I ask him to raise this with all the local authorities that may have Part V funding still on their books. This is important funding that could be put towards the provision of housing.

Eight minutes is not enough time to address all the issues concerning housing. I wish the Minister well with his ambitious plan. It requires serious engagement on the part of all stakeholders, including policymakers, irrespective of political persuasion, and the public and private sectors, including the construction sector, to which Senator Davitt alluded.

Challenges arise over apprenticeships and skillsets. It behoves the Government to ensure a cross-departmental response to address them. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mitchell O’Connor, will assist with the apprenticeship schemes.

The Minister has endeavoured to streamline the process. As a former Minister of State with responsibility for housing and planning, one of the first steps I took along with the former Minister, Deputy Kelly, was to provide the funding and resources for local authorities and approved housing bodies. The big problem we encountered concerned delivery. Once we approved projects, we found there were many barriers and stoppages along the way. We need to drill into the problems and streamline the process from concept and design to planning and construction so we can fast-track, in both the public and private sectors, as many housing units as are required as soon as possible. I seek to engage continually with the Minister and his officials on finding housing solutions. That is a responsibility for all of us.

Access to credit for small builders is critical to providing buildings, including housing units, around the country. From what I am hearing, they are still finding gaining access to credit from banking institutions seriously problematic. I acknowledge Dublin is the crunch point in terms of housing but there are housing lists in every local authority. Unless we address the issue of access to credit, there will be less private building among young couples and greater pressure on the private rental and social housing sectors.

The housing assistance payment is a very positive step in which I was involved. It removes the poverty trap associated with rent supplement, which was essentially meant to be a short-term measure. More local authorities need to roll out the housing assistance payment. We need to see more engagement in this regard right around the country.

I look forward to engaging with the Minister again. As stated, eight minutes is not enough. Many more Senators will have ideas. If we all approach this crisis in the spirit of trying to find solutions, we will achieve the progress we really need.