Deputy Dick Spring is sharing the time of Deputy Ferris and others. The Deputy has ten minutes.
Private Members' Business. - Local Authority Housing: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Deputy Shatter on 13 March 1990:
That Dáil Éireann deplores the emergence over the last three years of a housing crisis which is rapidly becoming more acute; deplores the Government policies which have brought this about; and calls for urgent Government action to alleviate the crisis which affects every city and county in the State.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"welcomes the strong reversal in 1989 of the eight year decline in new house completions, the bringing into force of the Housing Act, 1988, the success of the other Government initiatives in the housing area and the increased resources made available for local authority and voluntary housing and for the homeless in 1990; and urges the Government to keep housing policies under review."
—(Minister for the Environment).
With the permission of the House I would like to share my time with Deputy Howlin.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I am glad to have the opportunity of contributing, albeit very briefly, to this motion on the housing crisis. I must say I do not do so with any great degree of optimism having read the Minister for the Environment's statement in this morning's papers. Unfortunately this statement would seem to indicate that anything which has been said by the Opposition parties in this House during the course of the debate on this Private Members' motion will be to no avail whatsoever. The Minister for the Environment seems to be turning a deaf ear to the concerns and suggestions which are being made by Members on this side of the House in regard to the very serious problem in the area of local authority public housing.
It never fails to amaze me how the Minister for the Environment has stood over the neglect in regard to the public capital programme and local authority starts and completions since he became Minister. The Minister for the Environment seemed to take pride in the fact that perhaps 1,250 houses will be completed this year. The Minister does not seem to realise that this will go nowhere near satisfying the crisis which exists in every local authority area. The waiting lists are growing on a daily basis yet the Minister seems happy to gallivant around the country without taking any notice of the urgency of the problem.
About 12 months ago the Minister requested all the local authorities to make out new housing lists. The local authorities were instructed to go into new and serious detail in these lists which they had not been asked for before in order to ensure that the housing lists available were genuine and nobody was on them who might be capable of housing themselves. To the best of my knowledge each local authority compiled with the request from the Minister for the Environment and the staff in the local authorities went about their work in the hope that what they were doing would be of assistance to the Department of the Environment and, in particular, to the Minister for the Environment when he was making the case at Cabinet to satisfy the demand which exists at present. Unfortunately it seems the Minister for the Environment either did not carry the brief to the Cabinet table or did not have the interest to carry the brief to the Cabinet table because yet again he has provided a miserable amount of money to build houses in 1990. As Minister for the Environment he is overseeing the most deplorable effort — if one could call it an effort — to satisfy the requirements of people who are not capable of housing themselves.
Some years ago it was said that there were empty apartments and houses in various parts of Dublin city. It would appear that this situation has now changed and the waiting lists in the Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire Corporation areas are building up. The lists are building up daily throughout the country. It is not good enough to say that these lists are artificial because of the work that has been done in the past 12 months. I know from my experience as a member of Kerry County Council that their lists were prepared with great diligence. The staff took pride in going through the lists and interviewing every applicant to ensure that the housing lists now drawn up consist only of people who are in need of housing and who require the Department of the Environment and the local authorities to provide housing for them.
Unfortunately the pleas from the local authorities are falling on deaf ears. The Minister for the Environment would want to come to his senses very quickly and realise he is now sowing the seeds of a crisis in relation to housing. If he continues with what he is doing at present it will be too late to do anything in three years time because the problem will be so grave that it will be impossible to catch up with it within a four to five year period. If the Minister takes action now there is some possibility that he will be able to deal with the situation. I urge the Minister for the Environment to listen to what is being said by reasonable people on this side of the House and to take note that he will be faced with a serious housing crisis. Now is the time for him to take action.
I am grateful to my colleague for allowing me a few minutes to put two points in relation to this most important subject on the record of the House.
I regard it as the prime responsibility of a Minister for the Environment to shelter the people of the country. I think that has been the view of successive Ministers for the Environment since the foundation of the State. A roof over one's head has always been an important part of the Irish psyche and an important need. This Minister has failed in his obligation to meet that responsibility placed on him. Local authority members have always felt that their prime and first duty was to act as a housing committee. They have been robbed of the opportunity to properly serve the people who put them into local authorities because of a lack of resources in the past three years.
I want to focus in on one list. The dire situation which exists throughout the country was spelt out in detail by other Members last night and will be spelt out again in further contributions tonight. I want to focus on one element of the housing crisis which exists, that is, the crisis which exists for those who applied for non-family type accommodation. It is primarily the elderly who have sought such accommodation and who are now waiting on housing lists. I want to concentrate on the situation in my town of Wexford which is very well known to the Minister of State who has visited it many times in recent years.
Under the requirement of his Department Wexford Corporation submitted the housing list for non-family type applications to the Minister. One hundred and fourteen people on that list are seeking non-family type housing in the town of Wexford. These include elderly people who have no prospect whatsoever of being housed because the Government have not built enough family-type houses or flats for the past three years. Nobody has been housed or even put on a priority list since 1987 and the people on the 1987 list present themselves at politicians clinics asking for any news about the prospect of alleviating their dire situation. I want to say to the Minister that nothing is more harrowing, so frustrating and hurtful for elderly people who have served this State all their lives than to have to present themselves at clinics begging for shelter. It is very hurtful to see them looking at the obituary lists to see if an elderly person in a housing estate or local authority housing has died. They then come to me and my colleagues on Wexford Corporation asking if there is any prospect, now that so-and-so is dead, that they might have moved up a notch or two on the housing list. Many on that list have gone to their reward year after year.
If the Minister does nothing else as a result of this debate I plead with him to look at the housing lists of people who are seeking non-family type accommodation and at the requirements of the elderly. Even if the Minister ignores those people whose situation has been described as dire and who have no prospect of purchasing their own houses because mortgage rates, interest rates and house prices are too high he should at least provide relief for the elderly. Younger people will live for many years and may overcome their difficulties but the aged in their twilight years need redress now.
I make this one plea to the Minister in the couple of minutes I have been given and hope it will not fall on deaf ears. Let me conclude by saying one thing — and it is not a quotation from me but from an independent member of Wexford Corporation who has written the definitive history of Wexford Corporation: "The present Minister for the Environment is the worst in the history of the State because of his record on housing". He has an opportunity now to redress that appalling record of neglect.
I would like to share my time with Deputies Dennehy and Flood if that is agreeable.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I am very pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to the debate on this motion and to refute a few allegations that have been thrown around by Opposition spokesmen. In particular I would like to talk about the progress we have made in recent years in local authority housing, in voluntary housing and generally in providing decent housing for the poorer sectors of our community.
Deputies are by now well aware of the changed circumstances of the local authority housing programme. By September 1989 waiting lists were down over one third to 19,400 with waiting periods almost halved compared to the position at the start of the decade. Indeed, if we were comparing like with like in regard to waiting lists the decline in the numbers would have been even greater.
In addition to the decline in the overall level of needs, the housing prospects of all applicants have improved in recent years and applicants who previously had little or no prospect of obtaining local authority accommodation are now being housed. Many applicants still on waiting lists have declined reasonable offers of accommodation and are waiting for accommodation in a particular location. Against this background of falling waiting lists it would have been wrong to maintain the local authority housing programme at the level of previous years. Building local authority houses that were not needed at the time would have been a total waste of taxpayers' money. As I said, at 30 September last some 19,400 approved applicants were seeking local authority housing. This represented a small increase on the 1988 figures but one cannot make a direct comparison because of the 1989 figures were compiled on a much more comprehensive basis as required by the Housing Act, 1988, and categories of need such as homeless persons must be included on the waiting lists.
The total capital available to local authorities this year for their housing programmes is £51 million and this is an increase of almost £13 million or 34 per cent on expenditure on the programme last year. Of this amount, £33 million will be available for the provision of additional houses. This represents an increase of over 50 per cent on last year's expenditure of £21.7 million and reverses the trend of previous years where the capital allocation provided to the programme was reduced each year since 1984.
This year the local authority housing programme will be financed from local authority capital receipts of £45 million — plus Exchequer grants amounting to £6 million. These internal capital receipts are largely made up from the sale of local authority housing because the first claim on these capital receipts should be the provision or improvement of local authority accommodation and not as in the past the provision of house purchase loans. There is a ready source of funding for these loans in the Housing Finance Agency. The new arrangements will not, of course, affect the low income house purchasers who must rely on local authority loans. Adequate funding for these loans will be available in 1990 and will be financed through the Housing Finance Agency instead of through the capital receipts of the housing authorities.
The great advantage of the new arrangements introduced in 1990 is that it has made it possible to increase the capital for the local authority housing programme by over one third without increasing Exchequer borrowing or taxation. This increase would have been very difficult to achieve if the entire burden was falling on the taxpayer.
In distributing the overall allocation of £51 million for local authority housing in 1990 it was necessary to ensure that the allocations to individual authorities reflected the actual identified needs. Since the capital receipts of local authorities did not correspond with these allocations it was necessary to redistribute some capital from those authorities that were in surplus to those that were short. The Exchequer road grants were used as the most convenient way by which these transfers could be effected. It will not affect actual expenditure on either roads or the local authority housing programme. Overall the sum involved in this swap is £3.8 million. I want to stress that this arrangement does not, as Deputy Shatter alleged last night, mean directing housing money to expenditure on roads.
Deputy Bradford referred to the need for individual rural cottages in many areas. In 1990 there has been an important change in the procedures governing the local authority housing programme. This year local authorities can decide themselves what houses to build within their overall allocation. If the local authority wish to concentrate on the provision of rural cottages I or my Department will not object. In any event, the Department's policy in recent years has been to discourage the provision of large scale estates and I know that Deputies and local authorities support this idea.
The rehousing of the tenants of Sheriff Street flats by Dublin Corporation was raised in this debate. Last May the corporation were asked to prepare an outline plan to provide for the rehousing of the tenants in the locality, and to the greatest extent possible within the parish of St. Laurence O'Toole, with the long-term and elderly tenants getting special consideration in this regard.
The plan is still awaited by the Department. The delays which have occurred in Dublin Corporation since the decision last May to rehouse the tenants are difficult to understand. When the matter came before the housing committee their decision was to set up another committee which is still considering the matter with little evidence of progress. I also understand that the housing committee decided that special funding should be provided exclusively for the rehousing of the Sheriff Street residents. This, in fact, is what the Minister has done in the 1990 allocation.
This year's housing capital allocation to the corporation set aside £1 million to enable the construction, and/or purchase, of 60 houses for rehousing the Sheriff Street tenants to commence. On the basis of performance to date, I am satisfied that the allocation will be sufficient to meet expenditure on the programme this year. It is not intended to meet the full cost of 60 houses as was suggested by Deputy Doyle. On a positive note, I understand that outline proposals for an initial development, in the parish of St. Laurence O' Toole, of 22 houses for senior citizens living in the flats complex will be submitted shortly. There will be no delay in considering any such proposal.
The first response of a housing authority to the needs of a homeless person is to provide accommodation directly. However, housing authorities now have power to arrange voluntary or private accommodation for homeless persons. My Department meet 80 per cent of the costs incurred by authorities in providing accommodation for homeless persons other than in the authorities own rented housing stock and the provision for these payments has been increased to £600,000 in 1990. As already indicated by the Minister in this debate, the operation of the arrangements to deal with the problem of homelessness will be reviewed this year. We have had the benefit of the experience gained to date by all concerned.
With regard to remedial and improvement works for local authority housing, the Deputies are no doubt aware of the many major schemes which are being undertaken by local authorities countrywide. Under the terms of the remedial works scheme, altogether to date some £47 million has been made available to local authorities. In 1989 £13.5 million was spent and a provision of £15 million has been made for this year. These allocations have allowed authorities to undertake a significant programme of work and the good effects are very obvious in the estates that are benefiting under the scheme. In 1990 local authorities will undertake remedial work in some 75 estates.
I notice that one of the Opposition amendments calls for the immediate sanction of all housing schemes in the Department. This is simply not on. It would lead to chaos and waste of funds as the entire programme would go out of control. It is necessary that regard be had to the relative priorities and the available resources in order that properly managed, cost-effective programmes are implemented.
The Government have greatly expanded their provision of voluntary housing particularly for categories such as elderly persons and the homeless. In 1987 only 150 units of accommodation were provided by voluntary housing organisations. Last year an additional 385 units of accommodation were provided by these organisations under the scheme of assistance operated by my Department. This year I expect some 500 more units of accommodation will be provided under this scheme. This is an enormous programme in a few short years and it has been possible only because this Government have been making generous capital assistance available to the voluntary organisations who provide housing mainly for homeless and elderly persons. In fact, the capital provided by the Government for the voluntary housing scheme has increased from £2 million in 1986 to over £9 million this year. That is a very big improvement and I think nobody can deny that.
In 1982 I set up the Task Force on Special Housing Aid for the Elderly. The task force include representatives of St. Vincent de Paul, ALONE, local authorities, the Departments of the Environment, Health and Social Welfare, and FÁS, and provide an emergency programme to improve the housing conditions of elderly persons living alone in unfit accommodation. A provision of £2 million has been made for the scheme this year. Under the scheme assistance is available for necessary repairs to make dwellings habitable for the lifetime of the occupant, repairs to chimneys and fireplaces, provision of water and sanitary facilities, provision of food storage facilities, etc., and all at no cost to the occupant of the dwelling. Since 1982 it is estimated that about 14,000 cases have been helped under this very worthwhile and effective scheme.
I want to make it clear at the outset that the administration of the 1989 tenant purchase scheme for the sale of flats is a matter for the individual local authorities and solely for them. Do not blame the Department of the Environment. They gave the scheme over to the local authorities, and Deputies should know that. Let them not blame the Minister or the Department of the Environment for that.
Fianna Fáil have a very proud record in regard to housing since 1932.
(Interruptions.)
Throughout the years we encouraged and assisted tenants to become home owners and young couples to buy or build their first-time houses. That has always been the aim of our party and the record stands for itself. The Labour Party when they decided to clear out of government ran away from the whole lot.
They left houses after them.
What about the PDs?
They deserted the ship. The policy of the Government now is to build up over the years a very good housing programme and to provide the money for it. It is all right for others to come in here and give me a lecture on providing the money, but nobody comes into this House and says where it is to come from. There are only two options if I want the money.
We listened to you for four years telling us there were loads of it around.
(Interruptions.)
That is a long way from the Tallaght strategy. There are only two ways in which I can find the additional capital now. One is to borrow. The other is taxation. I am not prepared to go down that road now, but in future years Fianna Fáil, under the Minister, Deputy Flynn, and myself, will look after the people as we have always done.
Do not upset the apple-cart.
(Interruptions.)
I welcome the opportunity to add a few sentences to what has been said. There has been a change in the housing situation in the past three years in that new emphasis has been placed on clearing up some of the existing problems that were there mainly in the area of refurbishment. I was disappointed last night to hear somebody here claiming this was purely for system-built houses and houses with felt roofs. It was not confined to these areas. I say to Deputy Howlin it is grand to come in here and make an emotive plea for the elderly and say how badly off they are and that a small number of them need housing. I tell him we have 548 houses in Cork City alone between 80 and 100 years old, all designated for the elderly and nearly all in atrocious condition because they were ignored by successive administrations up to two years ago.
We were told last night by Deputy Quinn not to hurl figures across the Chamber but this has happened again tonight. The money that has been used in just Cork city last year and this year would have built 240 new houses at a cost of £30,000 apiece.
There was a very deliberate and careful choice to diversify into refurbishment. As in Dublin, hundreds of flats and houses in Cork were locked up because people would not go into them. More important, there were people living in accommodation that could not be described as anything better than hovels in many cases. I thought the day of water and the toilet out in the yard for 70 year old and 80 year old people was gone, but it was not gone.
It is not gone now either.
These conditions were not existing in private accommodation, they were existing in public, State owned houses. This year Cork Corporation are spending £3 million on refurbishment and they spent practically the same last year. We were told not to hurl figures, but I was one of those who stood up in the City Council Chamber in Cork in 1986 to congratulate the then Minister of State, Deputy Toddy O'Sullivan, because we had been given £60,000 for refurbishment. That was 1986-87. I had the decency to stand up and congratulate him because it was a step in the right direction.
(Interruptions.)
Compare that with £3 million this year for refurbishing. I emphasise again the 548 houses for the elderly. We should not have waited until this year or last year to start work on them. All the other areas have been covered, but the important thing is the document referred to last night, the 1988 Housing Act. For the first time an honest approach has been taken to counting the persons who need housing. Section 9 of that Act allows local authorities to count people locked up in institutions because they could not get a house. That has been happening for the last 30 or 40 years and now people are counted and are on the list and we are no longer hiding from the real figure. We are now saying that we will count these people and we will also include the homeless who were not counted previously because they did not have a permanent address. We are now getting a proper figure on which we are willing to work.
A real live figure? Some live figure.
I disagree with the statement that the housing crisis is a time bomb; that is emotive language we can do without. A short time ago Deputy Spring said that for the first time we had an accurate figure in relation to housing. If people are worried about the record in relation to housing they should ask the construction federation about the changes which have taken place from 1986 to 1990. They will very speedily speak of the very excellent changes——
They find homes for the unemployed.
If the Deputy is interested in exchanging figures across the House I am quite willing to oblige. However, I do not really want to go into that. I am glad to be able to lend my support to this amendment.
What about your leader's conduct when he was on this side of the House?
Deputy Farrelly should cease interrupting. He may have an opportunity to speak later but there is a strict time limit attached to this debate and interruptions are disorderly.
It is very hard to listen to some of the Deputies.
If a Deputy does not wish to listen to a Member he has a remedy; there are many exits from this Chamber. I call Deputy Flood.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a short contribution to this very important debate which focuses on the whole question of local authority housing. We will continue to try to reduce the waiting lists which have been in existence for a very long time. Indeed, people have been on housing lists for eight, ten or 12 years.
Last night Deputy Shatter said that people had been on housing lists for 12 to 15 months and that is an improvement on the situation which pertained even eight years ago. It would be easy to deal with these lists if we were to go back to the housing policy which pertained during the years of the Coalition Government of 1982-87. It would be very easy to fund a local authority housing policy if we were to throw money at tenants in local authority houses to encourage them to leave those houses and to move into the private sector. That is what occurred in the years referred to by Deputy Shatter and it was not a genuine local authority housing policy because we are now picking up the casualties — and have been — for the last number of years. People were enticed from their local authority homes into the private sector, they took on substantial loans and mortgages and found it impossible to keep up the repayments. Those same people, in increasing numbers over the past couple of years, are coming back on local authority housing lists. It is not an answer or a way in which we can in future deal with waiting lists in so far as local authority housing is concerned.
A debate like this should challenge the reasons for elderly people coming on our housing list. Society should spell out the reasons for elderly people being, to some extent, driven from their own homes because of social conditions, not because of overcrowding or bad housing. They are being driven on to local authority housing lists in some cases because the old way in which families supported their elderly mother or father or relative in their own homes seems to have vanished. We should challenge that area and we should also challenge why very young single mothers are coming on the housing list. I take the view that those people should be given an opportunity to be accommodated within their own family and perhaps the local authority could provide some funding to enable an additional room to be built.
We should not expand our housing lists by having our senior citizens driven to it because of social conditions; the young unmarried mothers should not be driven to the list either by their own families because of some strange reason I do not understand. We must debate the issue in this House fully and rationally so that we can get down to the basis of what a genuine local authority housing list should be concerned with. The days of building huge local authority housing estates are over. The community which I represent do not want such developments any more. Certain parts of Dublin county were used by other local authorities to solve their housing problems by coming into the county, taking a huge tract of land, building substantial local authority housing estates but then failing to deliver on the infrastructural requirements needed in those developments. We have had experience of that in Dublin and I am sure the same situation applies round the country. None of us is suggesting that we should build those kind of estates any more.
Deputy Shatter referred to the housing policy of this Government. I wish to remind him that in 1989 the local authority, of which he is a member, had the option from the Minister to go into the marketplace and purchase houses. All the moneys available from the Minister for that purpose were not taken up during 1989 and the current report from the Minister refers to this fact. Dublin County Council failed to utilise all the moneys made available to them in 1989 for the purchase of houses in the private sector. That is a reflection on the local authority and I must remind Deputy Shatter that that is the case.
I do not want to see a return to a situation where applicants are driven into areas in which they do not want to reside. This is a very important — indeed crucial — part of housing policy. We can no longer build local authority houses in areas which are unacceptable to applicants. This issue caused a serious problem in Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation. We had a large number of houses lying empty while, at the same time, there were reasonably substantial waiting lists because applicants expressed an opinion as to where they wished to live and refused to accept an offer of a house in a different area within the same local authority. That puts into perspective the genuineness of the so-called waiting lists. We must challenge all these issues in determining what our local authority housing policy will be in the years ahead. Unless we resolve these difficulties then we will not plan the provision of local authority accommodation properly.
We cannot reduce waiting lists by encouraging people to own their own homes by moving into the private sector, as happened in the past. That is not an option because it has extremely destructive consequences for local authority areas. One need travel no further than my constituency of Dublin south-west to see where communities, comprised entirely of local authority housing, were completely and totally wrecked by a failed policy.
I hesitate to interrupt the Deputy but I must inform him that the time is now exhausted.
I would say to the Government that they have to critically examine the whole area of housing policy in the future and take stock of the housing that is available. I particularly welcome the Minister's decision in this regard and his notification to local authorities that they must carry out a complete re-evaluation of housing stock in their area, including the needs for the next four years, and make an immediate return to the Department of the Environment.
I must now call another speaker.
That is the correct approach and it is only in that way that we can deal with the lists we are discussing here tonight.
I wish to share my time, with the agreement of the House, with Deputies Sherlock, Rabbitte and Byrne.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
During the divorce referendum the present Minister for the Environment was very vocal about the need to protect the family. The family, we are told, is the basic unit of society. The rights of the family are guaranteed in the Constitution. The Minister has sincerely held strong views on the protection of the family. The Government's housing policy, over which the Minister is presiding, is doing far more damage to the fabric of family life in this country than the Minister's worst fears for divorce could have done. In my constituency young families cannot buy their own homes because houses are too dear; they cannot get local authority loans to buy houses because of the new restrictions brought in by the Government and they cannot rent local authority houses because they are not available. Good rented accommodation in the private sector is too expensive and even bad accommodation is often closed to families with children.
In a debate like this there is a tendency to talk in numbers of house starts and of the millions of pounds in the housing capital programme. I would like to talk about the human dimension of the problem and to tell the Minister of the young married couples to whom I spoke six and 12 months ago and who are now coming back to tell me they have separated because they could no longer take the strain of living in grossly over-crowded conditions with their in-laws. I want to tell the Minister about the young couple from Shankill with two children, living in a rented flat in Bray which has no hot water and in which they share a toilet on the landing with other tenants. The husband works in Shankill and the wife moves back to her mother during the day with their two young children. They are about 30th on the south county housing list in Dublin which was drawn up last August and from which only six people have been housed to date. They were, however, made an offer of housing and this perhaps gets back to the point made earlier by the Minister, but it was in Tallaght. I do not know how well the Minister knows the geography of Dublin——
Pretty well.
——but I would like him to explain how somebody who works in Shankill, without their own means of transport, would be able to travel from Tallaght. The last family to be housed in Dún Laoghaire Borough had 59 points. I would like the Minister to consider the case of another family — a husband, wife and two children — with 34 points. Over the past two years they have paid over £50 a week for a damp, mouldy basement flat which was rat infested and depressing. They have just left that flat and moved back in with the wife's family. The wife shares a room with her sister and the two children and the husband sleeps on a couch downstairs. What is the Minister's prognosis for the married life of this young family? What message does he have for the woman who suffers from osteoporosis, a condition which involves brittleness of the bones and internal bleeding, and whose five year old daughter suffers from the same ailment? They do not appear at all on the Minister's statistics. They are not even on the list of 20,000 who are waiting for houses because they have a flat from the corporation. This five year old child can never go out to play because if she falls on the concrete environment of the flat complex her bones could break and she could suffer internal bleeding. Her parents want a transfer to a house with a garden so that on sunny summer days their little girl does not have to stay inside, looking out the window at her friends at play. I know Dún Laoghaire Corporation consider this to be a priority but they have no house to give these people.
There is also the single parent who works in Loughlinstown Hospital and needs a place nearby because she has to start work at 7 a.m. There is the family who live in a 12 ft. by 5 ft. partitioned-off section of their parents' kitchen. I do not single out these cases to suggest that they are more important than others: they are only samples from Dún Laoghaire Corporation's list of 420 applicants and several hundred transfer applicants and Dublin County Council's 300 applicants from my constituency alone.
The Minister said there will be 1,200 house starts this year. There are 20,000 people on the waiting list. Last year he said there would be 900 starts but there were only 300. At that rate it would take 20 years to clear the present list. I do not accept that the housing crisis began with the election of the Fianna Fáil Government in 1987 but it has certainly got worse since then. The climate was set by the previous Coalition Government who, towards the end of their term of office, told us the housing crisis was over. It was the last Coalition Government who first trumpeted that there was no further need to continue house building. Could they not see, as we told them at the time, that the short respite in housing demand in 1986 and 1987 was due to the immediate effect of vacancies resulting from the £5,000 grant scheme and that demand would increase again as new families formed?
That is why I am proposing an amendment to delete the words "over the last three years", to state accurately that the cause of the crisis is shared not just by this Government but by their predecessor as well. There is no doubt that the housing crisis has worsened since 1987. I would like to give a few examples from Dún Laoghaire Corporation's housing programme. In February 1987 Dún Laoghaire Corporation asked the Government to approve a tender for a contract to build 50 houses in Loughlinstown but we are still waiting for a reply. In 1987 Dún Laoghaire Corporation asked for approval for £400,000 worth of development works to commence a further housing scheme but we are still waiting for a reply. In May 1988 we sought approval for a small housing scheme of 14 houses, in July 1988 we sought approval for 11 houses and approval was also sought for small infill schemes but we are still waiting for replies to all of these.
What have we got in the 1990 capital allocation? We have got enough money to build 25 houses, half the number we originally sought in 1987. In 1987 we sought permission for the building of 50 houses and three years later we get permission to build half that number. That situation is repeated around the country. The capital allocations which have been made by the Government are simply an exercise in buying time, of trying to tell every local authority and people on every housing list around the country that a certain amount of money is being provided to the local authority in order that there is some perceptible activity on the housing scene.
There is a need to increase considerably the housing allocation for this year but the problem is not confined to house building; there is also a problem of housing conditions. The Government have finally got around to ordering a housing conditions survey but it is five years after it was due. The last survey showed that 10 per cent of households are living without one or more basic sanitary facilities. I believe the new survey will show up even more the scandalous neglect of the housing stock. In reply to a Dáil question from me a couple of weeks ago it was shown that, taking all the local authorities together, there are over 8,000 local authority houses in this country without a bathroom or shower and there are over 3,000 local authority houses without indoor toilet facilities. In my constituency alone there are over 600 local authority houses without a bathroom or shower and 260 without an indoor toilet. There has been a lot of talk about refurbishment and we are indeed getting some resources for refurbishment but at the rate we are getting them it will take over 30 years to complete the refurbishment of the housing stock that is substandard.
Many people on local authority waiting lists are now beginning to inquire about the possibility of buying their own home but they run into difficulties. The first difficulty is the price — the prices of houses in my constituency has doubled in the past year and a half — and the second difficulty is getting a loan. People are now told they will have to have two refusals before they can even apply for a local authority loan. If they get a refusal from a bank they are told by the local authority that they are not a sound bet for a loan and they will not get it from the local authority either. Therefore they are driven back into the private rented sector. It is now becoming open season for Rachman landlords. Threshold have pointed out that four out of every five tenants do not receive receipts for their rent or do not have rent books.
Even the rent allowances which were being made available by the health boards are being limited. I have come across cases recently where the health board are restricting the issue of rent allowances and are telling people there is cheaper accommodation available even though it is patently obvious that that is not the case. People on low incomes are being squeezed into a state of homelessness. We know that the Housing Acts dealing with homelessness have not dealt effectively with the problem and have failed to solve it. At the same time, however, there is no shortage of expensive housing. In my constituency which has almost 800 people on the housing waiting list we currently have in excess of 800 or 900 planning applications for houses in the expensive bracket which will retail at £250,000 to £300,000.
When the Minister asks the question where he will get the money to fund local authority housing, perhaps he should look at the Government's taxation policy and ask himself how there are approximately 20,000 people who are virtually homeless while there are others who can pay eight times the price of an ordinary house for their homes? Is it any wonder that the NESC report concluded that housing policy favours the rich? I would like to draw the Minister's attention to that report's basic argument that tenants in local authority housing and private flats are being discriminated against in favour of those buying their own homes and that low income home buyers are being discriminated against in favour of the high earners.
I believe if the Minister does not respond to this debate and recognise there is a housing crisis and does not make more resources available to increase the allocations available to local authorities for house building, and refurbishment and ease the restrictions for making local authority loans available to people to buy houses, the housing situation will get worse; families will be put under severe strain and many will break up. If the Minister does not respond positively to the debate on this issue there will be no option left to the people who are now on the housing waiting lists but to take to the streets, as they did in the sixties when there was a housing crisis, and force the Government to take action rather than allow the Government to leave them in the state of homelessness or in substandard housing.
My colleague, Deputy Gilmore, has referred to the price of houses in his constituency doubling in the past year and a half. He could have also referred to the down side of that picture, that interest rates have increased on four occasions since the Government took office. The impact of that on people with mortgages has meant an escalating rate of repossessions during that year. Indeed, it is now embarrassing to the local authority, which has been adverted to by a number of speakers, that every meeting is taken up with a long list of homes that have been repossessed and the human misery and desolation that is involved in that type of decision. More and more the limits of the ingenuity of local authority officials is being tested in being able to rehouse these people. The inflexibility of the HFA scheme is also a factor fuelling the rate of repossessions. I agree with the remarks made by Deputy Flood when he referred to the impact of the grants scheme introduced by the previous Coalition Government that enabled people to buy out of the local authority estates and move into the private sector. It has had deplorable consequences, which I am sure were not envisaged by those who devised the scheme. It has devastated large areas of County Dublin, in particular, and I am sure it is no different elsewhere where, by definition, the people who left the estates had to be employed, and in the case of Dublin County Council they have been replaced by people 77 per cent of whom are unemployed. The result is there are large schemes of homogeneous public sector housing where up to 80 per cent of the people are unemployed with all of the implications of that situation.
The repossession of homes is the most startling evidence that we have a housing crisis at present. It is time the Government looked at the question of the old poor law mentality which informs the legislation in this area, that is that local authorities are there to house people who are incapable of housing themselves. I believe that is an anchronism in the nineties and that the Department of the Environment ought to look at the possibility of more imaginative legislation to allow local authorities — and there is absolutely no reason they should not be permitted — to build houses for sale, for part sale and part rent or for other options, like what obtains in parts of Britain, that would use up some of the possibilities for tastefully designed infill housing schemes in the city. Deputy Flood referred to the fact that he does not want to see any more largescale public housing programmes. He may not need it but there are many who do need it.
The reason for those enormous schemes which were built in the sixties and seventies was the housing crisis; and many builders did very well out of it and did nothing else except contruct housing units. Making a home is more than simply putting a roof over one's head. It involves a network of social and community supports and a sense of permanence and stability. Housing policy must be seen to be more than merely providing housing units. It should be about identifiying housing and related needs right across the spectrum and not only about catering for groups who have traditionally been assisted with housing. It should be about matching housing resources to housing needs and should involve issues such as environmental quality, the location of housing, community facilities, public transport and the link between deprived neighbourhoods and the perpetuation of poverty.
The facility is there to loosen up the legislation and to do away with this poor law mentality that dictates our housing policy. I would have liked to say a great deal more but my colleagues want to get in at this stage.
It is very hard to understand how the Minister and the members of his Government can defend the indefensible because that is exactly what they are doing at this time. There is not doubt there is a housing crisis in this country. There are two electoral areas namely the Mallow and Kanturk electoral areas in my constituency which have an approximate population of about 70,000 people, and excluding the Fermoy and Mallow Urban District Council areas there are 12 family-type houses and four small units under construction.
I thought I had fixed the Deputy up because his name was not on the motion.
That relates to Mallow Urban District Council. In 1986 Kanturk submitted a housing scheme for 12 houses. Charleville also submitted a scheme for 12 houses on 12 September 1986. Newmarket submitted a scheme for eight houses in September 1986. Buttevant Churchtown, Dromahane and Gooldshill, Mallow, submitted schemes in 1987. We are told there is a devolved housing policy in the Department. Kildorrery submitted a scheme in February 1988. Kilworth submitted a scheme in November 1988 and there has not been a house built in that area by the local authority for 20 years. There is still no prospect of building houses in that area. The Minister has said they were allocating £51 million for housing this year but what he did not say was that £46 million of that will come out of the local authorities' capital resources. This will result in the local authorities having to transfer the proceeds from the sale of houses and not having finance to buy land for housing or to make grants available to physically and mentally handicapped persons. I can already see the effects of this decision in my own area.
I thought the Deputy announced all the new allocations in east Cork.
Previously this portion of revenue, 60 per cent could be used for other purposes but now it will have to be set aside for the housing programme. This is the first time this has happened and it will result in the local authority not being able to buy land for housing.
Forty per cent stays in the revenue account of the local authority.
Forty-six million pounds will have to be provided by the local authorities out of their own funds.
The Deputy was very happy when I looked after him when he came to see me as part of a delegation.
What cannot be denied is that the survey carried out in that area, which is broken down into two electoral divisions, under the 1988 Housing Act shows that there is an urgent need to provide 300 houses. The manager has said that 150 to 160 houses should be provided as a matter of urgency to cater for those referred to by my colleague, Deputy Gilmore earlier. What does the future hold for them?
But for the work done by the Share organisation and other voluntary organisations there would have been a revolution in Cork city because it is they who provided housing for the elderly in the city. Reference was made to the need to provide an essential repairs grant to enable people carry out essential works to keep out the wind, to repair doors and windows and replace slates. The most that the local authorities can provide is between £200 and £300, but no contractor would be prepared to listen to anybody with that amount of money to spend. This grant should be withdrawn as the amount of money available is an insult.
The 1986 census of population indicated that there are 700 homes in north Cork without piped water. Along with this repairs to doors and windows cannot be carried out as the scheme of housing aid for the elderly is being strictly implemented. Those in ill-health cannot afford to do these repairs and the local authority can do nothing for them.
During the past five to six years there has been great co-operation between the public and private sectors. The availability of SDA and HFA loans helped to ease the problems facing local authorities as people found themselves in a position to purchase or build their own homes under those schemes. During the last 12 months to two years we have witnessed one of the greatest con tricks ever perpetrated. In my own constituency people who had obtained SDA loans at a fixed interest rate of 12 per cent were encouraged to go to the banks and building societies to take out loans to repay the local authority what they owed. A sum of £3 million was paid back. This would appear to indicate that a large number of people borrowed from the banks and building societies at a rate of about 9.5 per cent. That rate now stands at 11 per cent, and soon it is expected to be well over 12 per cent. These people are also obliged to take out expensive mortgage redemption policies. Those people were conned into doing this.
In conclusion, the Minister should take note of what Deputy Rabbitte has to say about the repossession of homes by local authorities. Simple legislation could be passed in this House which would enable the local authorities to have the people concerned reappointed as tenants at a reasonable rent they could afford. They have been pushed out of their homes which have been repossessed by the local authorities and forced to live in over-crowded and unfit conditions, despite the fact that some of them have to rear small children. This is a terrible indictment of the Government housing policy.
The question I would like to pose is when is a crisis not a crisis? The only time it seems the Government are prepared to accept that there is a crisis is when they have to go knocking on doors at election time and discover what we in The Workers' Party have been saying is correct. There is an almighty housing crisis in the Dublin area. The quality and quantity of the existing housing stock is inadequate. I am sure the Minister is aware of the report of the environmental research unit on the housing stock in Dublin Corporation's area, the famous Minogue report. I wish to quote part of a letter sent from the housing maintenance branch to the assistant city manager on that report:
... stock built since 1981 and assumed not to have a backlog of maintenance and the remaining stock (currently 23,289 units) which were the subject of the sample condition survey undertaken as part of the preparation of the report. It is a stated objective to bring the condition of the latter category of stock up to a certain minimum standard. The cost of eliminating this backlog is estimated at £44 million. This estimate does not include major necessary work to the external elements of flats and these items would have to be covered by a separate programme of repair and replacement. A total backlog of work valued at £147 million has been identified, including refurbishment works of £90 million.
That gives one an inkling of the quality of the existing housing stock in Dublin Corporation's area. A miserly sum of £51 million is to be spent on the provision of housing this year nationally despite the fact that Minogue identified work valued at £147 million on maintaining and upgrading the existing housing stock in the Dublin area alone.
We should take a look at the position in Dublin city. As there is such a shortage of suitable flats and houses Dublin Corporation would agree that there is a housing crisis. At present there are 3,970 persons on the Dublin Corporation waiting list, 1,647 one parent families looking for accommodation, 682 homeless cases, 6,972 people living in unsatisfactory accommodation and seeking transfers, 358 families being detenanted from Sheriff Street flats — God only knows where they will live — and 9,000 houses being sold to tenants under the 1988 tenant purchase scheme. When one removes 9,000 units there is only one direction in which one can go and that is towards a crisis. The sickening aspect is that the Minister for the Environment provided funds to have more houses built in his own constituency of Mayo last year than in Dublin city. What are the Government doing about this?
Dublin Corporation pride themselves on having rebuilt parts of the inner city with excellent infill housing. They are lovely houses but the corporation have been instructed in the last 18 months to sell off those valuable sites. While the population of the inner city dwindles people are being forced more and more to the outer suburbs. That is not doing any good for Dublin's inner city.
I should like to refer to income limits. We have heard a lot of talk about the creation of social mixes. Once upon a time a garda sergeant or a tradesman could qualify for a local authority house but now the ceiling has been raised to a combined income limit of £12,000. In this day and age that means that an unskilled health board worker and his wife, who is working part-time in one of the Dublin hospitals as a chambermaid, are not eligible because their combined income is in excess of £12,000 per annum. That income limit will have to go. We need more affordable private houses in the inner city. We should discriminate positively in favour of inner city housing stock which in the main is old and expensive to refurbish. Such buildings do not quality for home improvement grants and I should like to suggest that we should discriminate in favour of them by the abolition of stamp duty on second hand houses in Dublin inner city.
We are in an unique situation in my constituency in that we have up to 17,000 local authority housing sites lying dormant. Millons of pounds were spent on the development of those sites. The Minister should send his senior housing officials to Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council to prepare an intelligent working plan to release that major asset. He should insist on those bodies directing their energies towards tackling what is a serious problem for all members who are approached to young couples anxious to be housed by local authorities. Deputies Rabbitte, Gilmore and myself at a meeting of Dublin County Council that was considering the Clondalkin-Lucan satellite town were made aware of the huge amount of land owned by the local authority. It is because of this empire building at official level that we have not had a dynamic approach to resolving this problem and making use of the great asset that is available.
The Minister, and his staff, should ascertain from the Department of Finance the amount that accrues to the Exchequer from housing programmes. There is no doubt that a tremendous amount of money returns to the Exchequer from housing. Materials used in building construction are subject to VAT and the workers employed pay income tax. It is unfortunate that the cash that finds its way back to the Exchequer as a result of house building is not taken into consideration and that instead we have people adopting a pigeon-hole mentality in regard to that sector.
Deputy Shatter will have to admit that part of the problem in regard to the lack of housing arose from the decision of his Government to pay a £5,000 grant to first time home buyers. That was the chief economic solution to the housing crisis by his party. Rather than build £30,000 local authority houses they paid couples £5,000 to vacate their homes. Tragically we are repossessing the homes of many of those people. It is heartbreaking at meetings of Dublin County Council to have to consider lists for repossession. Deputy Sherlock was correct in calling for greater flexibility in regard to repossessions. We are evicting those who have advances from the Housing Finance Agency and other agencies and endeavouring to accommodate them in local authority houses. That is not commonsense.
The couples who are making the effort to meet their repayments feel aggrieved that their neighbours who fall on hard times receive preferential treatment from the local authority and are being relieved of the the burden of having to pay for their home. Another problem is that when we repossess such houses we sell them at a figure which is less than what was paid for them. There is a need to adopt a new policy in regard to housing in the greater Dublin area. The corporation are disposing of local authority houses in my constituency at high prices. Why is it that they do not produce a scheme, in co-operation with the house building industry, under which they barter their surplus sites for new houses?
Deputy Byrne told us that there are 6,900 on Dublin Corporation's housing list. I understand that that authority, of which he is a member, have up to 20,000 sites in County Dublin lying fallow and overgrown. The services provided to those sites cost millions of pounds. We have many housing maintenance depots and the corporation own many houses in the county. We have a lot of bureaucratic nonsense taking place and it is fuelled by the Department of the Environment. The Minister should tackle the housing problem in Dublin city and county and insist on the dormant asset being developed.
I should like the permission of the Chair to share my time with a number of my colleagues.
Is there a precedent for the concluding spokes-person sharing this time?
We have on occasions, with the agreement of the House, shared the remaining 15 minutes. Four of my colleagues will make a brief contribution and I will conclude the debate.
We are now agreeing to sub-letting.
Fianna Fáil started the sub-letting last July. I intend to share my time with Deputies McGinley, Creed and Allen. The Minister for the Evnironment and the Minister of State at that Department have told us that there is no housing crisis. The Minister reminds me of the person who is jack of all trades and master of none. His record in regard to house building in the last two years has been disgraceful. He should not take credit for the number of houses built by the private sector in that time. He should concern himself with the number of applicants on local authority housing lists. Those lists are increasing faster than the water seeped into the Titanic. That was a sad occasion and what we are debating is sad because we are facing a crisis as far as housing is concerned.
I should like to tell the Minister that in 1984, 148 houses were built in my county, in 1985, 168 were built and in 1986, 136 were built. The Minister took office in 1987 and in that year we built 61 houses in my county. In 1988 — it is fortunate that the Minister of State is sitting down to hear this information — we built one house. I proposed that the Minister, the famous star in the car from Castlebar, should be invited to formally hand over the keys of that new house to the new tenant but he did not take up my offer. In 1989 we built 47 houses and so far this year we have built 20 houses. It is important to stress tha we have not received an allocation from the Minister this year. We were permitted to spend £799,000 of our money and £146,000 of that must go towards providing proper chimneys in poor quality houses that were built under the Fianna Fáil Government of 1979.
I should like to tell the Minister that £80,000 of that allocation must go towards the provision of a halting site. We were given to understand that the Department of the Environment would refund that money to the county council but that has not happened. The county council had to make the funds available from housing sales last year. With the balance of £441,000 we can start 31 houses and seven isolated cottages. I should like to tell the Minister that there were 385 genuine cases on our waiting list last year and they had been vetted under the scheme introduced by the Minister. That number has risen to 450.
The Deputy is losing his popularity with his colleagues.
The Minister should deal with the problems in my constituency. All we have had from him today is lip service. We have not received any money to help us build houses.
Last evening, my colleague, Deputy Shatter, dealt with the situation on a national level. I would like to take the limited time available to me to let the House know of the serious situation in Donegal. I wish to avail of this time to put on the record of the House what we told the Minister and, indeed, the Minister of State, last November when the entire Donegal County Council took the day off and came to Dublin to outline the seriousness of the situation.
In Donegal at present there are 1,600 applicants waiting for local authority housing. There are almost 1,300 approved applicants and along with that there are 570 demountable dwellings, many of which are falling apart. A survey was carried out in Donegal by An Foras Forbartha some time ago where it was found that there were 5,350 dwellings in Donegal that were incapable of economic repair. It was so serious that the entire county council met the Minister the Minister of State was also present — and everyone of the county council members who spoke let the Minister know the seriousness of the situation but what did we get?
More money than any other county.
I have a graph here showing the figures: in 1983 £5.5 million was made available to Donegal for housing, in 1984 it was £5.4 million; in 1985, £5.3 million was made available but last year we got £1.3 million. Two years ago 60 houses were advertised and put to tender but only 22 were built. There are 28 families for whom houses were advertised before an election some time ago but who are still waiting. I hope that the miserable £1.9 million that was made available to Donegal this year will be enough to at least build the houses that were advertised two years ago. We left the meeting with the Ministers that day and we had high hopes that something would be done for our county. At the present rate it will be 50 years before our present demand will be satisfied, not to mention the new applicants coming on stream every year, every month and, indeed, every week. It is a disastrous situation, especially when we have——
Would the Deputy not agree——
——a Minister who argued with me on Radio na Gaeltachta that we were anti-family.
I did not say the Deputy was anti-family.
As someone on this side of the House said, it is a disgrace, the family being the basic unit of society, that we are not even providing the basic necessity of a home. The Minister of State and the Minister stand indicted, shame on them. It gives me no pleasure to go back to Donegal and to have to tell the people who come to me that it will be 20 years before they will get a house.
Donegal got more money than any other county.
Deputy Creed, before you start I would like to advise you that it is better to address the Chair. If you address the Minister he is likely to defend himself and he is not allowed to do that.
The time available to me is very brief. I want to place some startling statistics on the record with regard to the crisis that exists in Cork. The local authority housing crisis can fall into three categories, those people on the waiting list, those people living in substandard local authority housing and, most importantly, — the trend to growing at an alarming rate — those people likely to come on to local authority housing lists because of rising interest rates and the rate of repossession of private housing. In search of some solace I sought out the Progressive Democrat Fianna Fáil Programme for National Recovery and, as I expected, the contributions from across the Floor waxed lyrical about houses being built. The document in its brevity, bears testimony to the commitment of the Government. It states that the Government will give special priority to areas were acute housing lists have been identified.
In Cork county there are 614 approved applicants for housing, 200 of which are acute cases. The Minister may argue about providing £51 million in 1990 but the reality is that there has been an 85 per cent cut in the capital allocation from the Department of the Environment. The Minister said funds are available from the proceeds of the tenant purchase scheme but that scheme is over a ten year period and the full benefits will not be available to local authorities in 1990. Therefore, the number of houses the Minister claims will be built will not be built.
The money will be available this year. I want to put the Deputy on the right road.
They are the facts as they relate to Cork county.
Last year one local authority house was built in Cork city, an area with a population of 150,000 people and where many of the existing houses are totally inadequate. Because of high interest rates and with over 1,000 people on the waiting list the situation is at crisis point. I asked the Minister some time ago about the whole question of repossession — a polite name for evictions — and the Minister in a shameful hand washing exercise said it was a matter for the local authorities, that he would not have the information. There is a national mortgage misery at present which the Minister seems unable to deal with and which is making the situation even worse. The most recent development is the disgraceful and shameful letter of 22 February from the Minister's office instructing local authority managers, despite the crisis, to divert to the roads programme funds which should be going to housing. I call on the Minister to withdraw that letter.
It does not apply to Cork city.
It does not apply to Cork city but it applies to a number of local authorities.
(Interruptions.)
I want to deal briefly with the amendments which have been tabled. The Workers' Party amendment is a shameful amendment. It is part of the internecine warfare which The Workers' Party are conducting with the Labour Party. It is this Government who should be targeted for the housing crisis. We, in Government, built the houses. The Labour-Fine Gael Coalition Government went out of office in 1987 at a time when the problems had been resolved and it is this Government, who substantially cut back on finance and who have created the problem we have today. In no circumstances can we accept The Workers' Party amendment which is seeking to take the blame off the shoulders of the Government which is where it should rest.
For the record, we are told by The Workers' Party that it was the last Coalition Government of 1982-87 who contributed to the problem. We have the Minister telling us about the great increase in finance he has made available for the house building programmes. In the last year of that Government £147 million was made available for the local authority house building programme. This year £33 million is being made available. This is the great increase the Minister is lauding——
It is up 50 per cent on last year.
It is £33 million for the building of local authority houses. That money is to come from the internal resources of local authorities and that is only part of the story——
It is being recycled.
——because the Minister has told local authorities to divert housing finance into the building of roads. Last night we took the example of Dublin city and county and I will repeat it; not a single new house was completed in Dublin city in 1989. In Dublin city there are 4,000 families on the housing waiting list. Dublin Corporation have been told to divert £500,000 of housing moneys into the building of roads and their sister authority, Dublin County Council——
The Deputy is misrepresenting the case and he knows it.
——have been given exactly the same instruction. It is an unprecedented development in the history of the State. Never at any time in the past has housing finance been diverted into road building or road repairs.
That is not correct.
This is an extraordinary development at a time of a growing housing crisis.
Deputy Shatter has two minutes left and I suggest that he address the Chair.
The Minister never sought the sanction of this House for a policy to which he avoided referring. In a half hour speech last night the Minister did not once explain why local authority housing moneys were being diverted into road building.
I explained it in detail.
He did not even refer to it. Both he and the Minister of State want to deny that that is what is happening. The reality is that moneys that should be used for the building of houses, to deal with the growing housing lists, has been diverted to roads — an extraordinary development. The Minister comes in and pats himself on the back for having passed the Housing Act to address the issue of homelessness. What is the purpose of the Minister getting the statistics of the homeless if no houses are being built to accommodate them? Are we simply building a department of statistics in the Department of the Environment? What homeless people need is real houses. What the local authorities need are the finances and the capital to build them. By the end of this year there will be 25,000 people on the local authority housing waiting lists.
For the Deputies in this House who have criticised the £5,000 scheme of house grants, if not for that scheme, and the large number of houses built in the lifetime of the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition, there would be 35,000 to 40,000 people currently on the waiting lists. We provided the houses and the capital and we brought the waiting lists down.
I hope that the Opposition parties can give unanimous support to the motion that the Fine Gael Party have tabled. In the context of the Labour Party's amendment, we cannot accept that, because it appears in that amendment that the Labour Party want to bring to an end the tenant purchase scheme which is a popular and good scheme which many people have availed of. I hope that the Opposition parties in this House will unanimously support the Fine Gael motion, the Fine Gael initiative to force this Government to face up to the reality of the housing crisis now confronting us nationally which this Government have created.
(Interruptions.)
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 59.
Tá
- Ahern, Bertie.
- Ahern, Dermot.
- Ahern, Michael.
- Aylward, Liam.
- Barrett, Michael.
- Brady, Gerard.
- Brady, Vincent.
- Brennan, Séamus.
- Browne, John (Wexford).
- Callely, Ivor.
- Clohessy, Peadar.
- Connolly, Ger.
- Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
- Cowen, Brian.
- Cullimore, Séamus.
- Davern, Noel.
- Dempsey, Noel.
- Dennehy, John.
- de Valera, Síle.
- Ellis, John.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Fitzgerald, Liam Joseph.
- Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
- Flood, Chris.
- O'Donoghue, John.
- O'Hanlon, Rory.
- O'Keeffe, Ned.
- O'Malley, Desmond J.
- O'Toole, Martin Joe.
- Power, Seán.
- Quill, Máirín.
- Reynolds, Albert.
- Roche, Dick.
- Flynn, Pádraig.
- Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
- Harney, Mary.
- Haughey, Charles J.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Hilliard, Colm.
- Hyland, Liam.
- Jacob, Joe.
- Kelly, Laurence.
- Kenneally, Brendan.
- Kirk, Séamus.
- Kitt, Tom.
- Lawlor, Liam.
- Leonard, Jimmy.
- Lyons, Denis.
- Martin, Micheál.
- McDaid, Jim.
- McEllistrim, Tom.
- Morley, P.J.
- Nolan, M.J.
- Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
- O'Connell, John.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- Smith, Michael.
- Stafford, John.
- Treacy, Noel.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Wallace, Dan.
- Wallace, Mary.
- Walsh, Joe.
- Wilson, John P.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Níl
- Ahearn, Therese.
- Allen, Bernard.
- Barrett, Seán.
- Bell, Michael.
- Belton, Louis J.
- Bradford, Paul.
- Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
- Bruton, Richard.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Donal.
- Connor, John.
- Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
- Cotter, Bill.
- Creed, Michael.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Deasy, Austin.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- De Rossa, Proinsias.
- Doyle, Joe.
- Dukes, Alan.
- Durkan, Bernard.
- Farrelly, John V.
- Ferris, Michael.
- Flaherty, Mary.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Gilmore, Eamon.
- Gregory, Tony.
- Harte, Paddy.
- Higgins, Jim.
- Higgins, Michael D.
- Hogan, Philip.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kemmy, Jim.
- McCartan, Pat.
- McGahon, Brendan.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- Mac Giolla, Tomás.
- McGrath, Paul.
- Mitchell, Gay.
- Mitchell, Jim.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Nealon, Ted.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Keeffe, Jim.
- O'Shea, Brian.
- O'Sullivan, Gerry.
- Owen, Nora.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Rabbitte, Pat.
- Reynolds, Gerry.
- Ryan, Seán.
- Shatter, Alan.
- Sheehan, Patrick J.
- Sherlock, Joe.
- Spring, Dick.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Taylor, Mervyn.
- Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine
Tellers: Tá, Deputies V. Brady and Clohessy; Níl, Deputies J. Higgins and Browne(Carlow-Kilkenny).
Amendment declared carried.
As amendment No. 1 has been agreed to, amendments Nos.2 and 3 fall.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended be agreed to."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 64; Níl, 59.
Tá
- Ahern, Bertie.
- Ahern, Dermot.
- Ahern, Michael.
- Aylward, Liam.
- Barrett, Michael.
- Brady, Gerard.
- Brady, Vincent.
- Brennan, Séamus.
- Browne, John (Wexford).
- Callely, Ivor.
- Clohessy, Peadar.
- Connolly, Ger.
Níl
- Ahearn, Therese.
- Allen, Bernard.
- Barrett, Seán.
- Bell, Michael.
- Belton, Louis J.
- Bradford, Paul.
- Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
- Bruton, Richard.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Donal.
- Connor, John.
- Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
- Cotter, Bill.
- Creed, Michael.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Deasy, Austin.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- De Rossa, Proinsias.
- Doyle, Joe.
- Dukes, Alan.
- Durkan, Bernard.
- Farrelly, John V.
- Ferris, Michael.
- Finucane, Michael.
- Flaherty, Mary.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Gilmore, Eamon.
- Gregory, Tony.
- Harte, Paddy.
- Higgins, Jim.
- Higgins, Michael D.
- Hogan, Philip.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kemmy, Jim.
- Kenny, Enda.
- McCartan, Pat.
- McGahon, Brendan.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- Mac Giolla, Tomás.
- McGrath, Paul.
- Mitchell, Gay.
- Mitchell, Jim.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Nealon, Ted.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Keeffe, Jim.
- O'Shea, Brian.
- O'Sullivan, Gerry.
- Owen, Nora.
- Rabbitte, Pat.
- Reynolds, Gerry.
- Ryan, Seán.
- Shatter, Alan.
- Sheehan, Patrick J.
- Sherlock, Joe.
- Spring, Dick.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Taylor, Mervyn.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies V. Brady and Clohessy; Níl, Deputies J. Higgins and Browne(Carlow-Kilkenny).
Question declared carried.
|
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