Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fáiltím go mór roimh an díospóireacht agus an tuairisc. Ba mhaith liom tréaslú leis an Aire as ucht í a thabhairt chun cinn go luath. Ba mhaith liom tréaslú leis an gCoiste um Thithíocht agus Easpa Dídine as ucht an obair a rinne sé. I welcome the report and the fact that the Minister has introduced it sooner than expected. I congratulate the members of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness on their work. For a committee that was set up and went about its work during the hiatus after the election, it has achieved an awful lot. It also shows that, when political will exists, normal parliamentary constraints can be set aside and proper work to address key problems can be undertaken. This report is better than what has come from Governments previously but we believe it needs to include more. I am glad the Minister is willing to take on board the suggestions we have.

The first point we take issue with is the fact that it was reported in the Government’s own media spin on the statement that there was to be a €2.2 billion increase over six years, whereas the reality is that it is an increase of €1.1 billion on the Kelly plan figure. My colleague Deputy Ó Broin pointed this out in the Dáil yesterday.

I am concerned that not all the key or priority recommendations of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness were taken on board. Only seven out of 23 were referenced in appendix 2 of the report. These are only the priority recommendations. There are 84 other recommendations of the committee that need to be addressed also.

I am worried about the lack of movement to help those in mortgage difficulties who may face losing their homes. The commitment in the programme for Government to set up a special court to deal with these cases seems to have disappeared. Instead, the Minister for Justice and Equality will ask the courts to hold these cases at certain times and places. The commitment to hold these cases in private has been put in doubt also, with the housing action plan raising concern about the constitutionality of this move. Gone also is the programme for Government commitment to amend the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. My colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, pointed out the backsliding of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, on this issue when he told him the commitment referred only to non-bank lenders such as vulture funds. It is clear that even that commitment has been reduced to an assessment of existing sustainable solutions. Likewise, the commitment to raise the thresholds for accessing the personal insolvency system has been downgraded. There is now only a possibility of raising them, where appropriate, instead of a commitment.

There is welcome detail on the new advice service and the powers available to it. However, we have seen many schemes like this before that were promised but never delivered. As we have seen, there is a long way between what this Government promises and what is actually delivered. It is eight years since the banking crash, yet it is as if Fine Gael is only now waking up to the mortgage crisis. The 85,989 families in arrears cannot afford any more slippage on what were, in the first instance, modest steps right direction.

I recently attended the District Court in Galway. One hundred and twenty families were before the registrar due to mortgage difficulties. This startling figure should be a wake-up call to the Government that this remains a key problem facing families. I have noted in this House previously that there may be a public perception that most of the people in the courts over mortgage arrears are not really making any efforts whatsoever to repay.I found, from sitting there for a day, that it was the opposite. The vast majority of those people had paid huge portions of their mortgages, had made huge efforts to keep up payments and were making all efforts necessary to try to repay their mortgages or any outstanding arrears. In some cases, however, the financial institutions - the banks and the vulture funds in particular - were relentless in going after those people, even if only small amounts remained to be paid. This must be addressed.

The report contains next to nothing on rent certainty. We in Sinn Féin believe rent certainty is essential to put a stop to the phenomenon of hidden homelessness, that is, those who must stay with relatives or couch-surf. I believe this section of people rightly feel let down and ignored by this report. The issue of rent certainly appears to have been put on the long finger, not because of the complexity of getting to grips with it but through sheer lack of political will to deal with a broken private rental sector to which even the Minister himself alluded. Sinn Féin has never shied away from asserting this lack of political will directly correlates with the number Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Deputies who have a direct interest in the private rental sector. Sinn Féin produced a Bill on rent certainty in the Dáil, which we had hoped would pass in this era of new politics in which we are meant to be living. Unfortunately, despite referencing rent certainty in the lead-up to the election, Fianna Fáil decided it could not support the Bill and prevented rent certainty from now being law. What changed so much in the space of a few months? It was hardly the fact Fianna Fáil is now a de factoGovernment partner with Fine Gael. Rent certainty has been kicked down the road to be considered at a future date. This is a recurring theme of the cosy deal into which the Government entered, as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have knocked other things on the head for 12 months, including pay-by-weight bin charges, water charges and banded-hour contracts. This type of delayed promise is wholly unacceptable, as the most recent homelessness figures prove. There are 4,152 adults in emergency accommodation, which is an increase of 160 since the previous count, while 2,206 children will sleep in emergency accommodation tonight, which is an increase of 29 since the previous count. It is also unacceptable for all those who are sofa-surfing or living in overcrowded accommodation, those at risk of homelessness due to repossessions or excessive rents, the 130,000 or more households languishing on local authority housing lists for up to ten years, as well as those priced out of the first-time buyer's market.

There is a sense of ambition in the report but it falls short of the Oireachtas committee targets that were put forward. I also listened to a representative of Focus Ireland this morning who welcomed the report but stated the organisation had concerns that as certain elements of the report called for the drawing up of further reports, there will be a lack of immediate action on certain issues. I welcome the Minister's comments on student accommodation, the elderly, disability, etc. All Members agree there are issues in those areas.