Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The approved housing bodies have done much good work in the past. Maybe not everyone will have to own a house if people know they are not going to be kicked out of their home for 30 or 40 years. I would like to see tenancies to be ad infinitumbut a 30 or 40-year tenancy is vastly more secure than what we have now. I praise that aspect of the Bill.

The Bill also provides that rents in AHB built housing will be capped. Rent increases are another big fear. The rent for the house I lived in increased from €450 to €800 over a long period. When a tenant's budget or pay does not change, such increases cause serious stress.

I will briefly speak to one other issue as I only have a minute. I feel strongly about derelict buildings and the town centre first initiative. I want more done in this area. I cannot permit myself to raise water infrastructure again because the Minister is in the House but we need water infrastructure if we are to have serviced sites for building houses. That is a major issue. I cannot pretend to know about Dublin but it is a serious issue in many villages in County Clare.

We want people back living in our towns and villages again. It is prohibitive to try to build serviced sites, yet we do not want people living on their own out in the middle of nowhere either. We cannot prevent that if we do not have a good and affordable alternative.

We also need to address the prohibitive cost of meeting fire and safety regulations when renovating buildings. We need people living upstairs above shops again. Where this has worked, it has been amazing and changed the entire fabric of the local community. I flag that issue. I wish the Minister the best of luck with the Bill and thank him for his work on it.