Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the staffing issue, local authorities have been given 700 additional staff over the past 18 months to work in this system. They need more staff in many areas and we have asked them to put together their applications for staff that are mission specific to housing and housing delivery. This is being responded to when they need that staff. We recognise that housing teams had to be strengthened, and we are trying to do that. I hope this answers most of the Senators' questions on that matter.

Senator Lawlor spoke about the HFA and the time span. This should not be an issue. The local authority borrows money through the agency but that should not explain any delays. There should be no reason for delays. In the 59-week proposal, we factored in all the different stages and that stage is in the process for a week or two, but it should not be months of delays. In some situations there are requirements asked of a contractor by the HFA, such as insurance proof and so on. This might cause difficulty for some people, but, in general, the relationship where the local authority is looking for a loan approval from the agency should not be the reason housing projects are delayed. If it is given as a reason then it is an excuse, and if there are any cases or examples such as this, I would be happy if the Senator brought them forward. He wanted a copy of the regulations relating to the affordable housing scheme and I will get that to him as quickly as possible.

Senator Warfield is right about the issue of vacancy. We all want this issue tackled. The CSO has a figure of either 180,000 or 183,000. The GeoDirectory suggests 94,000. We have five local authorities doing a pilot scheme to produce our own street-by-street calculation. They are taking areas and going after this. In an area where the local authority would perhaps have been told there were nearly 7,000 vacant houses, it is down to a couple of hundred. So the figures are not true, but I do not dispute that the Senator is right when he says there are vacant houses. We have to get them back into use, but it is not a massive number. The Senator is also correct that there is a lot of potential there and we will go after those vacant properties in combination with other schemes. The local authorities have been told to very much get involved in this space. We are funding local authority officers in this regard and they all have plans. Every local authority has come back to us with a vacant house reuse strategy. We will work through those targeted plans to make it happen.We got some quick wins there, they are probably not in the massive volumes that the Senator mentioned but we do need quick wins. It is absolutely correct that these houses are already serviced by infrastructure so they are also a cheap win in some cases. That is something that we want to concentrate on. However, I stress that the pushing out of those schemes and solutions must be done by us all, local authority members of all parties, Members here and in the other House, and we must make people aware of the opportunities out there.

If one studies the repair and lease back scheme it is very attractive and benefits everyone. It recognises that in some cases the people who own these properties do not have any money or income so that they cannot borrow. The repair and lease back scheme steps in with the funds needed to repair the house. It can work very well but people have to know about it.

I have said before to people involved in some of the campaigns around vacancy that they should get involved with helping us solve the problems and take the schemes on board and go out and match them to the vacant houses. Our local authority teams are doing that. They are going door to door to see who owns the house, wherever that person is. We have advertised our schemes abroad in Australia, America, Canada, everywhere, to say if people own a house back in Ireland to please contact us. We are doing all that. However, those who want to campaign could help if they genuinely wanted to. I am clear on that. Solutions are there but the difficulty is getting them connected to the people who own the properties. If people today are homeless or on a local authority list and in need of a house, if they can find a vacant property and they find who owns it and want to come into the local authority with a suggestion to use one of the schemes, they are very welcome to do so. I met the local authorities yesterday and I told them to ensure that they respond to that scenario, namely, if a person who has no home comes to them having identified a vacant property and who owns it and the person who owns it is willing to enter into our schemes. Then we can join the dots. There are solutions there.

I do not buy into the idea that it was a landlords' budget. We made one specific change for landlords to the effect that where someone pays interest on a mortgage for a house that is rented out then that may be used as an allowable expense. That is just normal in any functioning business. The Senator might not like that, and I accept that, but we also want to keep some landlords in the business because if they all leave and sell their houses, it would be hard to provide a rental house for people who actually want it. It is a supply issue. It recognises that not every landlord is mortgage-free or making a fortune off rent. Some are trying to pay down a mortgage and have costs too. We want to make the landlord situation more of a business atmosphere, with professional people rather than ad hoc arrangements. That means that there must be allowable expenses. I know that Sinn Féin does not like recognising the importance of business and rewarding business but sometimes one has to because that is also how one creates jobs. It is about balance. The Senator should not tell me that out of a €2.4 billion spend on housing, it is a landlords' budget. It is not. It is a social housing and affordable housing budget. I will debate that any day of the week because it is skewing facts to suggest otherwise.

As I said that the outset, and Senator Warfield was in and out of the Chamber, there is a reliance on HAP in the short term. We wish that we did not have to do that but it is recognition of the situation where there is not enough social housing stock. We both said that. We have plans to increase the social housing stock and so does Sinn Féin. If the Senator ever takes the time to compare Sinn Féin's own plans with ours, the Government's are more ambitious. If we do not undertake our plan, there will continue to be a reliance on the private sector but by increasing the social housing stock in the way we are we will get away from that. It recognises that in the short term we must use properties that belong to someone else and that means paying money for them. We cannot just take them off people. It is the case that the HAP scheme ensures that about 40,000 people are in a home today who would not be in a home without it. I do not know what Senator Warfield wants, he might prefer that, but I would prefer that they are in a home. We will work to ensure that the homes become more permanent and that is what we are doing in the delivery of houses.

I missed the question about student accommodation because someone was in my ear at the time. I think it related to bringing it in under the legislation when it comes to tenancies.