Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, for whom I have great regard as he knows his brief inside out, upside down and from every possible angle. That is commendable as it is something that cannot be said about everybody, including us at times. The ministry he holds suits him because he has a genuine passion for housing provision. There are a few Members of this House across the board who also have a genuine passion for it.There are a few people in this House who have a genuine passion for housing. There are such people across the board, to be fair. Two in particular come to mind, namely, the Minister of State who is present, Deputy Damien English, and Deputy Bernard Durkan. We must consider the obligations of the State to ensure people have affordable homes and can aspire to owning a home. The value of our society is reflected in how we meet these obligations and how we treat people and respect people and create a sense of ambition among them.

Much good work has been done, particularly in the past couple of years. We have been in a position to do good work in this period. It cannot be forgotten that in the ten-year cycle from, say, 2011 to 2021, we will have started with the seesaw totally weighed against us but will have slowly and surely seen it rise because of the sacrifices of the Irish people, the good, difficult, challenging Government decisions, and a bit of faith. To a degree, the housing crisis was exacerbated during the recession because we simply had not got the money to build houses. That was a great pity. Not only does one have to keep building houses but one also has to maintain them. We all know from our own houses that if we do not paint them for a few years, they deteriorate. It is not rocket science. The same principle applies to local authority housing. Therefore, we must maintain, improve and modernise the existing housing stock while at the same time building and acquiring more houses, which is equally important. There are many initiatives that the Government has launched in this regard. Some are working better than others. There is nothing wrong with launching schemes and putting a few euro into them. Some schemes work better than others; that is the reality.

I have more experience of rural areas, although there are some very urban areas in my county. Practically all the calls I am receiving at the moment are about housing, particularly in the Ennis area. There is considerable demand. If one uses daft.ieto find a property to rent in Ennis, one notes the number of properties available to rent is in single figures on many days.

There are schemes that I would like to see the Minister consider. One involves turning shop units that will never be shops again into housing units. The units will not be shops again simply because retail practices have changed. Shopping is now often online and oriented towards multiples and bigger towns. There should be a 100% tax allowance and a grant to turn former shops into residential units. There are thousands of such units all over the country. This should be done. It should come up in the next budget. There should be a five-year plan whereby many of the shop units that have been closed for the past ten years could be turned into residential units. There has to be a financial incentive for older people living in big houses to consider putting a flat on the ground floor. While we all want to see people building on their own land, which is great and welcome, we need people living in towns. Especially when people get older, it makes more sense to live in a town.

We need to deal with another problem associated with buying properties, namely, gazumping. I have said here before that we need legislation urgently to deal with the scourge of gazumping. I had a client last week who had a booking deposit paid on a property in Dublin where he and his wife - two teachers - were going to live but who got a call from the real estate agent six or seven days after having paid it and having started to make plans to inform him that a bid €15,000 higher had been made. The couple were asked whether they could match the higher bid and were told that, if they could not, the booking deposit would be refunded. It should simply be against the law to sell a house to a client within six months of the acceptance of a booking deposit from another client on the same property. If it were against the law, people would feel the day on which they paid the booking deposit was the day they got their house. If things do not work out within six months, it is reasonable to put the property back on the market. These matters need to be examined.

We have very good schemes. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, about one of them, namely, housing aid for older people. There are many cases in which a grant of €20,000, €30,000 or €40,000 is paid to install a downstairs bathroom or renovate a room to create a downstairs bathroom. Consider the circumstances that obtain where the beneficiary of a grant unfortunately passes away six months after receiving it and where the house has gone up in value significantly. If somebody gets a grant of €40,000 to build a bathroom that enhances the value of the house and then passes away, his or her estate should pay 50% of the grant back if the death is within a year of receiving it. It should pay back 40% if the death is in year two, 30% if it is in year three, 20% if it is in year four, and 10% if it is in year five. After five years, it is reasonable that the State would write off the amount completely. If a scheme such as this were introduced in respect of housing aid for older people, it would be beneficial. The vast majority of old people will live healthy lives requiring no repayment. The scheme I propose would create another income stream for the State. At the other end, it could put more money into the scheme. By and large, with some exceptions, the scheme for housing aid for older people is extremely good. It allows people to renovate their homes.

There is a lot happening in the housing market in respect of social and affordable houses. We have come quite a long way towards putting a fundamental plan in place that will see thousands upon thousands of houses built over the coming years. We have a responsibility to ensure anybody who is working can legitimately expect to buy his or her own home and that anybody who qualifies for social housing can expect that, with a reasonable period, he or she will get a social house. An older person who, based on his or her health, expects he or she will need to build a downstairs bathroom or bedroom should be able to have that expectation met in a reasonable period.

I credit the Minister for the great work he is doing. We are all with him. Dealing with the housing crisis should really involve an all-party effort.