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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 4 Nov 1986

Vol. 369 No. 5

Private Members' Business. - Local Authority Rents: Motion.

By agreement and not withstanding anything in Standing Orders, Members shall be called on in Private Members' time this evening as follows: 7.09 to 7.30 p.m., Opposition speaker; 7.30 to 7.50 p.m. Opposition speaker; 7.50 to 8.20 p.m., Government speaker and 8.20 to 8.30 p.m., Opposition speaker.

An bhfuil an rún sin aontaithe?

An bhfuil sé i gceist dúinne oíche amárach cúpla nóiméad a thabhairt dúinn chun leasúcháin atá againne ar an rún a phlé? We will agree to the Minister's proposal provided it is intended to provide some time for us tomorrow to move our amendment.

An bhfuil an rún sin aontaithe. Aontaithe. Tá an rún seo faoi choinne leathnú an chláir. Beidh lá eile amárach.

Ó thaobh an rúin atá os comhair an Tí, má thugtar cead don Pháirtí Daonlathach labhairt anocht beimid i bhfábhar an rúin seo.

Tá an rún seo ag leathnú an chláir faoi choinne an lae inniu. B'féidir go mbeidh rún eile amárach. Níl a fhíos agam. This only deals with today.

My reference was to today. I said that we will support the motion if the Progressive Democrats are allowed to speak in the debate tonight.

I must put the question as it is, and there is no condition.

Perhaps the Minister of State would indicate whether he is prepared to allow us to speak.

Certainly I am prepared to consider giving some time tomorrow evening. I think we did that last week and I am certainly prepared to continue this week and I will do that tomorrow.

I want to make the Chair's position clear. The Chair cannot be put in an impossible position. There is agreement in the House or there is not. The Chair cannot operate an order of the House that it is very difficult, if not impossible to interpret.

On Deputy Molloy's point, I would be surprised to hear that his agreement or otherwise to the content of the motion will depend or whether or not he is allowed to speak on the motion tonight. This is a two day debate. I assume that the contributions tomorrow night are subject to the agreement of the Whips and I would welcome Deputy Molloy's involvement with our Whip tomorrow night on whether or not he should speak. I would be very surprised to hear that he would decide——

Deputy Burke did not understand what I said. I was referring to the motion that the Chair has put about the order of the debate, not the motion that he has put.

I knew that. Is this agreed or not?

It is not agreed.

As I said, I am prepared to give time tomorrow evening to the Progressive Democrat speaker who is nominated.

Tonight.

I will give the time tomorrow evening but certainly not more than five minutes.

So we are to be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the Government's table.

It is Opposition time and we are giving it.

It is a waste of time so far.

It is not my fault. I like to co-operate as far as I can and I have done that any time I have been approached.

I accept that and that the Progressive Democrats will be allowed five minutes in the debate tomorrow night.

Could I suggest that you put a slot in for us?

I think something can be done. This motion which has been read out by the Minister of State is agreed on the understanding that the Government will make five minutes available to the Progressive Democrats tomorrow night.

I understand that included The Workers' Party.

I did something similar the other night for the other side of the House. The agreement as read out by the Minister of State is agreed to by the House with the addendum that the Government will make five minutes available to the Progressive Democrats tomorrow.

And Fianna Fáil will make five minutes available to The Workers' Party.

It is interesting to hear that the Progressive Democrats, who seem to be so interested in trying to avoid having a general election, are prepared to take crumbs from Government tables.

(Interruptions.)

He is going around Galway looking for votes.

Deputy Molloy has a problem. He cannot figure out whether he will get our transfers or not.

You are on a rocky horse now, Bobby.

(Interruptions.)

What is seldom is wonderful. He actually contributed.

We have not heard from him in the House for a long time.

I move:

That Dáil Éireann calls on the Minister for the Environment and the Government to rescind their directive giving city and county managers the power to fix local authority rents and to restore to local authority tenants representatives, the National Association of Tenants Organisations their right to negotiate a national uniform rents scheme on behalf of tenants.

The key element in the household budget of local authority tenants nationwide is the rent for their home. The amount paid is calculated in relation to their income in a system known as the differential rents varying as it does from individual circumstance to individual circumstance. Because of its importance in the overall context of the house hold budget it is vital that each tenant feels that he is paying a fair rent and not more than his neighbour in equivalent circumstances but who happens to be in a different local authority area. This is even more important because major changes are taking place in the whole social welfare scheme on 17 November next and these changes were torpedoed by the Progressive Democrats when we were trying to get them through this House.

The key to this fairness for the last 13 years has been a nationally negotiated and determined local authority rents scheme where all tenants nationally were treated equally and all could feel that the system was fair. This Minister for the Environment and this Government at the stroke of a pen on 14 August this year cast this vital element of fairness to one side all because of political cowardice. Quite simply this Government were not prepared to negotiate a fair rent review and handed over the task of increasing rents to the city and county managers.

I cannot over emphasise that the decision of the Minister and the Government which they are attempting to portray — and I have no doubt we will hear so again in this debate — is not a devolution of powers to local authorities but is a transfer of powers from the Government to city and county managers. The local authority members have absolutely no say in deciding on the rents to be charged to tenants. This Government have decided that it should be exclusively a matter for city and county managers and we in Fianna Fáil are calling for this decision to be rescinded and are asking for the support of all Members of the House. Power to make this decision is being handed over to city and county managers. No local authority member has any say, one way or the other, as to when or where or how and by how much this rent will be increased. It is a matter handed over by the Government to the city and county managers and we are asking that this be changed. I appeal in particular to the Labour Members, and even to the Progressive Democrat Members, who continually protest their concern for the tenants of local authority houses, to join with us in this motion and return to the national uniform rents scheme which was first introduced by the Labour Minister, the former Deputy Jimmy Tully, in 1973 when he was Minister for Local Government.

Even prior to 1973, the Minister of the day, Kevin Boland, gave recognition to the Central Council of Corporation Tenants. That council was the forerunner of the National Association of Tenants Organisations. Prior to 1967, the member of the Progressive Democrats who is at present in the House, Deputy Molloy, agreed with this decision. He too gave a form of recognition to the Central Council of Corporation Tenants.

Prior to 1973 local authority rent schemes were prepared by individual local authorities and were then submitted for approval to the then Minister for Local Government. This system proved to be so unfair and unjust, mainly due to its lack of uniformity, that tenants nationwide undertook a national rent strike throughout 1972. The National Coalition Government in 1973 — I think the Ceann Comhairle was a member of that Government — gave an undertaking that the National Association of Tenants' Organisations would be recognised as the negotiating body for local authority tenants and that there would be a nationally uniform rent scheme devised for local authority tenants. This scheme was negotiated and implemented.

In this area of local authority rents peace reigned throughout the 1973-77 National Coalition period and on Fianna Fáil's election to Government in 1977, we continued to operate the system of a national uniform rents scheme. Again and again in the Dáil and in correspondence with the National Association of Tenants' Organisations we, as a Government, confirmed the position of that body and of the need for a national uniform rents scheme. This was confirmed in discussion of Private Members' Motions by the then Minister of State, Deputy John O'Leary and prior to 1977 by Deputy Faulkner who was our spokesman on the environment.

Interestingly enough, even the present Minister for the Environment, Deputy John Boland, in June 1981 when he was spokesman on the environment for the Fine Gael Party and prior to the 1981 general election, confirmed that Fine Gael in Government would continue to recognise the negotiating position of the National Association of Tenants' Organisations. This particular commitment, like so many others — water buses down the Liffey, £9.60 for the housewives each Monday morning by post — has now been casually and cynically reneged upon.

The recent history in this area is that the last national scheme of local authority rents expired in 1984 and since that time there has been no revised rents scheme. It is important to emphasise that this, of course, did not mean that tenants were not paying higher rents during that period or that there had been a rent freeze. The tenants were paying higher rents and there was no rent freeze as the existing differential rents scheme was operating and tenants were paying according to their means.

Around July/August 1984 the Government, admittedly with a different Minister for the Environment, made a decision to revise the rents scheme which would include overtime, shift allowances and bonuses which up to that time were not included for rent assessment purposes. This drastic change which was intended to increase the income from local authority rents by approximately 20 per cent became public knowledge. I raised the matter in the Dáil on a number of occasions and the Government never actually confirmed or denied that such a decision had been made. However, around December 1984 the Government changed their position slightly. The Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Brien, entered into negotiations with the National Association of Tenants' Organisations in January 1985 and put forward the revised Government proposals. The representatives of the National Association of Tenants' Organisations rejected the Government's proposals — accept this or else — and contact was broken. Of course, with local elections coming in June 1985 the Government took no further action with regard to the local authority rent review and no further action was taken on the matter until the summer of 1986.

It is interesting to note that at that time we had a Labour Minister for the Environment. He backed off from making any decision with regard to a rent review. Traditionally, the review of the local authority rents went hand in hand with the review of the tenant purchase scheme for local authority houses and as there had been no rent review for the period from 1984 neither was there a tenant purchase scheme in operation, which was causing major difficulties for tenants around the country. For example, tenants in the Tallaght area took advantage of the £5,000 grant scheme and were moving out of houses they would otherwise have bought. As a result of that decision there is chaos in West Tallaght where up to 75 per cent of the people are unemployed. These are not my words, they are the words of the clergy operating in the area.

Local authorities around the country were calling for a revised purchase scheme and eventually in July this year the Minister made the decision to introduce a scheme. This of course meant that we now had an anomalous situation of a revised purchase scheme but no revised rent scheme and the Government took the cowardly and dishonest approach of handing what should have been their decision to the city and county managers to act as their "hatchet men". I say cowardly because the Government were feeling bruised from their many electoral and other defeats — local elections, by-elections and referenda — in both the economic and social areas and were unwilling to face up to their duty of negotiating and introducing a fair and equitable rent review. I emphasise the dishonesty of the decision because it was attempted to portray it as — and the press release announcing it actually read —"devolution of powers to local authorities." It was no such thing as devolution of powers; it was merely handing to city and county managers, paid officers, the task of doing the elected Government's job for them. The Government are doing nothing less than hiding behind the city and county managers. So much for the vaunted honesty and integrity of this Government. The meanness of the decision, of course, is seen by the fact that there was no question of the Minister or the Government bringing in the National Association of Tenants' Organisations and explaining to them their proposals. It was done by Government press release which seems to be a preferred format of this Administration.

This new rents situation has already created and will further create major anomalies with some tenants paying higher rents than others in similar circumstances in different areas. For example, in Cork the manager is increasing the rents by a 20 per cent margin while in Dublin the figure is 18 per cent and it varies from county to county and city to city across this land, no two tenants in two local authorities paying the same. This is exactly the type of situation that prevailed prior to 1973 and that resulted in the rent strike at that time and it has already brought forward a rent strike which is at present under way in 1986. Rent strikes by their very nature are to be abhorred. One tragic outcome of all rent strikes is that when the strike is over tenants find themselves with back rent to pay and in most cases without having made the necessary provisions by saving the money on a week-by-week basis. Inevitably, people going on the rent strike start with the best of intentions of putting the rent money aside every week. However, as time passes and domestic pressures of illness or school books or some other family need arise the rent money is raided, leading to the inevitable situation when the strike is over of no money being available to pay the arrears. This situation happens despite the best intentions of the organisers of the dispute or of the tenants themselves involved. It is just a sad reality.

I appeal to the Minister and to the Members of the House in particular the PDs and Labour Members to support this notice of motion so that at this early stage in the rent withholding strike that has started and is spreading nationally, the Government can pull back from the brink. I call on the Government to rescind their decision of 14 August and restore to local authority tenants representatives, the National Association of Tenants' Organisations, their right to negotiate a national uniform rents scheme on behalf of all the tenants of this country.

I support the motion which will have far-reaching consequences. The Government are handing the powers in relation to the rents on houses back to the county managers. The managers will decide on the level of rents having regard to the income that will come into a house, apparently including children's allowances. The Minister is vague in saying that managers may act according to how they view the position and can make special cases.

In parts of the midlands there is a rent strike and this could escalate to other parts of the country, creating serious problems for local authorities with regard to revenue. Pressure will also be put on the tenants when arrangements are worked out. It is obvious the Government were unable to reach agreement with the organisations negotiating on behalf of tenants. It is alleged the Government wished to increase rents by 18 per cent and to take into account all bonuses, overtime and allowances coming into a house. In many houses members of the family are on unemployment assistance which goes from £13 a week to £33 depending on the income of the house in question. Those on unemployment assistance are a burden to their parents. If that income is taken into account in deciding the rent it will have a further serious effect on the householder. The Government put the onus for rent increases on the local authorities to disguise their intentions just because Fianna Fáil won control of most local authorities in the June local elections. The Government wanted to put the blame on the elected councils, many of them Fianna Fáil councils. The Government will not get away with it.

The previous scheme negotiated by the Minister of the day was uniform throughout the country. The present decision may mean that rents will differ from county to county. How will that work? If the Minister and Government continue with the scheme they will meet with confrontation throughout the country. We should have a uniform scheme agreed by all the organisations, NATO, ACRA and others involved. The previous scheme seemed to have worked fairly well but this scheme will not work. It is clear to many that the Labour Party particularly were not prepared to wear the increases the Minister is proposing.

The transfer of powers to the manager means that he will bring proposals to the council although he is not under an obligation to do so. Many managers are now sending out rent review forms for completion which means that when they are returned they can assess the rent whatever way they like. Although councillors represent the people they will have no say in the matter. We were told before the local elections last year that local authorities would have more powers. Has that happened? We merely get the dirty work and, as I warned earlier, so many county councils are controlled by Fianna Fáil that those members of the council will be blamed for increasing rents. The Minister is giving the managers statutory authority to set rents. Councils may oppose these rent increases — I presume many will — but the statutory powers are vested in the manager and he can overrule the councillors.

How many meetings did the Minister or the officials of his Department have with NATO or ACRA over the last two years? What proposals did they put forward? Did NATO or ACRA put forward any proposals? If rents are withheld throughout the country where will the revenue of the councils and corporations come from? Will their finances become depleted? I have no doubt that they will, which will put extra pressure on local authorities.

I do not advocate it but we are in for a winter of unrest in regard to rents of local authority houses. If the movement gathers momentum it will spread throughout the country and matters will become very serious as far as the finances of the authorities are concerned. In the end an agreement will have to be worked out between interested organisations. Guidelines differ from county to county which will also create a problem. There will also be a problem in regard to income. Everybody realises that those in local authority houses are put to the pin of their collar to make a living. However, if children's allowances and disability benefits are taken into account it will have a very serious effect because it is usually the parents who pay the rent and in some cases get very little money from children and relatives living with them. I realise that there is a hardship allowance but that was also the case under a former scheme and it did not work out successfully.

A rent dispute went on for months in my county and it took a long time to resolve. I should not like to see that happening again, not just in that county but in any other county because it would have very serious effects on the finances of councils.

I strongly recommend to the Minister that he reconsider the position in regard to this matter and agree to our motion.

I move amendment No. a.1:

To delete all the words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Dáil Éireann endorses the terms of the recent circular to local authorities devolving responsibility for rents of local authority houses and, in particular, the requirements that:

— the rent payable should be related to income and a smaller proportion of income should be required from low income households;

—allowance should be made for dependent children;

—a contribution towards rent should be required from subsidiary earners in the household; and

—provision should be included for the acceptance of a lower rent than that required under the terms of the scheme in exceptional cases where payment of the normal rent would give rise to hardship."

Local authority tenants are badly served by the negative and misleading terms of the Opposition's motion which they have tabled here and which they or their representatives have tabled at local authority meetings throughout the country in recent weeks. It represents political opportunism and dishonesty which can only be put down to an attempt to curry favour with those who are intent on stalling rent reviews for as long as possible and, from their point of view, indefinitely, and all costs will be borne by the taxpayers, ratepayers and local authorities.

It ill behoves an Opposition who purport to be ready and able to take on the mantle of government to encourage those who, for whatever motivation are endeavouring to minimise the income to local authorities, to disrupt the local authority system and the finances of the State. It seems they are extraordinary strange bedfellows for the Opposition to decide to lie with in this matter.

If the attitude of the Opposition is successful it can only have the effect of fomenting discontent in local authority housing estates, discontent between local authority tenants and tenant purchasers and their local authorities and, unfortunately, on the other side promoting hostile attitudes among the general public towards those who are local authority tenants. The effect of this type of campaign once again is to seek to promote social division, with people who are local authority tenants wondering why there should be a strike organised by tenants at particular rent levels and in this way. Consequently, those decent people living in local authority estates will have, if the Opposition's devious campaign is successful, turned upon them a certain amount of hostility from the rest of the community. That is regrettable. I would like to hope it is an effect which has not been thought of or thought out by the Opposition when they decided to embark on this irresponsible course. I counsel the Opposition to consider the sort of things they have been saying both at national and local level which can only have the effect of causing animosity and antipathy between the general public and local authority tenants.

If this motion, allied to the other remarks made, is to have the effect of fostering or strengthening local authority tenants who are withholding their rents it will in turn lead to hardship for many local authority tenants and their families. Those of us who have been in politics for a long time know that on other occasions when local authority rent strikes were organised, ultimately they resulted in enormous hardship on the tenants who participated in them, hardship which often extended over a number of years while they endeavoured to pay their arrears. The Opposition spokesman admitted that when pressures come upon people they are likely to spend the money they set aside to pay for the arrears of rent. Tenants are being encouraged into that position by irresponsible statements made by members of the Opposition throughout the country in recent months.

On a point of order, can the Minister clarify whether he was in favour of the Government decision which was taken? My understanding is that he opposed the decision——

That is not a point of order. Will the Minister continue.

One does not need to ask any member of the Opposition Front Bench the Opposition's stance on any subject because apparently in that party one voice speaks. There is no need for meetings. Therefore, there is no need to ask whether anyone on the opposite side of the House agrees or disagrees——

The Minister should answer the question.

While it is not a point of order, I want to make it quite clear——

If it is not a point of order, the Minister should not reflect on it.

I want to make it quite clear that this decision was taken by the Government and I fully concur with it.

Against the Minister's advice.

I fully concur with it and I am implementing it.

What has the Minister been doing for the past three years?

Deputy Wallace, please.

I am concerned that there have been recent calls made by a number of local authorities on their respective managers not to proceed with introducing new rent schemes. Those calls are not in the best interests of the housing authority or their tenants.

Má tá nótaí ag an Aire ba mhaith linn iad a fheiceáil.

Níl ráiteas scríobhtha agam. Níl ach nótaíagam. There is a duty and obligation upon local authorities to ensure that proper maintenance of their housing stock is carried out and that, to some extent at least, adequate resources are provided and generated in order to meet that need. It is up to each local authority to decide on the level of rents having regard to their local circumstances. In this respect it is fair to point out that the last general rent increase took place in October 1983. Surely, it is unreasonable to expect that there should be no revision of rents despite the fact there have been considerable increases in the incomes of tenants, both of those in employment and those in receipt of welfare payments? Yet, all local authority rents, except where the circumstances of the family change dramatically, are based on incomes of 1983 and in relation to welfare tenants, on incomes of 1982.

Why did the Minister not do something about it?

The vast majority of local authority tenants and tenant purchasers are realistic and responsible people who realise that providing and maintaining council houses is a costly business. They have more sense than those irresponsible people who have been exhorting them not to pay reasonable rent repayments towards the maintenance of their homes. I cannot envisage that any local authority would ever arrive at a rent scheme that would result in repayments that would burden tenants to a state where they were unable to afford their weekly rent repayments or to devise a rent scheme which was unreasonable in relation to the incomes of the tenants and their family circumstances. It was for that reason that when I sent the circular to the local authorities devolving to them the responsibility for rent schemes I pointed out four matters, which are provided for in the wording of the Government amendment. I pointed out to them that rents payable should be related to income and that a smaller proportion of income should be required from low income households. That is not the position that obtains at present. I pointed out that an allowance should be made for dependent children and that provision should be made for accepting a lower rent than might be required under the scheme in exceptional cases which were identified by the local authority, where paying even the normal rent would give rise to hardship.

Despite the campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation, for reasons of political expediency, advanced by the Opposition I must point out that as far as the Government are concerned there has not been any change in the status of NATO as the national representative body for local authority tenants.

They do not view it that way.

Discussions were held with that organisation regarding review of the existing rents scheme and the tenant purchase scheme. At a series of meetings with the Minister of State at my Department in 1985 NATO put forward certain views which were taken into account in the Government's decision to devolve responsibility for rents to the local councils. Those views are reflected in the tenor of the circular I sent to local authorities. The new sales scheme which I introduced gives to tenants the option of choosing the purchase price for their home either at market value or at the construction cost updated by a price index, whichever is the most favourable to the tenant, a provision which had been sought by NATO. That choice was included in the scheme I announced last July. The organisation made it clear that their major concern in regard to the sales scheme was that the upgrading of the cost price of the house by a factor often resulted in a house being offered to prospective tenant purchasers at a sum in excess of market value. The scheme I introduced met that point in full.

As far as rents are concerned NATO's proposals recognised that the graded scale of rents should take cognisance of the rate of inflation being adjusted accordingly. They also reaffirmed their commitment to rent being assessed on income, proposed minor adjustments in certain rent provisions and sought the retention of certain features of the existing scheme. Those views were taken into account in the guidelines for drawing up rent schemes which were issued to local authorities last August and of which, I suspect, many members of the House have had sight.

One of the difficulties that has arisen in recent years in relation to the operation of local authority rent schemes is that they were becoming increasingly regressive. The simple fact of the matter is that provisions in relation to maximum rents have benefited the higher paid tenants and placed a relatively greater burden on those dependent on social welfare and in low paid employment. I invite the House to look again at the wording of our amendment which is based on the circular issued to local authorities. I asked local authorities in that circular to redress that imbalance.

It is interesting to reflect on some of the figures. At the end of last year there were about 114,000 local authority tenants and the cost to local authorities of managing and maintaining their housing stock was £64 million. The contribution from rental income was £41.5 million or 64 per cent of the total. The balance, one-third of the cost of management and maintenance of council rented stock, has to come from the other resources of the local authorities. The average rent paid by council tenants in 1985 was just under £7 per week. Fixed rents on about 6,300 houses averaged £3.50 per week. The average weekly rent for a new house let for the first time in 1985 was £7.40 per week compared with a weekly cost of about £60 to the State for financing the provision of that new house in 1985. I must point out that when I refer to the "State" I am referring to taxpayers.

I appreciate that many tenants are wholly or mainly dependent on social welfare payments of one sort or another and I think it is right that their contribution should then be proportionately lower. It should be borne in mind that 100 per cent of the income of people on social welfare payments was taken into account under the old scheme for rent assessment purposes while those employed were able to exclude overtime payments, shift payments and what are called non-regular bonuses from their income before their rent was assessed. I regard that as an inequity. While the person on welfare had 100 per cent of his or her income assessed for the determination of rent, the person in employment quite often had sizeable amounts of income excluded before rent was assessed.

Recently my Department carried out a sample survey which showed that the average rent paid by tenants with incomes of between £150 and £200 per week was about £13.90. On the other hand, the average rent paid by tenants with incomes of between £200 to £250 per week was about £15.40, £1.50 more, although in certain cases their gross income could be £60 or £100 more. I should like to look at the level of rents a number of people pay. Up to 38 per cent of all tenants pay rents of under £3 per week; 20 per cent more pay rents of between £3 and £7 per week. That means that 58 per cent of all tenants have been paying rents of less than £7 per week. Tenants who pay rent of more than £30 per week number 129 out of the 114,000 tenants or .12 per cent of the total number of tenants in local authority rented housing. I could quote other figures but if Deputies wish to obtain them they are freely available. The vast bulk of local authority rented stock is rented to tenants at an extremely reasonable rent. The safeguards I set out in the circular issued to local authorities will ensure that in the future those who are in genuine hardship will be better treated than under the previous scheme.

I should like to refute categorically the idea put forward by the Opposition spokesman, and some tenant representatives, that in general rent levels have increased over the past three years in line with the income of tenants in that period. That is not so. The last general revision of the differential rents scheme was in October 1983 and rent levels were set then based on income levels at 6 June 1983 for employed tenants and on the social welfare rate that obtained in April 1982 for unemployed people. In fact, increases in income as a result of general increases in social welfare payments and wages in the interim have not been taken into account except for new tenants.

The only occasion when rents were revised in those cases was when there was a change in family circumstances such as, for example, a tenant becoming unemployed. The vast majority of tenants are still paying weekly rents which were set on income levels over three, and in some cases four, years ago. It has also been suggested, unfairly, by Opposition spokesmen that my Department were seeking increases of the order of 25 per cent. In fact, no direction or suggestion of any sort was made by me or my Department officials to local authorities regarding the type of income they ought to obtain from their rental schemes.

In deciding on revised rent levels I expect that housing authorities would have regard to their own maintenance and management expenses and to relevant local factors. We cannot continue to expect rent levels to remain static at a time when incomes of tenants are rising and, in turn, maintenance costs are rising. I am sure that the revised rents schemes being drawn up by the councils will be acceptable to the vast majority of tenants and I am certain that any reasonable council — I do not know of any that would be so irresponsible as to behave unreasonably in this regard — will seek to ensure that no question of hardship will arise for their tenants from the new rent levels.

The Minister is doing some Pontius Pilate act.

The Chair takes exception to that.

I have a suspicion that the Chair may find that particular phrase in the book of precedents.

This is a new one in this area.

I am pointing out to the Chair that the phrase used by the Deputy has been ruled out of order consistently as unparliamentary.

It has been ruled out of order.

Are you suggesting that I should rephrase it?

I should like to suggest instead that the Minister is at present adopting the attitude whereby he stands aside from the harsh increases of 18 per cent, 20 per cent and more which he is presiding over. In so doing he looks to me something like the gentleman who appeared in history a long time ago and who is well known to the Members of this House. I withdraw my earlier remark.

That is the most ungracious withdrawal I have heard in my time here.

(Interruptions.)

Would the Deputy go back and look after his tomatoes? The question of devolution to local authorities has been raised and this is a fundamental devolution. There should be no misrepresentation of the fact. Devolution does not necessarily always mean the transferral of functions carried out by central Government to be reserved functions of the local authorities. Devolution involves identifying certain functions, services and schemes which might better be administered locally and transferring them from central Government to the administration of local authorities. We know that the vast bulk of decisions at local authority level are executive rather than reserved decisions. Any reasonable county manager will discuss with his local authority the terms of any revised rent scheme before implementing it.

If the Opposition say there are unreasonable managers, let them name them here. Let them blame the county where the Opposition say the manager will act irresponsibly and unreasonably in devising and introducing a new rent scheme. We will wait with interest to hear that during the rest of today and tomorrow. When we introduced the £5,000 grant scheme we left the administration of it to the local authorities as an administrative function, not a reserved function. I do not understand why the Opposition have worked themselves into such a tizzy. They have pointed out that most local authorities are now controlled by members of the Opposition party. Good luck to them and long may they stay so busy that they do not pay sufficient attention to matters in this House. If the Opposition care to go back to the local authorities——

Where are the Minister's Labour Party colleagues tonight?

Deputy Woods, please cease interrupting. I expect more from you.

He is being very provocative.

You are provoking the Chair.

I can understand that when we mention the Labour Party. Not one member of the party is present, other than the occupant of the Chair.

Please refrain from interrupting.

If the members of the Opposition care to go back to the local authorities on which many of them serve and consult those of the managers whom they are not accusing of being unreasonable, they will discover that the question of transferring responsibility for rent schemes from central Government to the local authorities was suggested by the City and County Managers' Associations. They suggested that the administration of the schemes should be transferred back to the local authorities as an executive function.

I read in this morning's newspaper that in a certain instance the Commissioner of Valuation in the exercise of his statutory functions and the manager of the local authority involved, in the exercise of his statutory functions, sought to collect rates from certain ratepayers. As reported in this morning's newspapers, the elected members of the local authority involved passed motions calling on the manager not to collect those rates, although he pointed out to them that the motions were meaningless and that he was obliged to carry out his statutory functions. One can only wonder what the attitude of that local authority would have been had I transferred to the elected members the right to prepare rent schemes. Maybe they would have decided it was too difficult and too burdensome to collect rents at all, that it would be simpler to allow tenants to operate on a totally free basis within their houses. Instead, what I have done on behalf of the Government——

On a point of order, the resolution before the House makes no reference to the local authorities as such. It suggests that the Minister should take the power that he has continued to have since 1973. We want him to hold the same power that he had then.

The resolution now before the House is the amendment which talks about the devolution of rent schemes to——

To paid officials.

Perhaps the Deputy is suggesting that income could be saved by having these officials unpaid. What other sorts of officials are there in the local authority? This is a deliberate and concerted attempt by the Opposition to diminish the discretionary income of the local authorities, income which we believe they should generate in order to set against the cost of the maintenance and management of their housing stock. This cost is met at present only to the extent of two-thirds from rental income.

It is now a matter for the local authorities to introduce reasonable rent schemes which take account of the increase in income for both those in receipt of welfare payments since April 1982 and those in receipt of income from employment since 1983. I think the respective figures are in the order of 35 per cent for those in receipt of social welfare payments and an average of 24 per cent or 25 per cent for those in receipt of income payments. For those groups there has been no commensurate rent increase but in the same period the cost of maintaining and managing the local authority housing stock has increased by many millions.

Why does the Minister not initiate a review?

Deputy Burke, please.

Negotiations were conducted with NATO. Their views were heard and were fully taken into account. If negotiations, however, over a protracted period will not result in agreement, something has to be done in order to bring about a realistic situation.

Pass the buck.

The situation of NATO remains unchanged. The Government recognise them as a national body representing local authority tenants but in this case if they have particular views to offer on particular rent schemes I suggest that they should now take up those points with the individual local authorities.

With unelected managers.

I should like to refer the House to the contents of the Government's amendment and specifically to the provisions contained in it whereby those who are on low incomes should have a smaller proportion of their incomes deducted from them than in the case of those in receipt of incomes from employment. That provision should be built into new rent schemes to ensure that people who are in genuine hardship have lower rent required from them. I believe that the new schemes to be introduced will represent an improvement if they are allowed to work by the responsible members of local authorities.

We have no say in it.

I must bring the Minister back to reality. He is talking about the Opposition but his own performance tonight had to be seen to be believed. Fianna Fáil have no objection to rent increases; they never said they had. The Minister cannot prove at any time that we said that. We are concerned about his and his predecessors opting out of their responsibility for the last three years. It is they who have created the problem for local authorities. Devolution is being used by the Minister as an excuse for the situation, but we know otherwise. This motion is before the House tonight to prevent a rent strike. Obviously, the Minister is not listening to NATO and other organisations representing tenants. They have said that there will be a national rent strike. Has the Minister not heard that? Throughout the country, local authority tenants are paying different rents. Is that equitable or fair? The Minister is talking to members of the Opposition, not to the people outside whom his Government and himself have been fooling for the past three years with their policies, statements and public relations exercises. That will not work here tonight. I shall read again the motion, for the benefit of the Minister. It states:

That Dáil Éireann calls on the Minister for the Environment and the Government to rescind their directive giving City and County Managers the power to fix local authority rents and to restore to local authority tenants representatives, the National Association of Tenants Organisations, their right to negotiate a national uniform rents scheme on behalf of tenants.

That was a system which worked well up to 1983, until the Coalition Government failed in their duty to have rent increases on a yearly basis. I should also like to turn to the circular of 14 August 1983 to all local authorities from the Principal Officer of the Department of the Environment on behalf of the Minister stating:

I am directed by the Minister for the Environment to state that, as a further stage in the implementation of the Government's programme for devolution of a wider range of functions to local authorities, it has been decided that housing authorities shall henceforth be given the responsibility for making and amending rent schemes in respect of local authority dwellings.

In accordance with that decision, it is now the responsibility of individual housing authorities to revise the terms of the rent scheme set out in circular letter HRT 8/83 of 30 September, 1983 which continues in operation pending such revision. In revising a rent scheme for dwellings let otherwise than on a fixed rent, housing authorities should ensure that the new scheme follows the broad principles underlying the 1983 scheme in the following matters:

— the rent payable should be related to income and a smaller proportion of income should be required from low income households;

— allowances should be made for dependent children;

— a contribution towards rent should be required from subsidiary earners in the household; and

— provision should be included for the acceptance of a lower rent than that required under the terms of the scheme in exceptional cases where payment of the normal rent would give rise to hardship.

We are quite happy about that.

The circular letter continues further down:

New schemes should be drawn up so as to ensure that the overall rental income reflects adequately, insofar as it is practicable to do so, the management and maintenance costs of the estate of houses under your control. Such schemes may then be regarded as approved under article 64 (b) of the Housing Regulations, 1980.

Repairs to houses et cetera lost out over the last three years because of the failure of the Coalition Ministers. It is very clear that a major confrontation is ahead unless the Minister does something about it in the very near future. Local authority rents have been increased in certain areas and are about to be increased in other areas. There will certainly be a heated debate in this respect in the near future. The problems of local authorities will be very great indeed and the Minister must accept full responsibility here. Whether he likes it or not, the managers are now implementing a policy of endeavouring to get in one fell swoop rent increases which they should have been getting over the last three years.

We must also underline the reasons for problems with rent and why increases on the way will create difficulties for tenants of local authorities. Any problems which arise can be related to the lack of action by the Ministers and the Department over the past three years. At one time rents were determined locally by local authorities. This function was transferred to central Government and worked well. There were no serious problems involved. The authorities were prepared to act responsibly and things went well up to 1983. The National Tenants' Association and other bodies co-operated with the Department in coming to agreement. The normal procedure was to have the annual review of rents related to movements in income. Following discussions with the organisations representing tenants, a reasonable increase was agreed between the parties which was mutual and satisfactory and local authorities had no problem in implementation because there was consultation. The representatives of the tenants had been consulted and because of this there was wide acceptance of what was agreed. What has happened to this arrangement which was working so well? The Minister has not given an answer.

They stopped agreeing.

The Minister still has the responsibility.

Does the Minister expect people to agree when he is riding roughshod over them?

The Minister opted out of his responsibility. Just because agreement could not be found, he decided to pass over responsibility to the managers. Let him not talk about devolution. I have no power in this as a local representative. The managers decide and, irrespective of what I say, it is the management who have the final say.

The Minister referred to people advocating rent strikes. I speak for Cork and we appealed to all concerned not to have a national rent strike. Members of my party never advocated a rent strike in any part of the country. The Minister should withdraw that remark unless he can substantiate it.

We never said that and the Minister knows it.

The Government know the problems and they do nothing about them.

There has been no rent review since 1983. We know, as does the Minister, that local authority managers have been seeking rent increases but because of the failure of the Minister's Department there were no rent increases. The revenue of local authorities would be less depleted if there had been a rent increase over the last three years. This would certainly have cushioned the effects of the financial position of local authorities and this must come back again to the Minister's door. He is responsible and has failed the local authorities and the people. My colleague mentioned a figure of 20 per cent. Managers have already implemented rent increases in Cork of 200, 300 and 400 per cent. People may say that if a rent goes from £3 to £6 or £7 that is not so bad, but for anyone on social assistance that is a huge increase and that is happening. I do not know if the Minister is aware of that. That is the unacceptable situation in Cork. The Minister must accept responsibility for that.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 5 November 1986.

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