Gerry Adams
Question:9. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met. [3067/17]
View answerWednesday, 1 February 2017
Questions (9, 10, 11, 12)
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:10. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met. [4125/17]
View answer
Brendan Howlin
Question:11. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met; and when the next meeting is planned. [4269/17]
View answer
Micheál Martin
Question:12. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met. [4540/17]
View answerOral answers (8 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 to 12, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on housing last met on 10 January. It is scheduled to meet again on 6 February. It will continue to meet regularly as required to address issues related to housing and construction, including implementation of Rebuilding Ireland, the action plan for housing and homelessness. This remains a clear priority issue for the Government.
Last week, the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government published its homelessness figures for December, and it revealed that for the first time, more than 7,000 citizens are dependent on emergency accommodation funded by the Department. In December, 4,643 adults were in emergency accommodation, which was an increase of 207 on the previous month. The number of families remained at 1,105 and the number of children was 2,505. This is an emergency and crisis and is totally and absolutely unacceptable.
We have a rehash and launch and relaunch of action plans. The action plan for housing promised there would be an expanded and accelerated rapid build housing programme to deliver 1,500 social housing units to those in need. Only 22 were built and occupied in 2016. According to CSO statistics for 2016, there are almost 200,000 vacant houses throughout the State. Riddle me this: there are 200,000 vacant houses in the State and 7,000 homeless people so can we not match them up? Why does the Government refuse to provide sufficient funding, even for the 1,000 houses offered for sale by AIB? I ask the Taoiseach to put aside this nonsense that funding is not the issue when it comes to tackling housing and the homelessness crisis. It is clearly the core of the problem.
I want to know whether the committee has or will discuss several very specific areas of housing. People who do not have drug or drink problems, or who are trying to recover from alcohol or drug problems and are clean of them, are being put in emergency accommodation with active drug users or people with addiction problems. I am dealing with several cases of this nature at present. It is totally unacceptable. It is a recipe for disaster and pushes people in an already bad situation into a much worse one. Last night, I spoke at a meeting with Peter McVerry, who confirmed, as my own experience confirms, this is rampant in emergency accommodation and is totally unacceptable. What is the Taoiseach going to do about it?
Has the Taoiseach discussed the issue of individual property owners in Beacon South Quarter in Sandyford? They have been landed with a bill for approximately €2 million for properties that were badly built, with fire problems, health and safety problems and water damage. IRES Reit, NAMA and others can afford to pay the €10 million being demanded by the management company and IRES Reit does not pay any tax but ordinary property owners, who pay their tax and bought them in good faith, cannot afford it and want to know if the Government will provide some kind of compensation fund for them.
I want to focus on the promise to deliver rapid-build housing. The Government promised that 300 modular or rapid-build houses would be completed or under construction by the end of last year but none had started by this time. What action will the Taoiseach take to make sure this happens? I agree with Deputy Adams that it is a matter of funding but it is not exclusively so. There have been local objections and planning and siting issues, including by councillors of parties represented here. We are either serious about tackling this issue or we are not. We need to ensure that promises, made solemnly by the Minister for Housing in this House, are delivered upon. Will the Taoiseach ensure that happens?
There is very little evidence of progress in delivering new social housing. The last approval recorded was in January 2016 and many local authorities did not even build one social house last year. The HAP system is proving particularly challenging for many people who are renting, because of the thresholds. There is an over-reliance on that in building new council housing. Our social housing stock is 9% of the total in this country while across the European Union it is 17%. The execution and delivery of housing policy is sadly lacking and very poor. Modular housing is a very good example of this as only 22 have been delivered so far in Ballymun. It was one and a half or two years ago that the then Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, proclaimed this as a wonderful new initiative. There are some 2,751 vacant council houses at the moment, which is probably lower than it was but, nevertheless, should not be the case. When houses become vacant, they should be allocated straightaway given the emergency people are currently experiencing. Execution and delivery of policy are the key deficits in housing policy.
I have already outlined the figures. A total of 7,148 people used State-funded emergency accommodation during a week in December. They included 4,643 adults, 2,505 dependents and 1,205 families. A record 2,700 families and individuals exited homelessness in 2016, while the figure in 2015 was 2,300. At the last official count in December 2016, 142 people were sleeping rough. The budget of 2017 is €98 million, up by 40%, and by mid-2017 hotels are only to be used for emergency accommodation in limited circumstances. Rent supplement and housing assistance payment levels increased last July and the Dublin regional homeless HAP pilot was expanded so that 810 additional households were supported last year, with the target for 2017 being 1,200. The rapid delivery procurement framework is now in place and allows local authorities to advance rapid build projects much more efficiently and effectively. A €70 million rolling fund has been established for the housing agency to acquire 1,600 vacant units, with 200 houses acquired in the past couple of months. There is ongoing work on additional family and child welfare supports for homeless families.
Dublin City Council delivered over 200 additional beds, worth €6.1 million, under the winter initiative. There are now more than 1,800 emergency beds in Dublin ensuring sufficient space for all those recorded as sleeping rough. DCC will bring forward two further facilities to meet potential future increased demand and these will cater for individuals and couples. There will be a tripling of the housing first target to 300 tenancies for complicated cases where a lot of attention is required.
Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to people in hostels with alcohol problems and I often wonder why this happens when the charities who run many of these hostels are given substantial public moneys in addition to what they raise. The efforts which are being made to provide sufficient accommodation for this not to happen need to be looked at. People are reluctant to go into hostels because they feel they might be attacked or encounter somebody injecting themselves or under the influence of alcohol. The charities run these places but I am not blaming them.
My understanding is that the architectural design of Beacon South Quarter was as it should be, perfectly in order, but that, as in Priory Hall and Longboat Quay, the lack of supervision and a competent clerk of works to do the job properly resulted in inferior building standards. Greed was an element of this in the past where short cuts were taken and people paid big money, good money, for houses that turned out to be fire traps in the case of Priory Hall, and something else in the case of Longboat Quay, and this is of great concern to the tenants who live there.
Are you going to do anything about it? That is what I asked.
Deputy Howlin asked about rapid-build units. I expect there to be 1,500 by the end of 2018 and there are 350 at various stages of delivery at the moment, which will become occupied in the coming months. A further 650 homes are in progress this year while the target for 2018 is 500. Deputy Martin referred to the HAP and 810 were accredited for homeless households in the Dublin region in 2016, exceeding the target of 550. The target for 2017 is 1,200 tenancies. The Minister is not happy with the figures but he has had to provide a range of incentives for local authorities, individuals and construction firms, as well as money to local authorities to get back to building houses as they used to years ago. Over the coming year there will be a very significant increase in the construction of social houses, private houses, returning to voids and rapid-build houses to give us the capacity to deal with the numbers of homeless on the streets.