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.