I agree with the principle of this Bill. However, I agree with the previous speaker that rushed legislation gives rise to difficulties. It is the same at the end of every term. The Bill is straightforward. This may not be the Minister of State's remit, but I would like his officials to take on board the concept of a clawback as regards industrial sites sold by local authorities. I have seen significant abuses in this area. Obviously, it is the bailiwick of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, though perhaps not this Minister of State, as regards the sale of industrial sites by local authorities to developers. They come along, build their units or sell them to someone else. The clawback should be built into the industrial sites.
I am in favour of affordable housing, but it appears to have within it what I refer to as the "Bermuda triangle" concept. I ask the House to bear with me for a moment. Let us say I am a builder and I have 50 houses, ten of them affordable, that is 20% of the development. I build the ten affordable houses and they are sold for €150,000 each, for example, to those who qualify. If a person who buys one sells it in the morning, he or she will get the market value of €250,000 or whatever, equivalent to a dramatic increase. The clawback goes back to the local authority. However, builders and developers have not dropped their expectations of what their profits should be, so where has the apparent loss to the developer gone, that is, the difference between what was sold initially as affordable housing and what was obtained on the open market? It is gone on to the prices of the remaining 80% of houses built in the development. Members should bear that in mind. There is no magic formula here. Someone is paying for the difference and it is the other house buyers who have bought the remaining 80%.
I want to make a couple of relevant points. The Minister of State in his speech stated that the key focus is on supply. In Wicklow we have an archaic rule — I raised this with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government before. It is the "locals only" concept on areas outside Bray, Delgany, Greystones, Wicklow and Arklow.
This does not apply just to one-off housing in an area of outstanding natural beauty but to housing drawing on services. There was a policy, which I believe was instigated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and based on the strategic planning guidelines, whereby if houses were built in Roundwood, Rathdrum, Blessington, Tinahely or wherever, only people resident in Wicklow for a year and in a permanent job or who were permanent native residents could purchase those houses. This was crazy because someone in Rathvilly, which is in my constituency, looked to buy a house in Blessington in the same constituency and could not do so. Despite this, someone from outer Mongolia could come to Rathvilly and buy a house. In the previous development plan which was adopted a few weeks ago, a proposal was put forward to drop this to a 50:50 ratio, which is better than what was in place previously. However, the principle is still wrong.
I met a man from Blessington who had bought one of the houses in Woodleigh, the controversial estate beside the illegal dump. His ancestors had come from Wicklow, but he lived in Dublin so he did not qualify for the housing. When I asked him how he had managed to circumvent the system, he told me that he had not done so. A local person from somewhere else in Wicklow bought it off the plans and sold it to him at a substantial profit. That is a crazy system.
The Minister of State might argue that this is not the policy of the Department but rather that of the local authority. However, a submission was made to the county development plan by a civil servant in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government who was involved in the national spatial strategy. The civil servant claimed that the policy proposed was the correct one. This has not happened in Meath or Kildare, so I would like the Minister to re-examine it.
The Minister should also put an onus on either builders or local authorities to inform buyers of new houses of future plans in the area. Such plans could include developments or any other items that may have a major impact on their housing. It was shown on "Prime Time" that there was an illegal dump in Woodleigh in Blessington a few yards from the housing estate. It was known by the authorities that the dump was there, albeit after permission for the housing development was granted. Some people, whether it was the auctioneer or the builder, knew the dump was there, but people bought houses there after it became common knowledge because they did not know about the dump. That loophole must be tied up by giving the buyers a copy of the local area plan.
The buy back for local authority houses is a maximum of 30% — 3% each year up to ten years. I have come across individuals who have tried to buy their houses which have been valued at €130,000 or €140,000, whereas their neighbours bought their houses for €50,000 or €60,000 three or four years ago. These people cannot buy such houses at current prices. I know Deputy O'Dowd has the following idea in mind for our party's next general election manifesto, so I hope the Minister of State can beat us to it. This buy back should be changed to 3% over 20 years. People have paid for these houses in the past.
The clawback should also be built in. At present, if people sell their local authority houses, they must sell them to people who qualify. That system is being abused in that people buy a house for a certain amount under the ten-year rule and sell it on for a substantial profit to someone who has circumvented the system. A clawback should be built into that as well. There are families who had houses built in the 1970s and whose children have now grown up. Such people want a home for their children but want to hold on to their family home. They cannot buy in the current climate and a case should be made for them.
Any tax that is inequitable will not stand the test of time. The levy system is a sore point with some Government Deputies and it is an inequitable tax. One cannot expect a percentage of people to pay for infrastructure from which everyone will benefit. Wicklow County Council tried to circumvent this by putting in place a second set of levies. I was glad to see that An Bord Pleanála overturned this second set of levies in the first case in which it adjudicated on the matter. The levies in Wicklow are unsustainable in meeting the infrastructural requirements as the current guidelines stand. On budget day, the Minister gave out money left, right and centre. We did not hear anything about all these other charges. The issue is local government funding, and something must be done about it. We cannot expect a small minority to pick up the tab for it.
I congratulate the Minister of State on providing the funding for central heating in local authority housing. I would like to see that rolled out as much as possible as it is very beneficial. He might ask local authorities to look at breaking up one bedroom flats with steep stairs into two or three bedrooms. I also believe that the income level for affordable housing should be raised. I have come across people who cannot afford a house in their own area but do not qualify for affordable housing because their income is too high.
