I want to inform the House that amendments Nos. 21 and 22 have been ruled out of order as they involved a potential charge upon the revenue. I have arranged for a list of the proposed groupings of the amendments for the debate to be circulated for the information of Senators.
Housing Bill, 1988: Committee Stage.
Acting Chairman
Section I agreed to.
NEW SECTION.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 4, before section 2, to insert the following new section:
"2.—A draft of every regulation proposed to be made under this Act shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and the regulation shall not be made until a resolution approving of the draft has been passed by each such House."
I had hoped that at this stage we would have had a few significant Government amendments to this Bill. We did not have them and that is a matter of considerable regret to me. The Bill deals with a number of extremely serious issues. Because it deals with serious issues I believe that regulations arising from this Bill ought to be debated in both Houses of the Oireachtas. It is a regrettable fact that statutory instruments which do not require the approval of the Houses of the Oireachtas, that is, those that automatically come into force unless they are nullified, are rarely debated in either House of the Oireachtas. The phrase "rubber stamp" that is used offensively to describe this House could be used quite appropriately to describe both Houses of the Oireachtas when it comes to a large number of statutory instruments. I refer to those which do not need to be discussed or voted upon before they are approved of.
It is a matter of considerable regret to me that on a number of occasions recently attempts in this House to have debates on regulations failed because the Government are unwilling to make time available and it is left to the Members to use Private Members' Time if they wish to do so. I find that a matter of regret. If we had a precedent or a general procedure that where a debate on regulations was requested it could take place, it would not be necessary for me to introduce an amendment such as this. Without going into too great detail on the subject matter of section 10, for instance, it makes provision for regulations under this section which may in particular, but without prejudice to the generality of subsections (1) and (4), make provision for a large number of things — the manner in which the housing authorities exercise their powers, the amount and conditions of recoupments under subsection (4), notification of a decision on a request for accommodation, furnishing of information and such other incidental consequential, or supplementary provisions... That is by way of an example. There are a number of other provisions.
I think those sort of matters are sufficiently serious, sufficiently important and potentially so far-reaching in their effects on some very vulnerable people that the Minister ought to seek, and ought to hear, the views of Members of the Oireachtas on these issues. The only way that it is possible to guarantee the interest of the Oireachtas and discussion in the Oireachtas under the regulations is to require that those regulations must be approved before they are passed.
We had this morning a particular example of the problems with such regulations: even when they can be discussed and even when they are quite obviously ludicrous that will not necessarily guarantee that they will not be passed. In this case we have regulations that in terms of ordinary human beings and their conditions are far more far-reaching and far more serious in their implications; and yet, effectively, whatever the Members of the Oireachtas may think, unless they be in the majority in this House, the regulations may not be debated unless they are debated in Private Members' Time. That is a strange way to deal with regulations that are essentially Government regulations. The only way regulations which are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas by the Government can be debated is in Private Members' Time, if this amendment is not accepted.
I simply suggest to the Minister that, in order to ensure the widest possible knowledge of regulations made under this Bill, in order to ensure the widest possible input into those regulations and in order to ensure that the expertise available to the Minister extends as widely as possible, these regulations should be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and not made until a resolution approving of the draft is passed by each House.
Every regulation under this Act will, in accordance with section 5 (2) of the Housing Act, 1966, be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. It may be annulled by a resolution of the House if either House passes it within 21 sitting days. This procedure has applied to all regulations made under the housing code since 1966. I do not accept that it is now necessary to provide that housing regulations be first laid before each House in draft form and await formal approval. To do so would be wasteful of time and cause unnecessary delays. We spend a lot of our time in this House and in the other House discussing ways whereby we can speed up methods of Government and improve the whole administration of Government and legislation generally. What the Senator is suggesting now would be a retrograde step, would inevitably lead to intolerable delays and might very well lead to the kind of delays which would be counter-productive and certainly run counter to what the Deputy is seeking to achieve by the very fact of this legislation being put in place in the first instance. I cannot accept the amendment.
Government and the running of the country is not a matter for the Government alone: it is a matter for the Government and the Oireachtas. In the best of worlds it would be a matter for the Government to propose and for the Oireachtas to dispose. In theory at least, the Government are answerable to the Oireachtas, in particular to Dáil Éireann. I appreciate the constitutional difference between Seanad Éireann and Dáil Éireann, apart from other more practical differences. It is not an argument to say that, because time is wasted on so many things, other matters should not be discussed. It might be an argument that too much time is spent discussing the wrong things and not enough time spent discussing other things. There is a body of opinion in this country which would hold that far too much that affects the lives of people goes through the Oireachtas by way of statutory instruments, on the nod, without any proper discussion. There is a body of opinion that this is true of a considerable body of the EC related legislation which goes through without adequate and detailed discussion. I really would have hoped that the Minister would have had a better argument to present to us here than that we have done it like this up to now and that is why we want to keep on doing it.
I do not think there is a good case in a climate of political opinion which has changed as much as it has in so many areas in the last few years for addressing any proposal on its merits, not on the basis of precedent, not on the basis of what we did last year or what we did for the last 20 years, but on the basis of whether it would be a good idea or not.
The Government orders the business of the Houses of the Oireachtas. In this House it is subject to the approval of the House; I understand in the other House the Government decide the Order of Business. If they do, they can decide when a particular set of regulations will be discussed. Indeed, in the other House, I think they can decide how much time will be devoted to the discussion and they do that from time to time. The suggestion that to insist that regulations such as those that will be made under this Bill would be discussed and voted upon in the Houses of the Oireachtas is not in any way a guarantee that there will be delay. Quite simply, if some of these regulations come up and I, say, or a Member of the independent group does not like them, then we can ensure that they will have to be debated and we can ensure that they will be discussed. Requiring them to be debated is not a guarantee of delay; it is simply a guarantee of proper parliamentary accountability in an area which many people think needs to be dealt with with considerably greater imagination than perhaps is contained in this Bill as it stands. It would, therefore, be an opportunity for the Oireachtas to assess in greater detail what precisely is proposed to be done about some of the more controversial areas of this Bill.
I am disappointed that a Minister with the intellect of the present Minister would resort simply to the old argument that "this is the way it was always done and that is the way I want to do it now". I find that a less than satisfactory argument and I would have hoped he would have a good reason for doing so. It is a pity that we are being simply told that is the way it was and that is the way it has to be. I think regulations like this, in an area which is of considerable public concern, as the Minister is aware, in which a large number of people and organisations in society have concerns about different aspects of this Bill, should be subject to detailed parliamentary scrutiny before they are passed.
The Senator misses the point entirely. This matter was pursued by some Deputies in the Dáil and after listening to my short explanation they unanimously agreed that what I was doing was the correct thing. We may be all out of step except the good Senator; be that as it may, what I am saying to the Senator is that regulations under this Bill when enacted will not and cannot go through on the nod unless people like himself and others are asleep.
The regulations will be laid before Dáil Éireann and if any Dáil Member or Senator wishes to challenge those regulations then, of course, they can do so and if they get enough Members to support them they can annul them within the 21 sitting days. What we are talking about in this amendment are not regulations; we are talking about draft regulations. Is the Senator seriously suggesting that the modus operandi from now on in this matter should be that drafts of what we propose we might do at some later stage should be put before Dáil Éireann, have a long discussion on it, listen to counter arguments and then finally end with a regulation which again could be challenged under the law, if somebody chooses to do so within 21 days? If that is not a recipe for delay, I do not know what is, and I regret that the Senator should pursue this matter in this way, because in effect what I am trying to achieve is that we get on with the job which is proposed to be done under this legislation. What the Senator now suggests as the very first amendment is that we introduce a delaying technique into the whole business. I cannot accept that.
I rise to defend, first of all, the concept of Senator Ryan and I want to warn the Minister — if warn is the correct word to use for a Minister — that what happens in the other House or fails to happen because of the restriction on time does not necessarily mean that it has to follow through here because this House has a mind of its own. According to the Constitution we have the facility to try to improve legislation, if possible, and we do not want to be preached at by anybody as regards what did or did not happen in the other House. I know what happened in the other House in regard to this Bill was that there was relatively little time to discuss some of the amendments that certainly the Labour Party were interested in having put down to this Bill.
We spent the best part of this morning discussing regulations that were made under another Bill. The Minister concerned considered it advisable and beneficial to have an opportunity for the Houses of the Oireachtas to discuss regulations which were made under the Bill. I think this morning the Minister benefited from the lengthy, wide-ranging debate we had here. I supported the regulations which were brought in, as it happens because I felt they were appropriate arising out of the legislation. I see nothing wrong with the Houses of the Oireachtas debating regulations. I am looking at the section and I see "such regulations as the Minister may consider necessary". I see nothing about draft regulations in the wording of the Bill, unless there is another subsection.
For the Senator's benefit, and to help him along in this matter, he is quite right in his interpretation of the matter; regulations will be laid before the House in the normal way. The amendment purports to have draft regulations introduced into the House and I would put it to him that that would not be in the best interest of any legislation — to have draft regulations introduced before the regulations were made. He makes my point.
What consultative process is involved in the making of the regulations? Once regulations arrive before the House, as stated this morning, it is extremely difficult to amend them in detail or in part. You have to accept the whole package or none at all. In this area, I think the Minister will concede that Senator Brendan Ryan who has shown tremendous initiative in this House in initiating a Private Members' Bill for the housing of homeless people in particular, would feel — and I would agree — that he would have some competence in assisting the Minister to prepare regulations which would appear before the Houses of the Oireachtas and if there is some consultative process there I feel that Senator Ryan's case would be met.
I am astonished; I am not sure that the Minister understands the procedures of the Oireachtas. I have in front of me a document which was before the House this morning and it is entitled "Draft of Special Restaurant Licence (Standards) Regulations, 1988". That is precisely what my amendment refers to, a draft of regulations, because regulations which must be approved by the House can only be in draft form until the House approves of them. That is not to suggest that there has to be some sort of chaos of the kind that the Minister implied. It is simply a way of giving the regulations greater status in terms of the time of the Oireachtas. Because I happen to believe that many of the issues raised by this Bill deserve the time of the Oireachtas they should be guaranteed it; it should not be a question of having to persuade a particular number of Members that they are of sufficient priority. The issues are important enough to deserve priority consideration. All I can say is that if regulations to decide how big the restaurants should be, how long the menus should be, what meals should be on the menus, are important enough to be discussed by this House, then the regulations that deal with the housing of homeless people deserve similar priority.
It is a red herring for the Minister to lead us off into images of confusion. I know how the Houses of the Oireachtas deal with draft regulations, I hope the Minister knows. He should not be leading us into some imaginary quagmire of confusion by pretending otherwise. Draft regulations are entitled "Draft Regulations" because they cannot be anything else until they are approved by the Oireachtas. All I am saying is that the regulations the Minister would wish to introduce ought to be put before the House and ought to be debated before they are passed, because that is an indication of the seriousness of the issue.
The Minister is attempting to lead us slightly astray. I know what I mean by draft regulations and the Minister should know. There is no confusion; it simply guarantees debate on the regulations in Government time. The question of delay does not arise. The Intoxicating Liquor Act, the regulations under which we were discussing this morning, was signed by the President and came into law less than a week ago. Yesterday, in the other House, these draft regulations were discussed. Last night, in this House, the discussion began; this morning the discussion concluded. So, the argument that insisting that regulations be debated in both Houses causes delay does not stand up to rational analysis. Equally, the argument that any confusion would arise does not stand up to rational analysis. What does stand up is a perception of the priority of those regulations in the minds of Members of the Oireachtas. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that if regulations prescribing what sort of restaurants can get licences, what sort of menus the restaurants must have, are important enough to be discussed by both Houses of the Oireachtas, then regulations about how sections of this Bill to deal with the way local authorities make provision, among other things, for homeless people, ought to be given the dignity and the priority of being guaranteed a discussion in both Houses of the Oireachtas. That is the issue — not confusion or delay. The issue is the priority given to the question being raised in the regulations.
Regulations under any legislation of the Oireachtas are important as far as I am concerned. We are seeking here to change the method by which we deal with regulations. Regulations will be made under this Act. If and when they are, they will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. They will be available for inspection and, should either House of the Oireachtas choose to annul them, then they may do so in the prescribed form and in the prescribed time, as laid down. In effect, all the regulations that will be considered under this legislation will be, more than likely, basic, procedural type regulations. I cannot see why what is in existence by way of procedure in these matters is not accepted and regarded as proper, as it has been heretofore in all matters concerned with Housing Acts since 1966. I cannot see why we cannot accept what has been there, which has worked well under the Housing Act, 1966, in so far as regulations are concerned. For that reason I cannot accept the amendment.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the amendment withdrawn?
The point is that if the Housing Act, 1966, had worked we would not need this legislation. We should not use that Act or regulations arising from it to justify anything about this Bill, because this Bill would not be here if it was not for the fact that the Housing Act, 1966, had failed in a number of areas to meet the housing needs of certain categories in our society. That is precisely why both the principles embodied in the 1966 Act and the way in which it operated needed to be scrutinised. Having said that, I am not going to delay the House on a debate on a matter of what sort of regulations we have. As the Minister said, I can — and if I do not like them, I shall — raise the regulations under the procedures available to me. Therefore, I will withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
SECTION 2.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Amendments Nos. 2, 6 and 16 are similar and may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 2:
In page 4, lines 9 and 10, to delete "in the opinion of the authority" and substitute "as far as can reasonably be established".
This amendment goes back to the way one perceives statutory bodies to operate. It refers to section 2 of this Bill; it refers in particular to the definition of a homeless person. In that definition what is said in section 2 is that a person shall be homeless if "there is no accommodation available which, in the opinion of the authority, he, together with any other person who resides with him...can reasonably occupy or remain in occupation of". The crucial phrase is "in the opinion of the authority". I do not like opinions by anybody as the basis for fundamental decisions about other peoples' basic needs. I do not think it is a proper statutory base.
I suggest that, instead of "in the opinion of the authority", we substitute "as far as can reasonably be established". That involves two extensions of the degree of proof that would be required of a housing authority before it was able to make decisions under this provision. First, it should be reasonably established. That involves an attempt to make a reasonable assessment and to establish some basis on foot of that reasonable assessment. That is a much stronger form of wording than leaving it up to the "opinion". I can form an opinion about anything by looking out the window. But if I want to reasonably establish a perception I have to assemble information, I have to assemble evidence and I have to make some sort of attempt at a balanced judgment.
I would not like to become involved in a wording which involved some judicial burden of proof. But it is reasonable to suggest that, before a housing authority makes a decision about whether it thinks accommodation is available to somebody, there ought to be a reasonably established case on foot of which they make that decision. Leaving it up to the opinion of a housing authority is far too generous to the housing authority. It leaves them with a bolt-hole through which anybody who is less than enthusiastic can escape. It does not give a proper equation between the obvious concerns of a housing authority and the needs of those who would be affected by this section. The Minister could reasonably consider strengthening the phraseology here to ensure that those who are asking to be categorised as homeless will, at least, be taken seriously. That is what this choice of wording, as applied here and as applied under the other two amendments, is attempting to do. It is attempting to balance the interest of the housing authority as against the interest of the homeless person.
As it stands, in my opinion, the housing authority does not really have to, if it does not wish to, make any serious assessment. It can simply form an opinion — as badly as this: on the basis of prejudice — if it wishes. This is not an attempt to suggest that all housing authorities will be unreasonable or that most housing authorities will be unreasonable. It is an attempt to balance the interests of very vulnerable people against the operations of a housing authority. I think homeless people are entitled to that. They are not entitled to any excessive burden of proof being loaded on a housing authority. But, given the virtually non-existent obligations towards the homeless that this Bill will put on local authorities, as distinct from the things it will empower them to do, the least that could be expected is that the housing authority would have to make reasonable inquiries and come to a reasonable conclusion before it could judge somebody to be homeless or not to be homeless under this section.
I can understand Senator Ryan's concern about opinions of local authorities because often it is perceived that local authorities are faceless people. But, as a member of a local authority, as a member of a housing authority, I consider that I have a role and a function under the Local Authority Acts which would give me the power to direct the manager to consider somebody eligible for housing either by ordinary resolution or motion or under section 4, if I considered that the manager was unwilling to do so. I want, first of all to reassure Senator Ryan that when we talk about a housing authority, we are talking about elected people who would have a responsibility to ensure that the homeless would get a fair crack of the whip. I know that this Bill is watered down from the previous Bill under which we had a more specific obligation to homeless people. However, that is a point that we will argue an another section. I want to reassure Senator Ryan of the involvement of elected members of the authority. We have a responsibility to act in that area.
Our record in the area of rehousing itinerants is not the best. Some councils have made efforts to provide halting bays and other such facilities for itinerants but with opposition to itinerants from the electorate in parts of Ireland it is most difficult. From that point of view, the housing authority might not necessarily act in the way that Senator Ryan would wish. Perhaps what he suggested would be a more specific way of tackling this problem. I wish to ask the Minister, in assisting me to make up my mind as to whether I should support the amendment or not, if, under this new legislation, he will be laying down guidelines for local authorities as to the area in which they should function and what their role will be under this new legislation. Perhaps that would help to clarify the matter for Senator Ryan in regard to responsibility of the local authority and giving their opinions in public to elected members.
As a member of the major local authority in the country I am not aware of individual applications that are made by homeless people for accommodation. I know from looking at the housing list that many homeless people are housed by Dublin Corporation. I receive no complaints so I accept that the allocations officer deals sympathetically with the applications that he receives. Nevertheless, I can understand what Senator Ryan is getting at. He wants a balance between the housing authority and the homeless person. He said that while most local authorities are sympathetic to homeless people there could be the odd local authority that might not hold that view and he wants to safeguard against that.
I want to clarify that the local authority in my area provide a list of all applicants, approved applicants and applicants under investigation. I am made aware at all housing meetings who the applicants are, what their status is and what is the stage of processing their applications. Members have an opportunity to query why an application has not moved from being under investigation to approval. I am a member of another local authority which set down a priority list as to who will get the first available house. That is a system that I do not necessarily agree with. Obviously Dublin City Council do not have that facility. The demand is so great in that area that perhaps it is not possible to give all the information to the councillors.
Firstly, this legislation deals with more than just the homeless and that should be remembered by all concerned. Certainly the homeless are a new priority in the legislation. I suppose it would be fair to say that it is because of the continued concern of so many that this legislation was introduced as an improvement on the 1966 Act. The 1966 Act set down basic principles as far as housing is concerned and we should not disregard it. Of course, this is a new addition and goes considerably further than the 1966 Act.
Senator Ferris is quite right as far as local authorities are concerned. They are the housing authorities and they have a major role in this area which is specifically catered for in this legislation, as Senators will see later. Guidelines, of course, will be issued and that is specifically stated in section 10 (11) (a) and (b). That matter can be dealt with later under that section.
On the question of the substance of the amendment, it is necessary in order to avoid ambiguity that it is specifically indicated who takes the decisions in regard to the responsibility of housing authorities for the homeless. That is the fundamental aim of section 2. If these amendments are accepted, as is being suggested, any organisation, voluntary or statutory, could claim that they regard a particular individual as homeless and attempt to have the housing authority accept their opinion. That is not the way I want it to be. The local authority should have the power to make the decision and that should be enshrined without any diminution of that power.
Again, with regard to section 9, it is essential to indicate in legislation who should make the decision or judgment. The suggested amendment does not indicate from whom it shall be reasonably established that the applicant is in need of accommodation and unable to provide it from his own or her own resources. This is essentially a matter for the housing authority to decide in the light of the information available to them. The opinion of the housing authority in such matters is not lightly formed and I think Senators will recognise that. It is not a matter for some specified or non-specified individual to decide willy nilly as to who might or might not be entitled to any particular service under this housing legislation. While I understand the point made by Senator Ryan, I think he would have to agree that when it is stated in legislation that a housing authority is the final decider in the matter, that involves more than just the opinion of one individual. Much information has to be obtained and assessments have to be made in order to arrive at that decision. In fact, the wording of the Senator's amendment, "as far as can reasonably be established", also suggests in effect that opinions would have to be formed by individuals in order to obtain that very same end. It is much more preferable to have it stated as it is, "in the opinion of the local authority" who take account of the total services, structure and administration available to the authority. I cannot see good reason for accepting the amendment and consequently I have to ask that it will not be pursued.
Is amendment No. 2 withdrawn?
If the precise wording of the amendment from this side of the House is the problem then we would all be quite happy if the Minister accepted the principle of it and came back on Report Stage with his own wording. I have been through this procedure many times. The fact that the Minister wants it to be made clear that the deciding authority is the housing authority is not a problem. If the Minister and I are simply disagreeing about the clarity of identifying responsibility there would be no problem at all. He and I would agree that it must be made perfectly clear who is responsible for these decisions. There is no problem there. I think that is a bit of a smokescreen. The basic issue is the difference between the matters being in somebody's opinion and it being reasonably established by that person. It would be quite feasible to rewrite this amendment on Report Stage if the Minister would simply say that the authority should make the decision after having reasonably established the position. That would meet the Minister's requirement, which is that the housing authority be responsible for making the decision and at the same time it would clarify that they have to make reasonable efforts to find out about the individual concerned.
I want to refer the Minister to the documented evidence that I mentioned in my Second Stage speech from a meeting between the Simon Community and the City and County Managers Association. Statements were made by representatives of that association which would lead one to be very worried about what sort of information gathering methods some of these people have. They were inclined to dismiss all homeless people as drug addicts and alcoholics. It is a pity that the Minister was not here for the end of the debate because he might have replied to what I said then. The Minister of State did not exactly go into detail in his reply on the various points made by Members of this House.
That is one of the reasons that I have been concerned about leaving words like "opinion" in legislation like this. There are people in the City and County Managers Association whose opinions are already formed to the effect that virtually nobody who is homeless is anything other than an alcoholic or a drug addict. There is no obligation on them to investigate the matter at all. That is precisely why I find it necessary to talk about the wording of this sort of phrase. If there was evidence already existing that all authorities are subject to a particular interpretation, or if the Minister could statutorily enforce a provision by way of regulation as to how they were to go about forming this opinion, we could all agree on it. I accept that it will not necessarily be one individual who will make the decision. There is a structure of authority in a housing authority the same as in any other body. But if the opinions of the city or county manager are of the kind that I have already described, then those in subordinate positions are not exactly going to go around twitching their noses and saying he is wrong in his opinion about homeless people.
I regret very much that we have to keep coming back to this fundamental difference of perception between myself and many voluntary organisations who deal with homeless people and how they are viewed by statutory authorities. One must remember that it is not long since many statutory authorities denied that they had any responsibility for dealing with homeless people. We have come some way from that. Perhaps this is more appropriate to the section. I know it is quoted very often that housing authorities have housed 1,800 homeless people in the last 12 months. I would like to know what definition of homeless people is used in coming up with that figure. That would be interesting to know. Given that most voluntary organisations will make an assessment of the number of homeless people at around 3,000, if 1,800 of those have been housed then there should be a severe drop in the demand for services for homeless people.
Senator Ryan, are you on the section now?
I was wondering what you would say to me, a Chathaoirligh. I will come back to the amendment and we can discuss the section later. There is a difference of opinion between myself and the Minister. If he can satisfy me that it is not clear from my amendment that the housing authority would be the responsible body, then I suggest that he introduce an amendment on Report Stage to clarify the position that it is the housing authority which must reasonably establish the housing conditions of an individual. If he is not arguing with me about the clear line of responsibility of a housing authority but about this wording, then we might as well settle it now. I do not think the opinion of a housing authority is sufficient evidence on which to adjudicate on somebody's housing conditions.
Before the Minister replies to the last comments made by Senator Ryan, I have no doubt in my mind where the responsibility should lie in this. Senator Ryan does not want to remove from the local authority that final responsibility. I am concerned that at a meeting with representatives of the county and city managers a responsible body like the Simon Community were not satisfactorily dealt with. I had no knowledge of it. I am sorry if the inference was drawn at that meeting that somehow county and city managers were making decisions on their own about drug addicts and layabouts. I will say without fear of contradiction that in our local authority, which is responsible for four or five housing authorities within the county, we consult with and have regard to the evidence of the county medical officer and his agents who work for the health boards but are subcontracted to the local authority to give specialised information to us on each applicant, whether it is for rehousing, exchange of housing on health grounds or any other reason. On the file of each housing applicant is a report from the county medical officer. That is the kind of reasonably established opinion that is formed before the manager writes a report for the members of the council, a report which is then subject to discussion and approval. That is a good procedure which involves medical people in the formation of the opinion; and the manager is obliged in law, as far as I understand, to have regard to that medical opinion. That information is used in the formulation of an opinion as to whether somebody is entitled to be rehoused and put on an approved housing list. If it is the case that other authorities work in a different way and that one housing officer makes all these decisions, then there would be negligence on the part of the housing authority; but I do not think that is how it works. Perhaps more people who are not involved in statutory bodies will try to understand how we arrive at decisions.
I want to be seen, first of all, to be responsible in this area. I want to say for the record how we ensure, as statutory bodies, that the system functions. Now that new guidelines are being laid down we will be able to function more beneficially in the area of rehousing homeless people. We have a record of doing just that. We house single people, unmarried people, single parent families, unmarried mothers and many other categories. No county manager has ever had the audacity to describe them as not being in accordance with family units or not being people in need of housing. I am talking about men of the road and agricultural workers who are single, living in a caravan and in need of housing. Of course, we have housed them. We have produced quite a large percentage of OPDs throughout our housing estates to meet that requirement.
There is an advantage to serving on a local authority.
There is indeed, and I served on one for nearly 21 years. At least I can agree with Senator Ryan on one aspect in that he recognises that this legislation is a huge advance. He did not use the word "huge" but I am putting the adjective in to help him along the way. He regarded it as an advance in housing legislation; I regard it as a huge advance. It goes considerably further than many people in both Houses thought it might go. I am really not interested in amending legislation for the sake of amending it. Unless the amendment does something to improve the position it is not worth talking about. What I am basically trying to establish here is who is responsible for taking decisions. The housing authority has that responsibility and I must make that absolutely clear. Otherwise the whole sequence of events that will lead to doing the job properly will be defused and diminished. Local authorities do not form their opinions by just simply looking out the window, as was suggested by Senator Ryan. I take that as a flippant remark.
Senator Ferris understands the position quite well. He understands that there are many factors taken into account. Much information is sought, including on many occasions the informed views of the elected members, who contribute on a regular basis at housing committee meetings and meetings of authorities. Their views are always taken into account by the housing authority when they are making decisions about a housing situation in any area, and that is how it should be. I do not want to diminish that. It is for that reason that I do not see it as necessary to concede this amendment.
The words suggested in Senator Ryan's amendment are "in so far as can be reasonably established". Something cannot be established or decided reasonably without opinions being formed by somebody or some group of people. Opinions will always be part and parcel of the assessments that are made, whether it is the opinions of the chief medical officer, the housing officer, the social worker or a whole range of individuals or groups who get involved in making the assessments and providing the information to the housing authority. That is exactly what happens in making the assessments. Whether mistakes are made or not is another matter entirely and housing authorities can address themselves to that. That is the reason we have local authorities. They bring forward opinions about how the housing authorities mix business. By and large we do not hear, as Senator Doyle said, complaints from members of housing authorities as to how the matter is dealt with. We hear complaints occasionally. There is no question but that Senator Ryan is accurate when he says that there are individuals who have a misguided notion about certain categories of people and the priority they should have in the housing arrangements. I accept that, but I do not accept that any application is finally determined by the opinion of one man or one woman. For that reason I do not feel obliged to concede this amendment and I suggest to the Senator that it is not worth pursuing it.
Is amendment No. 2 withdrawn?
The Minister seems to be agreeing with me and yet he says he will not accept the amendment. We all agree that it should be perfectly clear who is responsible for taking these decisions. The only body that can be responsible is the housing authority. We all agree on that. What I want to ensure is that they have a certain obligation to assemble information before they come to a conclusion. There is nothing in this provision as it is drafted which can satisfy me. Let us not have people here wave their experience on local authorities at me as some sort of guarantee that they have a superior knowledge about how housing authorities operate. I have observed housing authorities from a different perspective over the years. I have a particular view on how they operate and how they dealt with single people under 55 years of age. A great fuss was created about that and people had to take them seriously, but until then those people had to put up with whatever they had.
The supplementary welfare rent allowance scheme was also operated in an extraordinarily arbitrary, haphazard and unfair fashion until a considerable fuss was created about it in many areas. It now operates a good deal better.
There are two ways of looking at the way any statutory agency operates. One is from the perspective of those who deliver the service; the other is from the perspective of those who receive the service. With all the goodwill in the world and without attributing anything other than the best of motives to those who deliver the service, they often need the insight, experience and history of those who receive the service in order to learn how to improve it. There is no monopoly of wisdom on how local authorities operate, although I accept that experience contributes a good deal to people's knowledge of how the country operates. There are two sides to this. There is the side of the deliverer of the service and the side of the receiver of the service. Both sides are entitled to be heard and to be taken seriously. What I am endeavouring to do, with the limited experience I have, is to ensure that both sides get a reasonable crack of the whip. All I am saying is that there ought to be an obligation on a housing authority to make a reasonable attempt to assemble information and to be reasonably objective and detached in coming to a conclusion.
As it stands — this matter relates better to a later amendment — the opinion of a housing authority is needed in deciding whether somebody can reasonably occupy certain accommodation. How does that apply to somebody who has left a house because her husband is being violent? Who forms an opinion on that? Is it up to the individual in a housing authority or the housing authority themselves to decide whether a particular incident of family violence is sufficiently serious, or how is it decided? I think there is a requirement to establish objective information by contacting third parties like medical people, members of the Garda, etc. rather than dismissing the story of a wife who comes to a housing authority and says: "I had to leave, I could no longer stick it because he was beating me up." How is the information established if there is no obligation on people to do so? There are many people in our society who would prefer to believe that family violence does not exist. I know of the prejudices that exist. I have met various members of local authorities and, like the rest of Irish society, like this House and the other House of the Oireachtas, they consist of a mixture of the excellent, the good, the mediocre and the appalling. Because of that there is a need to ensure that what we want to be done is spelt out in regulations.
Somebody has asked me in what category are we?
We are among the excellent. To a certain extent I am incorrect. The Presidency is a third House of the Oireachtas and of course that is populated exclusively by the excellent. I cannot accuse the President of anything else.
I was in Europe in the last few days and I was constantly referred to as "Your Excellency."
I will be very kind to the Minister, but I will not refer to him as "Your Excellency". The Minister is not being helpful. It is not unreasonable to expect a tightening up of the procedure of assessment of the housing needs of an individual beyond the word "opinion". A medical opinion is based on experience and on an examination. A legal opinion is based on the expertise of a barrister who attempts to understand the situation. This sort of procedure, as far as we know, operates very well. If the complaints about how homeless people are housed are not heard it is perhaps because some of the homeless people are not very articulate.
There is a gentleman living not 200 yards away from here — I think it is on the steps of the Department of Agriculture — who has been homeless for 11 years. He has applied to Dublin Corporation for housing and has been told he can be accommodated in Ballymun. The gentleman happens to be quite a nervous and shy person and is extremely wary of the area in which he has been offered accommodation. He has been told that if he wants accommodation in a more acceptable part of the city there is awaiting list of 35 or 40 other people and there is no guarantee as to when he will be accommodated. Things do not work as well as people who deliver the services often imagine. There are always victims of the delivery of services and they are entitled to be heard. It is necessary that their side of the story is heard and checked out before a decision is taken. Appearance, history or anything else should not be sufficient to enable people to form an opinion. Having said that, because the Minister will be doing something to clarify the thinking of housing authorities on this issue, I withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 3 is consequential on amendment No. 7 and, therefore, we will discuss them together.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 4, line 14, after "shelter" to insert ", hostel".
I stole this amendment from the Labour Party and they will probably never forgive me.
That is why I stalled for a moment.
The Labour Party got most of these amendments from a source with which I have some contact too. We all made a submission, a submission which unfortunately was not responded to in the way I feel it should have been. A genuine attempt was made to transform this into excellent legislation. It is a matter of regret that the submission was not responded to. I have been concerned, both in this Bill and in a previous Bill, about the omission of any reference to a hostel from the definition of the homeless person. It is strange because at a later stage in the Bill it is made clear that a housing authority can build hostels. Section 15 refers to "the provision of dwellings (including houses, flats, maisonettes and hostels) by the authority". I would hate people to think that the solution to the problems of the homeless is to build hostels for them.
A hostel is not a home for any individual who has the capacity to survive independently or to live on his or her own. A person may be in a form of accommodation which can be categorised by a housing authority as a hostel, as distinct from a night shelter — and, in spite of the best efforts of the organisation that I have some connection with, all State authorities insist on describing all our night shelters as hostels. That is one of the reasons I am so concerned about the wording of the Bill. It appears to me that most statutory authorities will regard a Simon Community night shelter as a hostel, because that is what they insist on calling them in spite of all our efforts to try to change their thinking. That is why I, among others, would wish to have the word "hostel" inserted into the Bill. Hostel, may I say, as defined in amendment No. 7. Many people have explained to us that "hostel" is a kind of a catch-all word. Apart from the obvious meaning of it, I have clearly, like other Senators, excluded hostel accommodation for students, professional trainees or youth hostels from the provisions of this section.
The Minister can make various arguments about who might be affected by this amendment. Let me remind him about the wording of section 2 (b) which refers to a person "living in a hospital, county home, night shelter, hostel or other such institution, and is so living because he has no accommodation of the kind referred to in paragraph (a)". Hostels for the mentally handicapped are not affected by this amendment. We are not going to say that a local authority will have to define all mentally handicapped people living in hostels as homeless under section 2 because of the fact that they are not living in those hostels solely because they have no accommodation. They are living in those hostels because they are in need of a particular kind of sheltered accommodation. It is precisely the same wording that refers to a hospital, because we all know there are people living in psychiatric hospitals in particular because they cannot get accommodation. It is equally true that there are people living in hostels, particularly hostels as defined by health boards and local authorities, simply because they can get no accommodation.
I want to anticipate what I know to be the traditional argument against inserting the word "hostel" and that is that hostels cover people like the mentally handicapped or people who are recently discharged from prison. Hostels for recently discharged prisoners are not simply to make provision for them because they are homeless; they are actually half-way houses to enable them to acclimatise themselves to the realities of living outside prison. They are not in those hostels simply because they have no accommodation; they are in them for an extra reason. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to accept the word "hostel" in order to allay the fears of a large number of voluntary organisations who run night shelters and who are convinced that many housing authorities will chose to regard night shelters as hostels because they have always done so and there is nothing in this legislation to make them do differently. The word "hostel", as defined under amendment No. 7, would clear that up and would not leave housing authorities open to some compulsion to regard as homeless people who are in hostels because they are mentally handicapped, because they are ex-psychiatric patients and so on. It is an attempt at clarity which will, on the one hand, allay the fears of a considerable number of people and, on the other hand, guarantee that persons who are in hostels because of the fact of their handicaps of one kind or another will not come within the ambit of section 2.
As one of the signatories to this set of amendments I want the Minister to be reassured that we are trying to be as specific as possible about inserting this description of what we all considered to be a temporary shelter for people. We want the word "hostel" added and the provisions read, "living in a hospital, county home, night shelter, hostel or such institutions or other such institutions..." The Minister will probably tell us that the words, "or other such institutions" will cover hostels. It is the opinion of people like Senator Brendan Ryan, and indeed those of us who have had dealings with people who were concerned about the exclusion of the definition of a hostel, that not having it included here could leave a loophole in the legislation. I do not think the Minister, his officials, the Department or the Government would like to see that happening in a Bill which is trying to address the problems of homeless people. Therefore, to assist the Minister we have defined what we consider to be a hostel. It should be interpreted, the amendment says, "as a multiple occupancy accommodation constructed for the purpose of providing refuge aid facilities or services for a person who would not otherwise have accommodation readily available for him to occupy it but shall not include hostel accommodation for students, professional trainees or youth hostels."
Nobody can deny, if somebody is staying in a hostel or in a night shelter, that in some way they are not homeless. But while they might be in those places of shelter or refuge for one night, they are transient, and they certainly could not call it their own. It would not be a home as we understand a home, a place a person can go to and come from, where there is a certain element of privacy, a certain security of occupancy and tenancy. We feel that adding the word "hostel" to this will make the section more definitive, particularly when it is taken in conjunction with our interpretation of what a hostel should be and with what everybody thinks it is at the moment. This is not an unreasonable amendment. If the Minister understands the good will with which it is being made he will respond positively to it.
The concern behind these amendments might very well be misplaced. The term "hostel" was consciously omitted from the definition of the homeless person in this Bill, and in the 1985 Bill, for the very good reason that hostel accommodation, incorporating both support services and decent standards of privacy, is an appropriate and indeed often an essential element of the range of accommodation necessary to meet the needs of homeless persons. It was precisely for that reason that the 1985 Bill provided that local authority housing subsidy would, for the first time, be made available for the provision of local authority hostel accommodation. Since then the Government have revised the voluntary housing scheme to allow the provision of modern hostel accommodation for homeless persons to be effectively grant aided up to 95 per cent by housing authorities with the full cost of these grants being met by the Department. Section 15 provides for those arrangements. It may be helpful if I say that I regard the existing Simon hostels as coming within the definition of a night shelter or a similar institution. That was the basic argument put forward in the other House. I have no problem at all in referring to what happened in the other House. Some people do not like it happening here but sometimes it can help to clarify a little matter that may be causing concern.
It is what does not happen that concerns me.
I have no trouble in justifying the need for this House. Senators do not have to be so defensive about it. As far as I am concerned the whole question about Simon hostels comes within that definition of night shelter or a similar institution. I will make that point very clear in the guidelines that we will be issuing to local authorities in so far as the implemention of section 2, and perhaps even more importantly, section 10 of this legislation is concerned. If that helps to put the minds of Senators at rest about that element, then that matter can be resolved quite adequately under the guidelines.
The amendment could be quite harmful in its effects in that it could hinder the development of appropriate modern hostel accommodation for homeless persons as legally such accommodation could not then be used by a housing authority to meet the housing needs of those homeless persons for whom it was appropriate and suitable. In effect, I could summarise my position in the matter very simply by saying that I regard hostels as part of the solution as far as the homeless are concerned, not in its entirety, but it certainly will form, and has formed, a partial solution. To accept these amendments would put that out of court and could, in fact, be counterproductive to what we are seeking to achieve by this legislation.
Senators will understand that, of course, certain kinds of hostels are very appropriate for certain kinds of people, particularly for people who leave institutions and who are accommodated, and can be accommodated, in this type of arrangement. For that reason I suggest that Senators would have their fears set aside in so far as my understanding of the Simon hostels is concerned. I only use the word "Simon" to give an example because, of course, they are not the only voluntary organisation involved in this. We must not get tied up in referring to Simon as if they, and they only, were the sole voluntary organisation that has a concern in this matter. They have — I have already put this on record in the Dáil and I will put it on record in the Seanad — my considerable esteem for the work they have done, and continue to do, but it is no less than the work done by other voluntary organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and others. There is no point in naming them now because people will ask why I did not mention their organisation which may have been helping the homeless for 30 to 40 years. They all do excellent work and it is to enable their hostels to be understood in the way I suggest now, and which will be clarified in the guidelines that I will be issuing, and also to have it understood that I regard hostels as a partial solution to this problem that I ask Senators to see my point of view in the matter. I ask Senators not to press the amendments.
The Minister has explained my position better than I could because he has spoken about hostels for people who need support or who need protection, and so on. Those people who need hostels for any other reason other than the fact that they have no accommodation are not covered by the hostel terms as we have introduced it. We are talking about people who are in hostels simply because they have no other accommodation, not people who are in hostels because they need support, or somebody to cook for them, or somebody to listen to them, or because they need the experience of communal living due to their experiences, their age or anything like that. We are talking about people, according to the wording of the section as introduced by the Minister, who are living in a hospital, county home, night shelter, hostel or other such institution. We are referring to people who are solely there because they have no accommodation of the kind referred to due to a lack of accommodation, not because of their personality needs, not because of their needs in the areas of, say, drink or drugs, not because of their age, not because of mental handicap but because, purely and simply, they have no accommodation.
I do not accept that a hostel is proper or right accommodation for anybody whose only problem is that he or she has no accommodation. Anybody who has no accommodation and has no other problems needs the privacy of his or her own accommodation, private and separate from that of others, or to be free to choose a different kind of accommodation, for example, sharing a house with somebody else.
I do not accept that in any way the sort of hostels for people who need support — not all homeless people by any means need that sort of support — people who need help or assistance or anything else, are in any way implicated in this. We are talking about hostels for people who have no accommodation and are in the hostel because they have no accommodation. Let it be said that there are homeless people who need to be in hospitals and it is one of the scandals of our society. Like any voluntary organisation dealing with homeless people I know that there are people who need to be in hospital because they are psychiatrically ill or, indeed, because they are physically unwell. That does not mean that we should exclude hospitals from this definition because there are homeless people who need to be in hospital. Some people, because of their age, need to be in county homes or in accommodation for old people. That does not mean we should exclude county homes.
There are homeless people whose proper place of living ought to be a hospital or a county home but that does not mean, and the Minister did not choose to say so, that hospitals should be excluded from this definition. Similarly, the fact that there are some homeless people who need a particular kind of hostel support should not exclude the term "hostel" from this definition. Our amendment would do an awful lot to alleviate the concerns of a considerable number of people. I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister that anybody who thinks that the Simon Community are anything other than a small part of the work that has been done for homeless people in this country is mistaken. The Simon Community are a small part of the work. They may be vocal, and the Minister may have a view as to whether they are excessively vocal or not, but in terms of the provision of services there are a vast number, most notably, as I said in my Second Stage speech, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, who have been doing this work for a long time. Indeed, the county homes used to provide this service but regrettably they are doing less and less of it.
And still do.
About 60 per cent of county homes in the last 15 years have either eliminated or reduced their accommodation for homeless people. I will give the Minister the figure from a survey carried out four years ago. They have substantially reduced their accommodation for homeless people.
Only because there were alternatives available.
No, he can go and look at Carlow if he wants to find a place where the homeless persons unit was closed down and nothing was provided in its place, and nothing has been provided. No, we do not want to go off on that tangent now, we may later.
There is a coherent case for introducing the word "hostel" precisely because of the ambivalence about it. It is because the word "hostel" is ambivalent that we have drafted a definition which makes clear what we are talking about. It also makes clear that it is only people who are in such a hostel precisely because they have no accommodation, and for no other additional reason, that they are referred to. Therefore, on this occasion, I could not contemplate withdrawing the amendment.
Is the amendment withdrawn?
No. The Minister in his response has confirmed my worries and concerns in this area, which prompted us to put in the word "hostel". The Minister has now admitted that he considers the provision of hostels, as he understands them, by the local authority, or anybody else, goes some of the way towards meeting the problem of the homeless. It is our argument on this side of the House that the accommodation that is available in hostels in no way goes towards the cause of homeless people who need a home or the privacy and facility of it. There are people in hostels who need other services in the hostels and probably would not be capable of living in a home, a small house or an OPD on their own. That is why, and this is perfectly understandable, they are in the night shelters, hostels or other such institutions.
It is the Minister's definition of "hostel" that has confirmed in my mind that it is appropriate to have the word in the Bill. The fact that it is not there will give an opening to local authorities to say that people who are in hostels need not necessarily be included in guidelines for people who need rehousing. That would be a pity because for many people being in those hostels is a temporary arrangement. It does not meet the case for rehousing them. If they are there, not of their own choice, they are debarred from being considered even now by any research group, medical people or social workers, for housing. If they are in a hostel they may be debarred from consideration as a homeless person under the definitions of the Bill. The Minister would want to confirm to me that his guidelines to the local authorities, and whatever definitions he lays down, will cover this. We are talking in terms of a local authority maybe maintaining a register of hostels operating in their functional area in accordance with subsection (2). They may not enter into such register hostels that are operated for such purposes as provision of accommodation for students or other people.
We are trying to be absolutely specific in what we are doing and we are trying to make sure that it is not misrepresented by anybody. Section 2 (a) states that a person shall be regarded as being homeless if there is no accommodation available which he can reasonably occupy or remain in occupation of. That is why we have included "hostels" as one of the additional other institutions and we want that specified because there is, obviously, ambiguity about people's understanding of what a hostel is or the service it gives.
The reason I rise is to say that Senator Ferris's understanding of the Bill now confirms for me that I am right in my attitude. He made my case.
And the Minister made Senator Ryan's case.
No, Senator Ferris made my case, quite eloquently, by saying that a hostel is not a solution to the housing of all homeless persons. However, it is acknowledged, and is acknowledged too by Senator Ferris, that certain homeless people, particularly those who might have an institutional background or, perhaps, young people, may require the supportive care which can be provided in the hostel accommodation. That hostel accommodation may very well be, as Senator Ferris quite rightly recognised, an interim arrangement and may not necessarily be a long term one, depending on the needs of the particular individual. There are many people living in hostels who would prefer to live permanently in the hostel environment with the advantages of the company that is available there and a certain level of support. They would not want me to make them leave. I am not for turfing people out of institutions or hostels, call them what you like, if they do not wish to leave and if they find support there. That is a danger if we pursue the matter as suggested.
As far as I am concerned, I am aware of people in this town living in particular circumstances for 20 years and who regard themselves not as homeless. They are looked after, they get their meals, their support and so on and they have the privacy referred to by Senator Ferris. There is the element of privacy and security of tenure —"tenure" was the word used by the Senator — and that is the reason I say that a hostel can be a partial solution to this problem of homelessness. It would be totally unreasonable, as far as I am concerned, to suggest, as Senator Ryan has, that a hostel is not a suitable form of accommodation for certain categories of persons. There are people who would prefer to have the communal atmosphere, who would need, require and want the support of a hostel. They would prefer it rather than the loneliness that one can sometimes experience living in a flat. To suggest to them that their position might be altered, diminished or somehow not encompassed in the way hoped for in the legislation would, I believe, be doing a disservice and taking away that little element of choice to a few. It is the few we talk about in this type of legislation. This legislation, while it deals in many ways with the thousands and thousands involved in housing arrangements in other circumstances, affects a few and that worries me. The few can have their positions seriously altered and the solution to their personal requirements and what they want for themselves would be diminished if I accepted the amendments. Senator Ferris is right in that regard and I take his comfort to the Minister in good spirit.
May I clarify two comforts to the Minister. I need to be comforted and to be absolutely sure about what we are doing. It is very difficult to talk about comfort when we realise some of the discomfort those people are going through. I am saying that nobody opts out of or is pushed out of a hostel or any other accommodation. They apply to leave but I want to be categorically clear that if somebody temporarily residing in a hostel applies to a local authority for consideration for rehousing they will not be debarred or excluded. They may apply because they might not consider the hostel to be the right place, but it may be the only place that is available to them. Please do not exclude them. I would hate if any local authority formed the opinion that because somebody was in a hostel considered suitable for some other people they should be debarred. They may have an address of a hostel or institution but that is not the point. Can the Minister reassure me that he will not exclude any applicant from a hostel if the applicant considers he should be rehoused in the privacy of a little house or otherwise? If he can I will not have many more worries.
Let me make it crystal clear, and it might be helpful to a lot of people, including the Senator, that homelessness in voluntary housing accommodation, including hostel accommodation, will not debar an individual from consideration by a local authority or housing authority. That is specifically catered for in section 10 (9). The Senator's point is totally covered.
The Minister went off on a slightly unfortunate tangent about turfing people out of hostels. The problem is that he is not being consistent. There must be some reason for excluding hostels from this definition and I do not think we have found it yet. There are people living in psychiatric hospitals who are only there because they have no accommodation. Is the Minister saying that they are going to be turfed out under this legislation because they are defined as homeless? I know he is not. I am not suggesting that people who live in hostels and who do not want to move should be turfed out. What I am saying is that people who are in hostels, and who have no other problem, ought to be categorised by housing authorities as being homeless. I have read section 9, which the Minister referred to, and that does not just cover hostels. It covers anybody who is catered for under section 10 which refers to financial assistance, assistance with renting accommodation, arrangement with lodgings and so on. Any of those are still eligible for local authority housing and I am quite clear about that. However, what I am not clear about is why people who happen to be living in hostels cannot be listed among those who are homeless in terms of what is going to be done later on for housing assessments and in terms of what the housing authority may have to do for them or may feel obliged to do for them under the provisions of section 10.
I cannot see why we can list people in hospitals, who perhaps do not want to leave, or people in county homes, who do not want to leave, or people in night shelters. I know of people in night shelters who do not want to move into any other accommodation for the reasons the Minister has listed. Sometimes, unfortunately, the Minister gives the impression that the things he has thought about are somehow entirely new. I am aware that there are people in all those institutions who do not want to live elsewhere, and that is not something that we should make too much of because many of those people have been conditioned by many years misery and have no other source of identification. I also know, in considerable detail, that many people do not find the isolation and the loneliness of living in a flat on their own preferable to living in a hostel. Nobody is suggesting that there is anything in this Bill which is going to force such people out of accommodation that they want to be in into accommodation that they do not want to be in, other than, may I say — I do not want to be too nasty about this — the fact that the Government cutbacks are going to convince many of the health boards that they are going to have to dump people out of psychiatric hospitals. They do not want to go but health boards will have to tell them they will have to live on their own. That is the only case in which people are going to be forced out of where they want to live into where they do not want to be.
What we are simply saying is that such things as hostels exist. They are places where many people live simply because they have no accommodation. People who are in hostels simply because they have no accommodation ought to be categorised as homeless, because that is what they are. Nothing else matters on this issue because everything else is covered. People can be in hostels because they need the transition arrangements, because of their mental handicap, because of their psychiatric history or whatever. The truth is that nobody need be forced out of a hostel. But people living in hostels are homeless and are entitled to be given the same priority as people living in long stay psychiatric institutions, county homes or night shelters. Multiple occupancy accommodation, which is what a hostel will be, is not the sort of accommodation that we shall regard as the norm for housing for people who want accommodation which they call their own. That is why hostels should be incorporated in this definition. That is why I cannot withdraw the amendment.
Obviously, I am not going to convince the Senator. I would like to think he could have been persuaded.
(Interruptions.)
Well, Senator, you never can tell. You might be referring to me as "Your Excellency" yet.
I take it that I have convinced Senator Ferris about the question of the entitlement of people to be considered for local authority housing even though they are in a certain hostel situation. That is catered for. That was the main thrust of the Senator's contribution and the fears he expressed. I want it accepted. The position of variance between myself and Senator Ryan is that I see a certain kind of hostel as being a partial solution to this problem. It is catered for in section 15. That is the reason it is catered for there. There are individuals who can be, could be and are homeless. They are in these places and they do not want to leave. I do not want them — if using the word "turfed out" is too sensitive, then fair enough; but I want that element of choice to be there. That is the reason why I want it to be part of the solution and I want the choice to remain for certain individuals. We are talking about individuals. For that reason I would ask the Senator not to press that matter.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the amendment withdrawn?
No.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 14; Níl, 23.
Tá
- Bradford, Paul.
- Doyle, Joe.
- Fennell, Nuala.
- Ferris, Michael.
- Hogan, Philip.
- Kennedy, Patrick.
- Loughrey, Joachim.
- McCormack, Padraic.
- McDonald, Charlie.
- Manning, Maurice.
- Norris, David.
- O'Toole, Joe.
- Ross, Shane, P.N.
- Ryan, Brendan.
Níl
- Bohan, Edward Joseph.
- Byrne, Sean.
- Cullimore, Seamus.
- Doherty, Michael.
- Fallon, Sean.
- Farrell, Willie.
- Fitzgerald, Tom.
- Fitzsimons, Jack.
- Hanafin, Des.
- Haughey, Seán F.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kiely, Dan.
- Kiely, Rory.
- Lanigan, Mick.
- McEllistrim, Tom.
- McGowan, Patrick.
- McKenna, Tony.
- O'Callaghan, Vivian.
- O'Connell, John.
- Ó Conchubhair, Nioclás.
- O'Toole, Martin J.
- Wallace, Mary.
Tellers: Tá, Senators B. Ryan and Norris; Níl, Senators M. O'Toole and S. Haughey.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 are related and may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 4:
In page 4, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following:
"(a) if the authority is satisfied that a person is in real and present danger of coming within the meaning of paragraphs (a) and (b) within 28 days,".
There is a failure in logic in both this Bill and in the previous Government's Bill that I have never been able to get to the bottom of. While it is accepted, whatever the arguments we may have, that people who are homeless are in need of provision, in need of concern and in need of considerable support — and we may argue about the degree of that support or the specific obligation to provide support — there is a clear indication, by virtue of the existence of the definition and the detail into which the Minister has gone in this Bill in the definition, of the extreme need of people who are homeless and the fact that, as a society, nobody believes that anybody ought to be living without accommodation.
That, of course, is most welcome. It is peculiar therefore that, if we accept that homelessness is a particularly devastating form of deprivation, we cannot attempt to anticipate such a form of deprivation by ensuring that people who are threatened with becoming homeless come under the aegis of the housing authority; and that whatever they propose to do about homeless people should be done about people if, as the amendment suggests, "the authority is satisfied that the person is in real and present danger of coming within the meaning of paragraphs (a) and (b) within 28 days". In other words, if a housing authority is satisfied — and we are being conservative here because we use the word "satisfied" rather than "is of the opinion that", which is the Minister's preferred choice of words. However, we try to be consistent in these things and, since we wanted them to be satisfied or to have some evidence on the previous occasion, we want similar evidence now. If an authority is satisfied that a person is in real and present danger of effectively becoming homeless within 28 days, then they ought to come under the provision, they ought to be defined as being homeless, because of the extreme need that those people will be in within a relatively short period of time. I know that there is provision later in the Bill for the provision of emergency accommodation. I am well aware of that. I very carefully read legislation before I get involved with a Minister of the ability of the present Minister so that I know what I am talking about.
Thank you.
That is one of the things the Minister and I have in common: we both know what we are talking about. The point, of course, is that in terms of what the housing authority needs to do in terms of its assessments, in terms of its responses or indeed of what it is empowered to do under this legislation, in my opinion the powers will be considerably greater if those who are threatened with homelessness, if those who are identified and the authority are satisfied that they are threatened with homelessness, are brought within the provisions of section 2.
That is why I would ask the Minister to accept the concept of being threatened with homelessness. It is actually a concept that is in the British Homeless Persons Act, because of the fact that it was identified as a sensible way of anticipating problems before people actually ended up on the streets.
Similarly, if I may deal with amendment No. 5, since we are talking about both of them, this is a specific reference to a particularly painful method by which people cease to have access to accommodation, and that is by the threat of violence or the likelihood of violence in some other person. I would be concerned that the use of violence or the threat of violence to keep people out of accommodation that they might otherwise reasonably occupy ought to be inserted in this, in particular to deal with the problems of family violence and of battered wives. I do not want us to be in a position similar to the position in the United Kingdom where many housing authorities have actually said that because somebody leaves a home as a result of family violence that person is voluntarily homeless and therefore not covered by the provisions of the British Act.
I think the threat of violence or the experience of violence ought to be identified if for no other reason than to make it clear to people who are advising the victims of family violence that they come under the provisions of homelessness legislation, however inadequate it may be. This is the second or third Minister I have dealt with on the issue of homelessness and I have a pretty good idea that he will tell me that the "reasonable occupy" phrase in section 2 covers the threat of violence. I accept that it is possible to argue that. But I think the experience and the threat of violence is such an extreme trauma that it should not be implied in a definition of homelessness; it should be explicitly stated within it to make it clear beyond any doubt to any housing authority that this Bill covers those who are forced out of their accommodation because of violence.
That is not an unreasonable demand. There is nothing at variance with the Minister's intent in this Bill. It is simply an attempt to reassure those who would otherwise be concerned that they might not be covered or to make it clear to those who have the job of implementing this legislation that their brief extends to people who are excluded from their housing because of the threat of violence. That is all I wish to say on these two amendments. We are getting into deeper issues about the problem of homelessness at this stage. I look forward to what I am sure will be a constructive response from the Minister.
Before the Minister replies to the excellent points made by my colleague, Senator Brendan Ryan, I want to say at the outset that trying to insert this kind of definition has been considered over a number of years as being revolutionary and controversial, to say the least, because there was always a worry in the minds of people who felt they would be carrying out this legislation that the threat of homelessness would be difficult to determine. People get threatening letters from solicitors, letters purporting to say that if they are not out of the house by a certain date they will be forcibly ejected. This kind of letter emanates from solicitors' offices without regard to the fact that one has to go to court to get a court order before one can be evicted or taken out of one's home, for whatever reason. Usually people have to resort to the courts before they finally put people out. Unfortunately, I have witnessed evictions in my time by the private sector. They evicted people who were living under peculiar caretaker clauses in what was termed to be the family home for up to 100 years. But suddenly they found themselves, on a snowy day in the village of Bansha, being evicted. Evictions do happen in this day and age. Unfortunately, some local authorities have had to resort to requesting people to vacate their houses because they were unable to meet the repayments.
What we are concerned about in this amendment is that a threat of a letter from a solicitor's office, using whatever legal jargon the solicitor might use, would not be considered to be a real threat. So, we put into this amendment the words "real" and "present danger" of becoming homeless within the meaning of the Act. This means going through the normal procedure, the procedure of going into a court where the judge, as we understand it, would normally give a decision that these people would have to be forcibly ejected from their house. This is happening. I am concerned therefore that when there is a real and present danger of a person becoming homeless within the meaning of the Act, and within a specified number of days, the local authority, as the housing authority, should be able to respond before it happens.
At present under the emergency situation, when somebody is put out on the road or is in danger of being put out on the road with their belongings and their children, the local authority have to respond instantly by providing mobile home accommodation, then they have to put them on an application list, then on a housing list, and finally try to allocate them a house as one becomes available. So, there is a little bit of bureacracy, because up to then the accommodation they had would have been considered adequate for their needs. Our concern is that their ability to remain in that adequate accommodation is being removed through the forces of law or any other real or present danger.
We are also concerned about the level of violence that is, unfortunately, with us nowadays. In regard to the allocation of deserted wives' allowance, if the wife admits that she left the home, even because of violence, she debars herself from the receipt of a deserted wives allowance, because she is considered by the Department of Social Welfare to have left the home, even if it was in the interests of her own safety and that of her children. Whether we like it or not, these events are happening. Nobody would advocate that somebody should stay in a house where their life is in danger or that they may voluntarily, if you like, make themselves homeless in the interests of their own safety and the safety of their family. But that might preclude the housing authority from being able seriously to consider them as homeless.
We are concerned therefore. In that regard we tried to be reasonable in defining it as "real and present danger". The Minister, in his response, might be able to reassure us, because this is fundamental to what is understood by all of us involved in trying to do something in the area of homelessness. I admit that it was not in previous legislation either and that previous Ministers did not manage to get it through the parliamentary draftsman and into legislation. We hope the Minister, in his own excellent and flamboyant way, might concede this amendment.
People in the past have received notices to quit from their landlords or their agents. Unfortunately, people leave their place of residence through fear. Of course, as was pointed out, the only legal way to serve notice on tenants is through the courts, through the serving of a civil bill and an order being made by the court and then the sheriff taking action on a court order. In Dublin the people who go through that procedure find themselves on the priority list for housing. So, they are better off than people who just find themselves homeless. They are a special category and they can jump the queue, so to speak. But there is no accommodation for those referred to in the second amendment and for whom I would have some sympathy, that is, people who are suffering or have suffered from violence in the family home and for that reason have to leave or are forced to leave. I would be sympathetic towards the Minister considering that position.
I would like to support amendments Nos. 4 and 5. I do so despite the fact that I am very much inclined to agree with my distinguished colleague, Senator Brendan Ryan, that both he and the Minister know very clearly and in a most professional way what they are talking about and that I am, in a certain sense, intervening as an amateur, but as an amateur who is moved very strongly by the plight of the homeless.
Amendment No. 4 says:
...if the authority is satisfied that a person is in real and present danger of coming within the meaning of paragraphs (a) and (b) within 28 days ...
I understand this to mean that a situation would be rectified where there could be a time lag between the time in which a person actually becomes homeless and is rehoused in a practical sense. Luckily it is not so frequent an occurrence now, but I have very clear memories — until the last few years, in fact — of not so long ago seeing people in the inner city of Dublin with their possessions dumped out on the side of the road. The unfortunate people sometimes camped under polythene with a few miserable possessions waiting to be rehoused. It is a very shameful sight in this country, and I am sure the Minister will agree with me on that. If there is any way in which this time lag can be removed then it should be acted upon.
Those were very poor people in the majority of circumstances. There is now, of course, as the Minister is aware, the case of the new poor. There are situations in which people — to use offensive class terminology, which I suppose I must — middle class people caught by the economic circumstances that are currently prevailing find they have to default on mortgages, for example. There have been a number of programmes which instanced this over the last year, cases of professional and business people whose livelihoods have collapsed for one reason or another. They are forced to default on mortgages, they are evicted from their houses and the local authority is unable to house them, apparently, until they are actually out on the side of the road. I think that, even if that situation obtains only for 24 hours, 12 hours or even one hour, it is 24, 12 or one hour too much, because apart from anything else there is the humiliation, the shame and the obloquy to which these people are unnecessarily exposed by virtue of economic circumstances over which they have no control. So, I would urge the Minister to consider the very carefully worded amendment in the names of Senator Ryan, Senator Ferris, Senator O'Shea and Senator Harte, which I am happy to support vigorously.
The second amendment, amendment No. 5, deals with the possibility that some person already has accommodation, but that accommodation to which he or she has a technical legal right may not represent a real possibility because of the contingency of violence. Now I think that this is a real situation. I am concerned that this amendment starts with the pronoun "he" because it seems very clear to me that in the majority of circumstances what we are probably dealing with here is a situation of battered wives. I understand that there are technical reasons of draftsmanship why the word "he" is used, but it is a particularly unfortunate form of sexism and it is an offence to the majority of citizens of this country, who happen to be female, that in terms of the technology of draftsmanship it should still in this year of 1988 be maintained that the pronoun "he" includes the female. I presume that this is the reason that this is done, and I know that it is not directly relevant except as a kind of a codicil to this paragraph. I find it offensive and I expect the Minister, as a forward thinking person, and his advisers also find it offensive; but I do not suppose that in terms of this Bill anything could be done about that. Although I believe that as it is a situation of battered wives that is being addressed here it is a very real situation, it is also a situation in which, in my limited experience of dealing with these areas, the Garda and other family members are very often reluctant to get involved, precisely because it is a family matter. In these sort of circumstances I frequently hear people say "I do not want to be involved because it is family". That seems to me to be a situation in which the State ought to operate in loco familii, if I am getting my Latin cases correct, in the place of the family, and ought to take care for these unfortunate people. I would be interested in a comment from the Minister, if this is possible, with regard to the use of the pronoun and perhaps, as I say, this forward looking Government will be prepared to introduce some procedural change to remove this anomaly.
I believe, Senator Norris, that it is the Interpretation Act, 1937, that so decided that "he" in legislation would also include "she." The Senator will have noticed in his casual perusal of my contributions in this matter and other legislation in the other House that I regularly state "he or she." I do not know why I do that for any particular reason except——
You are a gentleman, Sir.
——it is perhaps sometimes safer to be on the side of the ladies in these matters. Anyway that legislation, in the same year as the Constitution, determined all these matters for us and, as the Senator quite rightly says, the draftsman is not about to change it now to accommodate this piece of legislation.
I take your point, Senator, about amateurs. If we were considering sporting activities, it has been my experience that rarely does the amateur succeed when he is dealing with the professionals; but in this business we are talking about this afternoon, often the amateur has the most salient point to put forward, as I have discovered, so your contribution is both worthy and precise.
I think I would join with all the Senators in saying that eviction from a home is never a pleasant sight, and thankfully it is a rare sight. As the years have drifted along, whether by good fortune or by more active local authority and housing authority participation and understanding of the needs of individuals or whatever, it now is a rare occurrence. I hope it might not and should not happen in the future. The point about the substance of amendment No. 4 "threatened with homelessness within 28 days" is in fact already covered in section 2 (a) of the legislation in relation to accommodation which a person "can reasonably occupy or remain in occupation of." I know that will offend Senator Ryan, who will already have had the experience of some five or six years of tussling with the basic principles enunciated in this legislation and that he will be familiar with contributions made here and in other places and the reasons put forward in a substantive way for supporting a particular point of view. But, at the risk of offending his sensibilities in these matters, I will have to say that the question which is the substantive thing in his amendment is already covered for in section 2 (a). That was deliberately drafted in the broad terms — and in the 1985 Bill as well — and I have retained that broad wording in order that a housing authority may use their new powers under section 10 in as flexible a way as possible. That caters for the point made by Senator Ferris, and indeed by Senator Norris as well, in that emergencies can now be attended to effectively under another section of this Bill and that matter is being conceded by Senator Ryan. I think he has referred to it in a previous way, if not in public as I am sure he will later on, but he certainly has conceded the point in private that that is a most forward thinking section of the legislation and he will be generous in that matter in due course. It was with a view to ensuring that the emergency elements could be catered for effectively that I retained what I regard as suitable wording in so far as section 2 (a) is concerned.
I would like to point out as well that the main objective of the provisions of the Bill regarding the homeless is to provide new powers to housing authorities for dealing with the relatively small number of persons who are actually homeless and may require urgent action outside the normal system of allocation of local authority housing. I know that that remark about a limited number of people will immediately draw fire from certain Senators in regard to establishing what is the total number regarded as homeless in this country. But I shall not be drawn on that matter this evening, be assured of that. Persons who may lose their accommodation in the near future may apply for and be offered local authority accommodation in the normal way — and, of course, without having to become homeless in the process — and that I think is one of the fundamental points made by contributing Senators.
It is worth repeating that in so far as is possible, persons can, without becoming homeless, apply and be given accommodation by a housing authority. The proposed amendment appears to ignore the fact that persons threatened with eviction or homelessness for any other reason are, and have been in the past, housed by housing authorities for many years under the existing legislation and under previous housing codes. That is the position, and Senator Doyle admits that. That position is already proven and established. That makes my case as for not supporting the amendment.
In summary, therefore, while persons who are not in fact homeless should apply for and have their needs assessed in the normal way, housing authorities will be able to use these new powers under section 10 to deal with cases of threatened homelessness where appropriate and not solely homelessness that is threatened in a period of 28 days. Why would I include in legislation a named day where one might be threatened with homelessness? Whether it is two days, 12 days, 28 days or indeed six months, that is not my concern. My concern is that it has been the practice, is the practice and will continue to be the practice that if a person is threatened they can be accommodated by a housing authority under this legislation, and particularly under the provisions of section 10 which give a new impetus to the housing authority and that extra framework of authority to deal with the question of homelessness.
May I deal with the substance of amendment No. 5 as well as it might be the most suitable way of dealing with this. I must oppose that amendment for a very good reason. I feel it is unnecessary. I put this point to Senator Norris, that persons who cannot reasonably remain in occupation of accommodation are already covered in the definition in section 2 (a). I refer him to the definition in the legislation. Persons suffering violence or the threat of violence in the family home cannot reasonably remain in the accommodation. I will go so far as this, Senator Norris, that in the issuing of guidelines to local authorities and housing authorities I will point that out to them, the clear, unambiguous terminology in the guidelines. That can only happen, of course, when the Bill is enacted; but it is important to have it addressed here and stated here that it will be the case.
The definition of a homeless person is in general terms, and I deliberately want it to be in general terms. It covers all the categories of need rather than attempting to include specific categories, such as victims of family violence, travellers or persons with institutional background, single persons or any other group. I would rather not get into naming specific categories in legislation. It is much more useful for housing authorities — I think Senator Ferris has already agreed with me on this point — to take a general view where they can cater for any particular category and to deal with their needs and requirements accordingly. People in any one of a whole list of categories may or may not be homeless, of course. I consider that it is preferable to define homelessness simply in relation to accommodation not being available to a person, regardless of any other label or description that someone may wish to attach to that person. I am not interested in labelling people in this legislation. That would be offensive. It would certainly be offensive to my sensibilities in the matter. I would ask you to take that in good faith.
In summary, I am satisfied that the matters referred to by Senator Ryan and others are catered for very adequately in section 2 (a). First, I take it that the kind of people they are talking about could not reasonably be expected to continue in the accommodation and consequently they can be accommodated by the legislation. Second, it is not a requirement, as some people seem to misunderstand, that you have to be homeless in order to be housed by a housing authority. That is not so. Third, the question about an emergency is adequately dealt with and catered for in section 10. That being the case, I would respectfully suggest to somebody whom I do not regard as an amateur in these matters, Senator Ryan, that he might consider withdrawing the amendment.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the amendment withdrawn?
I have read section 10. I can find no reference to emergency accommodation. There is a reference in section 11.
My apologies through you, a Leas-Chathaoirleach. Section 11 is quite right.
Section 11, (1) (c). The problem with that section is that it refers to schemes for priorities for letting local authority dwellings. I would advise the Minister not to go too far in quoting private conversations. I have had a long number of private conversations with the Minister about this issue as well as I do not want to get involved in my recollections of private conversations any more than I want to get involved in his recollections of private conversation. We will leave the conversations to what is said on the public record if the Minister is happy with that?
You had a very fruitful conversation.
We had a long conversation and at the time I thought it was a very fruitful one.
I wish that some of your colleagues would apply themselves in the same way with the conversations that take place within and without the House.
A Leas-Chathaoirligh, since he was not talking about me — I am not sure whom he was talking about but he clearly was not talking about me — so we can leave it at that.
I welcomed the recognition of emergency accommodation because I had an unfortunate experience with Cork Corporation some time ago, ten years ago, in which somebody was recommended for emergency accommodation and all sorts of procedures were gone through. The recommendation was made and then Cork Corporation announced that they had no provision for emergency accommodation and the whole thing turned out to be a kind of a farce. The provision for emergency accommodation applies only to a scheme of priorities for local authority lettings. Therefore, the question of emergency accommodation does not arise in the context of the powers — we will come to take at considerably greater length later on — which local authorities may use under section 10. Section 10 applies to people who are homeless. It does not apply to the question of emergency accommodation. Emergency accommodation is referred to in terms of local authority lettings, not in terms of the general powers which, if they were used, would be quite useful under section 10.
The first thing is that the emergency accommodation provisions refer only to local authority lettings. They do not apply to other areas and therefore one has a certain uncertainty about them. Having said that, having listened to the Minister and being the reasonable man I am, I think the Minister has actually made a good case that the concern, particularly about violence, is fairly well implied in the legislation. I wanted to make sure that it was made clear. Since the Minister has undertaken to make guidelines available which will interpret it as such to the housing authorities, I do not think, being the reasonable man that I am, that I could pursue the amendment about violence, given the commitments that he has made. I will have enough things to pursue later on anyway so I do not necessarily want to pursue that one.
As regards the question of people being threatened with homelessness, the Minister was less than serious when he made an issue out of the 28 days. If the Minister wants to make it 365 days, I will be the first to support him. There is no problem about the number of days. I was endeavouring, and I am sure the Labour Party were also, to identify a reasonable period of time. I am not happy that what he says is intended is as clear from the legislation as he would wish it to be. The question of "reasonably remain in occupation of" is a peculiar choice of words. It would raise questions about people who were being evicted, for instance, by a building society. What is reasonable in that case? What procedures do they have to go through? It does not guarantee an interpretation. It is one thing to say — I agree with the Minister here — that reasonable people would assume that somebody who is threatened with violence could not reasonably be expected to continue to live there. People are being forced to go through long rigmaroles of court procedures when they are being evicted. People who have lost their jobs have written to me outlining their endeavours to fight off eviction and then being presented with a bill for £300 or £400 for the building society's costs in trying to evict them. They are faced not only with the indignity of losing their house but with building society costs as well. At what stage do the housing authority get to the stage where they reasonably believe that the person can no longer reasonably occupy the accommodation? I think there is a case for defining the term "threatened with homelessness". Having said that I will give the Minister the benefit of the doubt. It is a matter for the Labour Party what they wish to do but I do not propose to push either of the amendments.
I am satisfied with the Minister's response. As a member of a local authority I am looking forward to seeing the guidelines that the Minister will be laying down for local authorities. I will peruse them to make sure that they meet the requirements. The Minister considers that section 2 (a) will cover the two areas that we were worried about.
You have my undertaking on the matter.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 5 to 7, inclusive, not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill."
I may be foolish in the sense that I may be opening the Minister's eyes to a meaning of this that may not be intended. It appears to me that section 2 is written as if a person has no accommodation — not if he or she had a previous history of accommodation — available. For instance, if an Irish person returns from Britain and it is impossible to check up their previous accommodation history, the housing authority have no option but to regard that person as homeless. A person who is discharged from a hospital and has no accommodation because of that is automatically homeless, irrespective of whether the person is mentally ill or mentally handicapped or has another complaint. In other words, the simple fact that a person has no accommodation means that a local authority have to classify that person as homeless, irrespective of anything else. I am interested in that because it is, as far as it goes, a broadening of the definition of who comes under the aegis of the housing authority as far as being homeless is concerned.
I just need one sentence to satisfy the House in that regard. The Senator understands it perfectly.
I want to tease this out a bit further because it is extremely important. There is going to be no exclusion of people because they are mentally handicapped, or because of any other previous history, from being defined as homeless and therefore included for housing assessment purposes and for all the other things contained in this Bill. If people need support services or various other things that might be a function of a health board but are categorised as being homeless, and therefore coming under the aegis of the housing authority, will the Minister explain how he understands that a housing authority are going to make provision for those people? I do not think that section 10 (1) (a) goes into anything like the detail that many people would have thought, if we are talking about people who need perhaps intensive support in any sort of accommodation they have.
The matter can be better pursued under section 10 as the Senator suggests, because it is the appropriate section. In general, I do not think we are going to have any difficulty in that matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill".
I cannot help commenting on the peculiarity of us passing into law something which is already abolished. I find it a peculiar confusion of organisation that we are actually legislating for something which no longer exists. I appreciate that it is not quite gone yet. I think — and this is all I want to say on it — that the Houses of the Oireachtas would do their own image a lot of good if we did not end up in the rather peculiar position of actually, as we are on section 4, legislating for something that is already abolished. I do not think it makes any sense and I do not think it is the way a legislative Assembly ought to be asked to operate. Governments ought either to find ways of operating within existing legislation or produce the legislation before they do things like that and not leave us in the quite ridiculous position of legislating for something that has been already abolished.
Like Senator Ryan, one has difficulty in trying to comprehend this. I would like to put it into context. There are applications for the £5,000 grant at present from people who have not yet completed their new houses. They have been approved for this grant. There is a contract between the Minister, the Department and the applicant and because the application was made while the grant was still in operation, although not yet paid, these grants will continue to be paid when the local authority house is surrendered under the scheme and when the other house is completed for the applicant. There was a valley period in between the application and the abolition of the scheme. There are still grant applicants who have not moved but have a formal approval for the £5,000 grant if and when they surrender the local authority house. From that point of view, I think it is appropriate that we should refer to it and put it on record that there are still people in that transition situation.
In passing, let me say that in spite of all the criticism of this scheme, it assisted people to try to better themselves if they could, and they did. This released local authority houses back into the housing stock and this allowed the local authority to complete their housing list or to allocate houses to people on the list who had not been allocated a house. It served a very useful purpose but many people criticised it because they said all the best people left, leaving areas with social problems and so on. We are living in a free society and people who want to better themselves as they consider fit should not have had any aspersions cast on them for doing so.
I want to avail of this opportunity to express my dissatisfaction at the cancellation of the scheme and to put on the record of the House that there are still people who will benefit by way of £5,000 when they carry out the contract that they have with the Department.
I concur with the views expressed by Senator Ferris. I think the scheme was a success and enabled a number of people to buy a house in their own area. But in inner city areas — and this is very important — it gave people an opportunity to move from overcrowded flats, where they did not have sufficient points to get a local authority house and to buy a house of their own in the area. That was one of the best social advantages of that scheme. Any time I have had an opportunity to speak on it, I have asked the Minister if he would consider re-introducing such a scheme for dwellers of flat land only.
This provision was included in the 1985 Bill and had that legislation run its race to a conclusion, then the matter would not be before us. Because of the peculiarities attached to the non-passage of that proposed legislation, it now falls to Deputy Flynn to rectify the situation in everybody's interests. That is really what I am doing here. I am regularising a situation that has persisted for some time.
It raises the interesting point that when grant forms and new types of grants are announced by Government and by Ministers, if one had to wait for their implementation until the necessary legislation was totally in place it might take some considerable time thereafter and consequently many people might not support the point of view being put forward here.
However, I take the point that it is always desirable to have the legislation cleared by the Oireachtas as early as possible in these cases. Time constraints and schedules of legislative proposals do not often allow it to happen that way. However, I think the blame — if that is the proper term — for the tardiness in clearing up this matter is well known to Senators. To put Senator Ferris' mind at ease, those that have been approved for surrender grants in the normal way and are still awaiting the final transfer, will be accommodated and money has been provided to enable that to take place.
I do not think it is appropriate this evening to go into the pros and cons as to the usefulness or otherwise of that surrender grant. There are certainly two points of view and I hold one which is somewhat at variance with that of Senator Ferris in that I think the £5,000 grant was a disaster. It led to a breakdown of many communities in many estates and only now, because of a recent survey that I undertook myself, are we beginning to restore a level of uniformity and support that existed in communities before the £5,000 grant was introduced. It did not help existing communities when it deprived those communities of those who were best able to afford the accommodation and often the leaders of the community were enticed out into better accommodation.
I am not saying anything derogatory about those who found it possible to move up-market and to improve their position in life but it certainly diminished the capacity of the communities that were left behind in dealing in a community way with many of their problems. The situation is somewhat restored now. I do not want to refer to any particular books or written references to the matter but you will find support for my point of view being expressed by leaders in the communities so affected and also by commentators who would not be regarded as amateurs in writing about homelessness and about local authority estates. It is in a book I have here but I cannot give the exact reference and consequently I do not want to put it on the record. It is generally believed now that the £5,000 surrender grant, while it achieved something in so far as making more housing available to local authorities did not achieve better balance of community life in the estates.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is section 4 agreed?
No.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.