I was about to expound my views on the kind of housing policy, if any, of this Government. The Bill before us is a miscellaneous piece of legislation with no internal coherence other than the rectification of a few issues of administration and of law. I put it to the Minister that really what this House needs, when he is replying to this debate — I am assuming that the Minister of State present will be replying — is an indication of what is Government housing policy. Some of the problems to which he referred — for example, the large numbers of vacancies for local authority housing in some suburban estates—have arisen because of the absence of any coherent housing policy.
Effectively the Government have dismantled the entire support system of housing assistance, financial and otherwise, which was intact when they assumed office. In addition, the Department of the Environment have a number of Bills either on the Order Paper or promised by the Minister, all of which would constitute components of a housing policy. Yet there is no coherent framework within which any of the provisions of this legislation could be operated. I might draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Building Control Bill is still at Committee Stage. Its provisions determine the standards of construction, not just of housing, but of all buildings in this State and have major cost and energy saving implications for the building industry in the private and public sectors. Yet there is no coherent framework within which the administration and control of building standards can be guaranteed. Likewise, there is proposed legislation on the question of multi-storey dwellings — which arose out of the failure to adhere to such standards in a particular block of housing accommodation. That too is on the Order Paper with no indication of when it is likely to be taken.
The Government have repeatedly promised legislation in relation to the liberalisation of the operations of the building societies, which is clearly behind schedule at present. Indeed, this morning on the Order of Business the Minister for Finance, on behalf of the Government, indicated that the relevant legislation was unlikely to be ready before late in the autumn session. The Minister for the Environment has promised legislation in relation to planning, derelict sites and compensation, all of which impinge on the effectiveness of a housing policy. It is not that we are putting the cart before the horse. It is that we are trying to catch the horse and rein it into the cart without really knowing what we are at.
I am sorry to have to report to the House that clearly there is a lack of central management and coherence, at the political level, within the Department of the Environment. I know from my experience that there is no lack of talent, ability or resources to enable the Minister to state, in replying, what is the Government's assessment of housing demand. One of the most recent publications in this area is a National Economic and Social Council Report entitled Housing Requirements and Population Change, 1981-1991. Some of the figures contained in that report have been superseded by events. Its author, Mr. John Blackwell, is probably one of the country's better known authorities on housing policy. There is a figure in his document, in relation to housing demand, that would suggest that, in terms of numbers — in order to maintain a balance between supply and effective demand in our society — we would need to be producing approximately 25,000 to 31,000 housing units per annum and that, over a fiveyear period, one could adjust for over-supply or under-supply. Because of the dismantlement of the previous Government's housing policy, supply this year is likely to be of the order of between 15,000 and 18,000 units. If that trend is maintained over the next couple of years — and all indications seem to suggest that that will be the case — then we shall have the housing crisis to which I referred earlier.
The final thing I should like to hear from the Minister, on behalf of the Government, at the end of this Second Stage debate is their analysis of what is the effective housing demand and, as a follow-up to that, their qualitative assessment of that demand because there has been a major demographic change in our society. There has been a change in the structure of family size. The average household size is continuing to drop. All the indications are that we will converge towards the northern European continental family size, which would be just under three persons per household. That has enormous implications for a local authority housing programme in most local authority areas, where the average unit of accommodation is a five-roomed, three-bedroomed dwelling. If we are looking at housing stock presumed to last at least 50 to 70 years — with households continuing to decline in size to the 3.2 or 3.5 figure — then we must question whether this is the type of dwelling we should be supplying. If not, we should be examining alternative ways in which housing policy should be structured, visá-vis local authorities and by way of inducement to the private sector, to ensure there is a match between household size and demand.
These are all matters that impact very much on the business of this House because of the massive amounts of taxpayers' money that goes into the housing market. In this year, for example, £50 million of taxpayers' money will be spent by local authorities on capital supply construction. There are, in addition, the various grants available from the Department of the Environment for first-time house purchasers and the effective massive subsidisation of house mortgages by way of income tax relief constituting a major investment of taxpayers' money into housing supply. It is clear, following on a 17 to 18 year period — in which we have rebuilt 40 per cent of our housing stock — there is need for a qualitative assessment and projection on the part of the Department of the Environment of the kind of housing supply now required.
In carrying out that assessment we need to examine the question of obsolescence. On previous occasions in this House I have referred to a book produced by Patrick and Maura Shaffrey on the Irish town, which was the first book of its kind to analyse the nature of Irish towns and their structure; from memory I would say the book is about ten years old. Indeed, it accurately predicted at the time — because much of what they predicted has proven to be the case — that the core of many Irish towns, by the end of this century, if not by the middle of the next decade, will be seriously at risk because of their age. Because of threatened obsolescence much of the residential accommodations used traditionally above shops and retail units on the streets of Irish towns is no longer so used because it was found not to be suitable for the type of family accommodation needed in the sixties and seventies. We will have obsolescence problems in our building stock and in our housing stock, particularly in local authority flats in this city many of which were built before 1940. There is not an adequate policy in the Department of the Environment to deal with obsolescence and the cost benefit of specific programmes to rejuvenate certain areas where houses will become obsolete and come out of the housing stock altogether.
We clearly need a housing policy in the form of a White Paper. It is quite some time since we had a White Paper and an integrated policy approach which would look beyond three to five years. While the previous Government had a very comprehensive package of financial supports most of which were remarkably successful, they have been removed and nothing has been put in their place. A White Paper on housing should not necessarily be confined to houses, it should cover urbanisation because a lot of the problems in relation to ghettoes and vacant properties in large housing estates are really the result of a mismatch between a housing policy on the one hand and the absence of a policy of urban expansion on the other. A paradox in this situation is that Dublin Corporation can have on the outskirts of Dublin properties which are vacant and boarded up when there are 3,900 people on the Dublin Corporation waiting list. This is because the housing policy of Dublin Corporation confused the provision of shelter with the provision of homes. The houses of good standard are located in areas where people choose not to live for a variety of reasons. We need a White Paper on urbanisation to look at the question of housing and small housing estates in built-up areas where facilities such as shops, schools and churches already exist. All of the things that impede a local authority from assembling small compact sites for them or for the private sector to build on need to be looked at, things such as compensation, planning and derelict sites and so on. Neither the private sector nor the voluntary housing associations can get into action because of the absence of a clear framework.
On Second Stage of the Housing Bill which is regarded as a major social measure, the absence in the opening speech of the Minister of State, of any reference to these factors and to the overall scale of housing demand is worrying. I invite the Minister to take an opportunity during the next week to respond to these matters so that we can get some indication of the Government's thinking in this area.
When there was no housing policy right through the sixties and early seventies there was a major housing crisis. The panic reaction measures in response to that crisis when it eventually broke into the public perception and on to the political agenda was to produce inappropriate housing solutions which are now costly monuments to that failure to plan so as to enable a steady stream of capital investment to gear up the building industry in such a way that it was capable of systematically and continuously supplying the kind of housing that was required in the locations where it was required. All the signs of the abandonment of a coherent approach to housing are implicit in the actions of this Administration today. It is at their peril that they ignore the advice in this House coming from people with experience on local authorities. It is at their peril that they ignore the signs coming confidentially from the local authorities around the country in their direct correspondence with the Department of the Environment.
We should look at the whole question of how we use existing building stock to meet housing demands. Are the Ministers present aware that one of the reasons why large sections of the centre of Dublin and other larger cities are required to remain empty, above the level of the retail shop, is because of insurance? The secret planning agent of Dublin city has become the fire officer and the insurance company. In order for retailers to qualify for the appropriate insurance associated with the operation of their business they are required to have the top of their property vacant although this sort of property would be ideal for single people or for two adult households which are an increasing factor in housing demands. Single people under the age of 50 simply do not qualify for housing assistance from the local authority unless they have serious medical or social problems. Increasingly more and more single people, because of the economic recession we have had for eight or nine years, do not have the prospect of employment and therefore they cannot get housing for themselves. These people are being made homeless. There are literally thousands of empty rooms throughout the city because of fire and insurance requirements. These factors do not seem to apply in other European cities. I do not suggest that our insurance standards are more strenuous than standards in Amsterdam or Rome or that the fire officers in these cities are less dutiful in protecting the safety of citizens than the fire department in Dublin city, but we have a growing demand for accommodation in the city centre for single and two adult households in areas where transport and access to a wide range of services is not a problem and yet people cannot get accommodation in these buildings.
The old argument about the problems that landlords have in not being able to charge an economic rent do not apply, because this market is totally unregulated with regard to price. There is no intervention by the State in relation to the type of rents that can be charged and yet we have this paradox of empty rooms and homeless single people. I invite the Department to seriously analyse this problem.
The Minister of State in his opening speech referred to encouraging managers to involve tenants more in the management of the local authority estates to understand the problems of the good management of a housing estate. The Department could start with themselves. Perhaps an exchange of personnel between local and central government would be very salutary. A number of senior officials in the Department of the Environment could go for six months to Dublin Corporation or Dublin County Council to learn the real problems of trying to manage a housing stock at first hand, particularly the problem of managing a housing stock where the allocation for maintenance has been significantly reduced. Local authority officials should go to central government in the Department of the Environment to see the broader view so as not to be locked into their own narrow experience.
As you are well aware, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, from your own experience on Dublin Corporation the reality is that most of the officials had no previous or other work experience. They went into the corporation at school leaving age or after leaving third level college and have remained in that job all their lives. The learning process for both sides would be an invaluable one and one that could easily be encouraged particularly in the Dublin area where there are three housing authorities — Dún Laoghaire, Dublin city and Dublin county.
We are not managing the existing housing stock as well as we should. It is quite clear that irrespective of what Administration will be in office, the constraints on the financial resources to the Minister and to the Department of the Environment will remain for some time. Thus it behoves us to have a more effective and efficient system of administration of the existing housing stock. This Bill suggests, in some ways, that the manager will be in a position to freely intervene in certain areas to do certain things. There should be a far greater degree of understanding and knowledge between central and local government in this area.
I should now like to turn to the question of homeless persons. The origin of this Bill was the Bill prepared by Senator Brendan Ryan and presented to the Seanad in 1983. It was known then as the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill, 1983 and it was substantially modelled on the British equivalent, the Homeless Persons Bill, 1977. It grew out of the experience of the Simon Community, one of the most successful and active modern housing charities we have seen here. Senator Ryan said in his opening speech on Second Stage on 9 November 1983, Official Report, Volume 102, column 409:
This Bill is not introduced lightly. Those who support me have conducted what could legitimately described as years of research, consultation and discussion with many groups, such as the Department of the Environment, many voluntary groups, groups overseas, statutory agents overseas, etc.
He then proceeded to go through the experience of the Simon Community in dealing with the problem of the homeless.
The first difficulty we have today, five years on, is that we still do not have a satisfactory and acceptable estimate in statistical terms of the numbers of people who are homeless. The definition of a homeless person as used by Dublin Corporation in housing people who are deemed to be homeless is a very loose one. Dublin Corporation would be the first to admit it is something of a catch-all definition rather than one that would coincide with either of the definitions that have surfaced in the various versions of this Bill.
This Bill before us, certainly the section on homelessness, totally derives its origin from Senator Brendan Ryan's Bill. A political commitment was rightly given to write into the law of this Republic the right to shelter for every citizen. Fears were expressed in writing such a right into our laws, understandable fears but not sufficient to justify us backing away from writing in that right. The time has come when this Republic is capable of making that right a legal entitlement, giving to every citizen the right in law to compel a local authority to provide him with shelter.
We will have increasing numbers of single people and single parents with one child who, through no fault of their own, or perhaps in some cases compounded by their own inability to cope or their own difficulties — but not necessarily wilfully or knowingly — find themselves in a position, particularly in the present economic climate, where they simply cannot get housed and where they cannot, through their own efforts, house themselves. There are very few people in this House who actually house themselves through their own efforts. All of us depend, to some degree, on State support; through income tax relief on our mortgage, through home improvement grants, when they existed and through the first-time purchaser grant, and if one is not directly buying one's own house, through the local authority subsidised differential rent scheme.
There are very few people in our State who do not receive some form of assistance enabling them to house themselves. The people who support the Homeless Persons Bill and who support the right to shelter are looking for a logical extension of that right to every citizen in this Republic so that they can claim shelter. I do not think it is unreasonable or too idealistic an objective for us to seek at this stage. I believe our society has the resources to do it. The provisions in the 1985 Bill had sufficient safeguards. Obviously in any legislation there could be amendments that could improve the Bill. Nobody for one moment in this House — and certainly not the people present in this Chamber who have experience of law-making over many years and of administration — would suggest that legislation cannot be improved.
What is at issue here is whether local authorities "shall" provide accommodation or "may" provide accommodation. I am very much in favour of inserting the word "shall". I believe local authorities can respond to that legal obligation, not necessarily directly. The Bill never envisaged that they would do it exclusively and directly. The present Bill, and the previous Bill, made provision to enable the local authority to seek the assistance of voluntary associations such as Simon in meeting their obligations to provide what should be a fundamental human right in this Republic.
There is sufficient room in the entire building stock of this nation which has been substantially renovated and renewed over the past 20 years to enable us to supply the accommodation in one shape, size or form which would deliver the reality of shelter for people. I want to be quite clear about what I am describing. Fears have been expressed by people that an obligation on a local authority such as is legally implied with the use of the word "shall", would make chaos and nonsense of an orderly system of letting priorities in that the person who was homeless — we will leave aside for the moment the question of persons who are deliberately homeless — would, effectively, queue jump people who had been waiting on the housing list for a long time, who had accumulated points and who, perhaps wanted to be housed in a certain area or locality.
The delivery of the right to shelter to a person seeking it on the one hand and the provision of a home for a family on the housing list in a particular area on the other hand are not necessarily in conflict. They do not have to be in conflict. At present the local authority, to some extent, are obliged to offer housing accommodation to a person who is made homeless. Like myself, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has had the experience of people who found themselves homeless following a private eviction case or something else, who went to their local representatives and were told the only accommodation which Dublin Corporation could offer was such and such a place. If that person refuses that accommodation, and we have had the experience where they have refused — and that is their entitlement as free citizens in this Republic — then the corporation, the housing authority, are no longer under an obligation because they have complied with their part of the bargain under law in offering accommodation where a person is homeless. The person has chosen not to accept that particular form of accommodation. If the fear behind the inclusion of the word "shall" is based on the assessment that people using this right will force the corporation to give them prime accommodation, in prime locations, ahead of people who have been on the waiting list for many years, then that fear can be assuaged or eliminated.
It can be eliminated because we can write the scheme of letting priorities in such a way as to meet the obligations and responsibilities of providing basic shelter for people on the one hand with a multilevelled housing policy and a system of letting priorities on the other. There is no unnecessary conflict and we have the resources and capability to make this a fundamental human right.
I say, in no partisan way, that I am saddened that the caution and conservatism inherent in any organisation, no less than is to be found in a large bureaucracy, no doubt prompted by worries on the finance side, has enabled the Minister to seek cover and remove this obligation. We are going backwards. The 1985 Bill was on the Minister's desk when he came into office and the changes in it are minor really in many aspects. I appreciate there are queues in the legislative pecking order and limits to floor time, but the year's delay in the publication of this Bill effectively is an indication of the sort of arguments that went on and the fact that there has now been a retreat from the delivery of the basic right to shelter to a wishy washy kind of thing with which all people directly involved in the area are unhappy. I am not going to read copiously into the record of this House at this stage all the representations and various submissions made by the voluntary bodies, but the Minister is no doubt aware of the real concerns expressed by those who are in the front line of dealing with these people, with the numbers of homeless who come to them.
Senator Brendan Ryan in his Second Stage speech moving his Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill, 1983 went to considerable lengths in describing the conditions of the homeless of this State in the period 1981-83, the run-up to the introduction of his Bill. It makes horrifying reading and should be read by everybody in this Chamber. For the vast majority of us there has never been a ]night in our lives when we did not know where we were going to end up sleeping. We knew that wherever it was we were going to be, it would be comfortable and clean and there would be running water and all the facilities we take absolutely for granted. On the few occasions any of us have found ourselves in total uncertainty as to where we might be or not be — I am not talking about youngsters hiking or on holidays or having a good time, I am talking about not being able to get shelter for the night and, more to the point, not being able to get shelter for oneself and whoever one's dependants are — it was a frightening, scarifying experience. This is the daily reality of the homeless in this city today. They do not need to be homeless because there is accommodation for them and there could be more accommodation for them.
As Senator Brendan Ryan said in the same speech, in many cases because we see a number of homeless people who are drunk and suffer clearly from alcoholism we presume they are homeless because they are drunk, when detailed studies done by the Simon Community and others indicate clearly they are drunk because they are homeless. If you have to sleep rough and to rough it through the night, particularly on cold winter nights, the only thing that will take you through the night with some degree of amelioration is a quantity of alcohol with all the consequential side effects. Case studies by social workers with the Simon Community and other such bodies refer to the reliance homeless people have on alcohol as some kind of amelioration comfort to enable them to ward off the cold and put themselves into some degree of semi-oblivion until sunrise starts another day and they start to tramp and traipse around the city.
The downward spiral of degeneration commences with that deprivation of the regularity of a roof over your head. We are not talking about the Ritz, the Gresham or the Berkeley Court, but about the surety of knowing that at the end of the day there is available a room, a roof, a bed, some degree of physical comfort known as shelter. Until this Republic can make that a basic right, citizens of this State each night will face the horror of not having anywhere to be, not knowing where they are going to be and having recourse to the miserable comforts of cheap alcohol with all the consequential damage it does to them.
Other damages come as well and they are documented in all the studies and documentation that has been submitted to the Department of the Environment. There are the sicknesses and illnesses that come from lack of regular hygiene, the skin abrasions and sores that come from wearing clothes that are not properly washed, get damp and stay on the back of the homeless person. While the person shelters in a church, a park or some public building like a library, the damp clothes become a threat to the very health of the person who is homeless and the vicious, downward spiral of degradation and denial continues until the people become incapable of trying to house themselves adequately. They become demoralised in trying to do something for themselves. They become further and further dependent. They become vulnerable then to all the problems associated with that kind of half survival. Vulnerability to petty crime, prostitution, abuse of one kind or another, all stem from the basic condition of homelessness and lack of regularity of shelter to which they can retire at night and within which they feel secure. That is the core of what the Simon Community wanted to have redressed in their Bill which was sponsored by Senator Brendan Ryan. That is the core of what the Labour Party want to have redressed and believe would have been redressed in the 1985 Bill.
It can be redressed without unleashing the fears of reactions that are felt by some people in this House in relation to what would happen to — for want of a better word — the legitimate housing list. Perhaps one of the reasons for the retreat from the 1985 position by the present Minister is that he is well aware that, while local authorities in the last three or four years were capable of providing shelter for many people who would have been classified as homeless, they will not be able to do so in the next two or three years because of the rapid take up of vacant accommodation on the one hand and the increasing length of the queue of local authority applicants for orthodox housing. I use the word "orthodox" in the sense of people who are not homeless as such, but are in shared accommodation and trying to establish a household of their own.
Perhaps the Minister has been well advised by his officials and knows very well that a famine of shelter is about to stalk this land. There will be a great scarcity of low cost local authority accommodation and people on the orthodox waiting lists of local authorities will themselves have to wait long months if not years to get satisfactory accommodation and, therefore, opening that list to provide for people who are homeless and giving them some kind of right to shelter would compound a problem which is already beginning to get worse rather rapidly. That might be in part an explanation for the retreat from the 1985 position where people would have had the basic right to shelter. The Minister can answer that as he so wishes, but some answer of substance is required.
The Labour Party intend to table amendments to sections 2 and 10 on the question of obligations and rights. On Committee Stage we will deal with the difficulties perceived by those who are opposed to that right. I hope we will be able to convince those Members of the correctness and courage of the course we are adopting. I should like to assure those Members that their fears are unjustified. I do not believe that any Members would deny a person the right to shelter. I think the Minister, if he was in a position to do so, would want to give to citizens the basic right to shelter. In my view the Minister has been advised by people who are very cautious. They foresee problems that I do not think will arise and if they do they will not be in the form or of such a size that will totally dislodge the housing programme.
As a matter of courtesy I am putting the Government on notice that we intend to introduce amendments on Committee Stage and they have an opportunity to marshal their arguments against my proposals. I hope we will have a constructive and informed debate on the issue. Most Members are also members of local authorities and they have practical knowledge of the administrative difficulties in relation to housing. At their clinics they have encountered all the people who have tried to manipulate the system to the best of their ability, including their guile, to maximise their chance of being housed.
I do not think the Ceann Comhairle was in the Chair this morning when Deputy Keating was dealing with the question of abuse. He got into the position of abusing his former colleague and former Minister, Deputy Boland, who in turn started to abuse him.
