Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend those who have brought this motion to the House. I know it is coming from a good place and I know it is well intentioned. The elderly are on the periphery of the conversations around the housing crisis. We often do not look at housing struggles through the lens of older people and there is an assumption that older people are mostly settled in their homes and that those homes were bought decades ago with mortgages that are largely paid off. Focus Ireland highlighted last summer, however, that there was a 40% increase in older persons' homelessness. Alone also outlined to the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government last year that:

At present, 90% of all the older people in our housing are coming from homeless services, which traditionally was not the situation. There are approximately 35 older people for each house and 35 people over 70 years all trying to get into one house is not a good queue to be facing. When they try to obtain private rented accommodation in their 70s, they turn up, usually on their own and perhaps try to pay the rent with housing assistance payment, HAP. They are just not attractive to the private sector.

We can continue to have conversations in this House about how successive Governments could have acted sooner and appropriately on housing in recent decades but I think that point is well established. It is simply political play-acting if we do not learn lessons from it. Our policymakers have known for some time that we have an aging population, that society's needs are adapting and that policy should adapt on that basis. This can only be achieved through immediate action in improving our housing stock but also creating the policies that can adapt to cater for an aging population.

One thing absent from this debate is the Government policy on architecture. The last Government policy on architecture brought us up to 2015. As it is a responsibility of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, I wonder whether the Minister of State has any insight into the consultation on Government policy on architecture.I understand there is a consultation due shortly.

Senator Boyhan mentioned student accommodation. Universities are attempting to attract more international students because the State subsidy for third-level education has fallen and these students are cash cows for universities. We can see an example of student accommodation popping up on James's Street. I have spoken to architects, not on that job, who have highlighted the need to future-proof those student accommodation developments to ensure they are sustainable over the long term. That probably contradicts Senator Boyhan's comment on such buildings being quickly used for apartments. What if we wanted to use the student accommodation on James's Street for older people? That is where the importance of the Government's strategy on architecture comes in.

We also need to ensure the State offers incentives to downsize. This issue has been mentioned. It is important that people can downsize in their neighbourhoods and that when older people move to smaller units these units are future-proofed, which means providing adequate space for walking aids and wheelchairs, widened doorways and so forth. Future-proofing must also enable residents to retain independence, be safe and have access to amenities and communities that are important to them. While it may be idealistic to seek to have those needs met during a housing crisis, we need to have a robust series of measures that do that. What meets the needs of a cohort of elderly people might not meet the needs of everybody. There are also those with physical mobility issues or chronic mental health conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or dementia. We have benchmark models for this, however, including purpose-built villages for dementia sufferers, one of which has been opened in Limerick. There should be a review of how that could be rolled out across the country.

While Sinn Féin supports calls on the Government to prioritise housing for older people, we seek to amend the Fine Gael motion before we can offer it support. The first paragraph of the motion, as initiated, proposes that Seanad Éireann note the "excellent progress to date under the Rebuilding Ireland plan". Amendment No. 1 reflects our belief that the House does not share the view that Rebuilding Ireland is making excellent progress. Neither I nor my party holds that view and I do not wish to endorse it. Rebuilding Ireland has failed to meet some very meagre targets. The Rebuilding Ireland 2018 third quarter social housing building report showed that a total of 2,369 social housing units had been built across the State by the end of September. That is not even half the targeted figure, which most experts agree falls short of the demands created by the crisis.

The second amendment proposes inserting a reference to the Credit Union Development Agency, which highlights community bodies that want to start funding streams to back social and affordable housing but have been blocked from doing so. The Department of Finance should work with such bodies in that regard but is not doing so. Simply put, we are not prioritising community funding where we could be.

Amendment No. 3 proposes to remove the reference to tax incentives. It would be a better use of this motion to call for a broadening of the housing adaption grant that would aid refurbishments in a downsized home. Tax breaks, as proposed in the motion, are broad. Our interpretation of this measure is that it would mandate the Department to bring in tax breaks that may eventually be turned into policies such as VAT cuts for developers. That would not ease the cost for the older person downsizing.

The fourth and final amendment references the report published in June 2018 by the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local and Government entitled, Housing Options for Older People. The joint committee held two meetings on the topic of housing for older people and met officials from the Departments of Health and Housing, Planning and Local Government, representatives of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, Age Friendly Ireland, ALONE and Age Action. Its report was agreed on a cross-party basis, as were its recommendations which appear to be in direct conflict with some of the proposals set out in the motion. As I noted, the committee report recommended a broadening of the housing adaption grant as opposed to a review of tax breaks for refurbishment purposes. Sinn Féin's representatives on the housing committee worked hard to come to a consensual view on this issue and I prefer to support that view rather than the proposals in the motion.