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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994

Vol. 439 No. 6

Adjournment Debate. - Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Housing Allocation.

I thank the Chair for permitting me to raise this matter which concerns the appalling housing situation in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county. At this stage it is the worst housing crisis in the country. There is a serious national housing crisis and approximately 30,000 housing applicants on local authority housing waiting lists. The Minister has announced 3,500 house starts for 1994 which, with surrenders, will result in 7,000 new lettings this year. The problem, however, is that the number on the waiting lists is rising faster than house provision. For example, when the Minister announced his plan for social housing in 1991 there were 23,000 on the waiting lists, now the figure is almost 30,000. Indeed, the Minister's promise of 7,000 new lettings this year is considerably less than the 10,000 new lettings which the plan for social housing was supposed to produce.

The Government's answer to the housing crisis, the plan for social housing, is simply not working and needs to be drastically overhauled.

In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown the situation is even worse than the national picture, it has the worst housing problem in the country. There are over 1,300 applicants on its housing waiting list, the largest number on any county council housing list. There are approximately 700 awaiting transfer from sub-standard accommodation or from flats which need refurbishment. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council has over 500 dwellings without a bathroom, and over 200 without an indoor toilet. In the private rented sector, rents are perhaps the highest in the country while many privately rented dwellings are virtually uninhabitable.

House prices in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown are the highest in the country, forcing even more people on housing waiting lists and making it difficult to use the shared ownership scheme as a means of reducing them. The price of starter houses for first time buyers is between £55,000 and £60,000. Houses in local authority estates are currently selling at between £40,000 and £50,000.

This combination of long waiting list, sub-standard housing stock and high private house prices makes Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown's problem unique. However, the special circumstances of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown have not been recognised by the Minister. The allocation for 1994 is 125 house starts — for a combined applicant and transfer list of approximately 2,000.

In his budget speech, the Minister for Finance stated that an extra £15 million was being made available for local authority housing. What has become of this money? The National Housing Allocation for 1994 is 3,500 — the same as 1993. Where is the extra money?

I am not asking the Minister to make an extra allocation to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. The housing situation in the new county is critical. Families who are waiting for housing are becoming desperate. Today I heard from a family who in desperation has decided to squat in a vacant house; from a young mother who is homeless and who has a child suffering from spina bifida; from a mother who has four teenage girls in a house with no bathroom; from a couple who are sharing a bedroom with two children, one of whom is 13 years old and from an elderly couple who have been served with notice of eviction and who are terrified at the prospect of homelessness.

I appeal to the Minister to make additional funds available to help relieve the hidden misery of the thousands stuck on housing waiting lists and to increase the allocation of 125 house starts which he has made available to Dún Laoghaire this year but which is inadequate.

I thank Deputy Gilmore for raising this important matter. I recognise his sincerity and acknowledge his positive record in social housing and his efforts on behalf of his constituency and county.

There is a commitment in the Programme for a Partnership Government to tackle social housing needs by speeding up the implementation of the plan for social housing and by expanding the local authority housing programme, thereby recognising the seriousness of the problem.

The 1993 expenditure of £105 million on the local authority and social housing programmes represented an increase of 37 per cent on the 1992 figure. The 1994 estimates provided for a further increase of over 70 per cent on the 1993 outturn to £179 million. A total of 3,800 local authority housing starts or acquisitions were achieved in 1993 compared to 1,314 in 1992. Provision is made for the commencement of 3,500 local authority houses in 1994 and the extra money announced in the budget was required to achieve that number of new starts in 1994. The housing needs of some 18,000 families will not be met between 1994 and 1995 through the local authority programme, the social housing schemes and vacancies in the local authority stock.

The Government is committed to maintaining the local authority programme at a level appropriate to the extent of continuing housing needs. In addition, the voluntary housing sector provided some 900 units of accommodation during 1993 and activity in this sector will continue to be encouraged and expanded. The 1994 capital provision for the voluntary housing schemes has been increased to £33 million or 65 per cent more than 1993 figure.

The new house programmes for 1994 notified to the individual housing authorities on 10 February 1994 were determined having regard to the competing needs of the authorities and the overall programme of 3,500 new house start or acquisitions sanctioned for 1994.

I have notified Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council that they can start or acquire 125 houses in 1994. This is an increase of 15 houses on the 1993 authorised level of 110 houses. The council's programme of 125 houses is the largest of the three new county councils this year. In 1993, 130 houses were started in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area. These included 20 which were not started during 1992;67 houses were completed or acquired during the year and a further 127 were under construction at the end of 1993.

The availability of local authority accommodation for renting to persons on the waiting list does not depend solely on the number of new units of accommodation provided annually. It is worth noting that during 1993 there were 93 lettings to housing applicants as a result of casual vacancies arising in the authority's existing housing stock.

In dealing with the local authority housing programme the house building element should not be taken in isolation. Cognisance must be taken of the funds being made available for the remedial works scheme and the other measures under the plan for social housing.

Under the remedial works scheme, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council has been allocated over £2.4 million for a number of projects including completed schemes at St. Patrick's Square, St. Patrick's Road and Avenue, Pinewood and Willow Vale and Brookfield Place and ongoing schemes at Cross Avenue-Dominick Street and Glasthule Buildings. As a result the standard of the dwellings concerned has been immeasurably improved and units of accommodation that would otherwise be lost to the housing stock now provide high class accommodation for families in need.

The council has received some £330,000 under the sub-programmes to provide bathrooms in local authority dwellings without these basic facilities. There is additional funding available under that heading this year. The voluntary housing scheme is now making an increased contribution to social housing. Last year six units were provided under this scheme in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area and a further 31 units were commenced, including a sizeable scheme for elderly persons in Dalkey. An application for a £154,000 grant for a new project of seven units in Blackrock is under consideration. I expect to be in a position to give a positive response to that application in the very near future.

There was a major expansion under the share ownership scheme in the area in 1993 with 1,100 transactions completed nationally compared with 558 in 1992. A capital provision of £35 million was made available in 1993 to facilitate local authority activity in this area. This provision has been increased to £40 million in the current year. There was substantial activity under this scheme in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in 1993 which enabled 43 transactions to be completed. In total, 210 families were housed in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in 1993. I estimate that a further 305 families will have new homes before the end of this year. That accounts for half the number on the official waiting lists, from latest figures I have from the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council.

The Minister is misinformed.

The official figure in the last estimate in March 1993 is 1,119.

It has gone up to 1,300.

I am not arguing with the Deputy but the county council gave me those figures. In the past two years roughly half of those on the waiting list have been housed and in a four year period I would hope to have the housing list down to manageable proportions.

I am satisfied with the level of housing construction notified by the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council for 1994 when taken with the provision of the various initiatives in the plan for social housing and casual vacancies arising in existing housing stock. This represents a reasonable and acceptable response to the social housing needs of the area. Again this year the "build or lose" rule applies, which means that if the local authority does not build houses it will not get the money, which will be transferred elsewhere. On foot of the case made by the Deputy, I will certainly look at Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown for a further allocation should any authority not meet its allocation.

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