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Rent Supplement Scheme Administration

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 10 December 2014

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Questions (10)

Bernard Durkan

Question:

10. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the extent to which she might be prepared to extend the emergency housing alleviation measures to address short-term housing needs currently available in Dublin to County Kildare and adjoining counties, having particular regard to the critical housing shortage arising from rent increases; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [47050/14]

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Oral answers (7 contributions)

This question relates to the need for the provision of facilities in counties adjoining Dublin, where already alleviation measures have correctly been put in place in respect of those who are becoming homeless, and asks that they might be extended to the adjoining county of Kildare.

I am sure Meath and Wicklow will be able to look after themselves.

I am wondering how many times I can answer the same questions in a different manner. I know the Deputy's interest is in the Kildare area. The regional managers within the Kildare area were met by the Tánaiste yesterday. We are ensuring flexibility is given by the front-line officers to reflect the local market costs within those areas. Correspondence is going out to all front-line staff in regard to rent allowance. The protocol which is operating in the Dublin area has been working extremely well and we are considering the extension of that protocol to other larger urban areas. That is currently under review and we are working with Threshold in that regard.

With regard to Kildare specifically, I ask anyone who is currently in difficulty to recontact the community welfare services, which will have received correspondence from myself and the Department this week outlining their discretionary powers under section 38. We want to see that flexibility operated and we certainly do not want to see anybody who is currently in a tenancy lose it. However, we want to make sure it is operated in a fair and consistent manner across the country, and Kildare would not get a preference over Meath or Wicklow, obviously.

It is a very serious issue and people are extremely worried and anxious in this regard. It is witnessed in every clinic held by Deputies or councillors. We have given instructions in this regard and the Tánaiste met the regional managers only yesterday. What we want to see is flexibility, consistency and fairness. However, on the same basis, we do not want to see rent inflation created by the Department. There are families on low and middle income in the rental market also and we do not want to inflate rents as this would put them under pressure. It is a complex situation and we are doing our best. The Deputy knows very well about the long-term and the medium-term. What we need to do is get over this particular issue until the supply comes.

I thank the Minister of State for that comprehensive reply and thank the Tánaiste for her work in this area over a considerable time. For my sins, I deal with quite a number of queries from the Dublin area as well in regard to housing, strange as it may seem. I was only joking when I referred to Meath and Wicklow looking after themselves. It is an overspill of the situation from the Dublin area.

The Minister of State correctly referred to those on low incomes in rental accommodation. On a point that is applicable in some cases but not all, might it be possible to look again at the cases where people on low incomes have a need for some portion of supplement in order to alleviate the most severe hardship that might come their way? I agree entirely that the purpose of the exercise would not be to inflate rents, which would make the whole exercise self-defeating. Nonetheless, it might be possible to be selective in looking at the cases where there is hardship for people who are at work, or not at work, as the case may be, but who are also victims of the market surge in rents that is outside their control.

I am well aware of this issue. I am sure every Deputy deals with queries from outside their own constituencies on all issues. I accept there is particular difficulty in the greater Dublin area but also in the Kildare area, where there has been a surge of employment, for example, in the construction industry, following the announcement of the jobs at Kerry Group and given the lift in employment in the IT sector, including at Intel, and in other areas. While that growth in employment is welcome, there has been a knock-on effect, especially in the Kildare and outer Dublin areas, whereby the numbers seeking employment in the private sector have caused the rent inflation that has happened.

While there are no plans at present to extend the protocol to the Kildare area, the front-line staff have been told to take into consideration the local market forces and to do everything within their remit to keep tenancies sustained. However, as I said, we also have to look at the other elements. It is very fine balance that we must achieve. The real answer to this is to get Kildare County Council building homes and the €2.3 billion that has been put into the budget for 2015 will certainly assist that. There is a strong case for some of those properties to be built in Kildare.

I again thank the Minister of State for a knowledgeable and comprehensive reply. The rents in Kildare are generally higher on average than rents in the Dublin area. I have compared them from time to time and they are surging ahead, unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be. We may be successful from the point of view of generating employment for a variety of reasons but, at the same time, it is hugely important we recognise the pressure people in rented accommodation are under, and that this pressure is getting greater. Many people have found themselves out of their homes and have floated into Dublin itself, because they were not able to find accommodation in Kildare, and they are now beneficiaries of the protocol that is applicable in the Dublin area. While we are grateful for that, at the same time, we need to try to resolve that problem by virtue of a similar procedure to that which applies in Dublin.

The Minister of State said the Department does not want to cause rent inflation, which is understandable, but rent inflation is already happening. A two-bed apartment in Dominick Street has gone from €1,000 a month to €1,400 a month in two and a half years. The reason for this is very simple, namely, there is a new problem in the private rental market. Given that the Government intends to be dependent on this going forward, it has to address the problem that much of the rental market is now controlled by a small number of players because NAMA and the banks have sold many of the apartments that are up for rent to investors, many from outside the country. The truth of the matter is that, unless the Government actively controls the private rental market in some way, this problem is not going to be solved, given that so few players have such control over a huge chunk of the private rental market in Dublin. Our private rental market is not regulated, although the market is regulated in many European countries, and this is something the Government will have to do.

I am not too certain of that, although I will look at it with a small group. My experience, certainly in my Dublin city centre constituency, is that the vast number of those taking rent supplement are in the buy-to-let area, where a single person had bought the property for their pension or otherwise. Some describe them as hobby landlords and, in many cases, that created problems because they did not give a professional service and there was not the required scale.

As Deputy Durkan outlined, there is a real problem of rent inflation within the city centre and we are in constant communication in that regard. I have seen this in the Ringsend-Pearse Street area because of the huge growth in employment in the IT sector. There has also been huge rent inflation in the central Dublin area, which started in the Docklands and has spread out very much from there. Therefore, I am not surprised by Deputy Wallace's point about rent increases in Dominick Street and areas like that.

I am not sure if Deputy Wallace was in the House when I explained this, but we have written to the front-line staff this week, asking them to operate under section 38 and to utilise the flexibility contained therein. The Tánaiste met with senior management and area managers from across the country yesterday to explain that we want to make sure tenancies are sustainable and that nobody would lose their home. We are urging Deputies to use the tenancy protocol that is in operation within the area.

Where that is not in operation, we are looking for a direct connection with community welfare services. My experience is that the people on the ground have a good understanding of what is happening and I am looking for statistics from them on a regular basis to see what is happening within areas and within the market. It is obvious this is happening in Dublin, but it is also happening outside Dublin in places where there is pressure and there has been little built during the recession. I hope the €2.3 billion outlined in the 2015 budget indicates again the start of the capital programme of building local authority houses. I hope this will happen as quickly as possible.

Written Answers follow Adjournment.
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