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

The legislation is also committed to doing that. Much of the purpose-built student accommodation is under a licensing arrangement which is why it does not fit in under the current situation regarding rent pressure zones and so on. It is a legal issue which is currently being dealt with and it will be in the Bill which will come forward in the coming weeks. We will have a chance to debate that here but we all want to achieve the same thing. I know that a Bill was put before the Dáil but it did not deal with the legalities of it because it is a very complex area. We are determined to crack that. I did mention the major increase in supply of student accommodation which is great but we need more. Our plans are kicking in. There are over 7,000 new purpose-built student accommodation units which have been built and opened in the last year. Over 4,000 are under construction and another 7,000 have gone through planning and will start construction soon.

Senator Mullen referred to a scheme for vacant properties that he has seen in Liverpool which works quite well. We have a version here called the purchase and renew, which is for public housing. The local authority can buy a vacant or derelict house which needs a lot of work. We provide the budget for that and the authority can buy the house and spend money on it. There has been great success with that scheme. I have seen some lovely projects throughout the country, but not enough. I wish there were thousands. There are not but there could be.

We told the local authorities very clearly yesterday that it is a demand-led scheme, millions of euro are set aside for it and they should make it happen. Senator Mullen said that in the Liverpool scheme, a private person could get a grant to buy a vacant house and bring it back up. That is something that we can examine. There is a public version of it and it might make sense to have a private one that encourages it in an affordable scheme. Yesterday I was asked by the vacant housing officers to look at an affordable element of that also. It is a good suggestion and something that we will do. We always want to see these vacant houses being brought back into use as quickly as possible.

The issue of helping people help themselves was raised. The idea of social housing is to provide people with a home. They are charged rent for it. I do not like the perception that it is free home because they do pay rent. I accept that in some cases people could probably pay more rent for them. That is something that could be looked at. In some cases people are able to do it but others are not and they pay what they can, however they do pay rent. There is also a high cost in managing and maintaining these properties so the rent situation over time must be examined. However, the number one priority is to have the houses in the first place.

I have dealt with vacancy. The fair deal scheme was raised and the matter of people who want to trade down. It is important that if people of a certain age are in a house they do not need in that it is too big for their needs, there must be a solution for them in their community. All the research that we have analysed tell us that people would be happy to move house but not move community or place. The onus on all of us here is to designate land and to bring forward more housing solutions for elderly people or those who are ageing in their own communities and give them the choice to move into that and free-up their house for another family. There are a couple of schemes in that area. A symposium is planned, I think it is in three weeks, with my Department and the Department of Health on this very issue. We have a draft proposal and plans which will be discussed there and hopefully then we can bring forward new proposals. There are many good schemes out there now, including one in St. Michael's in Inchicore, a €50 million project, delivering housing for ageing people. We want to be able to use that scheme as a pilot and roll it out in many other places. By tracking every move we make on that site, we will be able to have plan in place that people can copy and roll out in every part of the country. We have to have housing for older people too and we are committed to doing that.

Am I getting to the point where I must finish?