I adjourned on this miserable piece of legislation. I had the honour previously to describe it as a lousy piece of legislation and was told by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that it would be preferable to use more parliamentary vocabulary. The reality, however, is that the 1969 Housing Act was drafted not, in effect, in this House but on the streets of Dublin. It was badly drafted and was pushed through against the judgment, and certainly the will of some of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. Despite the fact that it was defended at that time as being a temporary measure, we are yet again renewing it. It has been renewed on three separate occasions, in 1972, 1974 and 1977. We are again, in this penultimate month of 1979, asking to renew it for another two years.
The purpose of the legislation, as I said in my speech on this very order on 7 December 1977, was to protect the interests of people who for economic reasons were subject to the mercies of a market economy, could not afford to house themselves properly and were living in what could be described as cheap accommodation. The Act has manifestly failed to protect the interests of those people. That is my judgment the verification of which is the consensus figures the Minister's Department published recently. Let me welcome the fact that the Minister's Department did produce that consensus. It should have been produced in 1976, but that is another day's work.
We are no longer talking, as I was in 1977, about an estimate of the degree of failure of this legislation. The reality of the failure is embodied in the figures produced by the 1979 consensus, which showed a dramatic drop in housing in the central city area. I do not wish to go over the polemic grounds which I covered reasonably accurately on the last occasion and also when we discussed this measure in a much more comprehensive way in 1977.
Having had, as the House will agree, a fair wallop at the Minister of State, I wish to suggest, constructively, that one does not have to bury oneself in this legislation indefinitely and that the endless policy review, which is now two-and-a-half years in progress, should turn towards a system of comprehensive rehabilitation and renewal for housing in urban areas or inner city areas, by which I do not mean exclusively Dublin. The validity of the point of view I am about to elaborate upon applies equally to Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Galway and, to a lesser extent, to the smaller towns around the country. There is undoubtedly a case for positive legislation and, indeed, for positive ministerial order, framed within this enabling legislation recently passed in this House, for a system of comprehensive grants for the rehabilitation and conservation of housing in the urban areas.
We are fooling ourselves in the belief that by yet again renewing the life of this miserable legislation we somehow or other, under the 1969 Housing Act, have protected our housing stock. The numbers game implicit in the way in which that Housing Act operates, ensures that we do not, as such, protect the population of inner cities for which it was primarily designed. We simply supply a legal vehicle which did not exist before to enable a developer to take out of a particular area low standard, yet economic, housing units and replace them by high standard and expensive residential units. By definition this means that the previous occupants are unable to remain in the area in which they lived. From my experience the people who come in- —because in my constituency there is a lot of such development—in the nature of things, tend to be transient and do not have the sense of community involvement of the previous residents.
Perhaps sometimes criticism comes too easily from this side of the House. I realise that the topic about which we are speaking is not one that is readily or easily remedied. Two things are required; first of all, the explicit political courage required on that side of the House to say that the nature of the housing problem is not the same throughout the State, that there are certain parts of the State's housing stock—and from now on I am speaking of the existing housing stock, which is 850,000 units or thereabouts—which, even with building something in the region of 25,000 to 30,000 new units per year will increase only in the region of a maximum of 2 per cent. Therefore inter alia the concern of any housing Minister must be as much with the existing housing stock as with new houses. There is a precedent in the Minister's Department for recognising that the housing need, in terms of housing demand, is not uniform throughout the country.
Therefore the political battle on which I am now asking the Minister to embark is not a fresh one. There is a precedent, that the previous Minister for Local Government recognised that the housing demand in some parts of the country was greater than in others, and that he would direct the limited amount of capital resources for a housing construction to the area of greatest need; that was for capital allocation to local authorities. I am now asking the Minister to do something similar in relation to rehabilitation grants. The £600 grant has been distributed throughout the country rather like confetti. It is very much welcomed by those people who receive it but is totally inadequate for people living in a certain category of house which has got no more than, say, five or 10 years effective life left in order to classify it as reasonable accommodation, as distinct from somebody living in a 12-year-old house who is simply seeking a grant to convert the garage.
The need for State funding to assist in the rehabilitation of those two categories of houses is manifestly much different. Therefore, the equal treatment of £600 for both makes nonsense of the commitment we must have to preserving our housing stock. There is no doubt—as the Minister's Department can readily testify—but that the cost of replacing old housing units in the inner city area of any part of the State is extremely expensive relative to the cost of extending their useful life by between 10 and 20 years. The Minister is aware of this; there are schemes in his Department awaiting sanction and decision in relation to a number of city housing sites. My colleagues in Dublin Corporation have told me that they are not so much delayed but being queried because of the high replacement cost implicit in inner city construction. The reality is that, even with a positive and good inner city housing programme—the Dublin Corporation one, with which I am most familiar, initiated by the previous Minister with the co-operation of the housing co-ordinator, Mr. Molloy—at maximum we are talking about 70 acres only of inner city land and of a maximum density of 20 houses per acre. Therefore we are talking about only, say, 1,400 or, being kind, no more than 2,000 houses. There are thousands of houses in the inner city areas of Dublin, Cork and Limerick, to name but three of our major cities, which would benefit from a scheme of rehabilitation grants.
The Minister said in his speech in the Seanad a couple of weeks ago that the implementation of this Bill and the whole area of policy for which it is designed is as much concerned with planning as with housing. I should like the Minister to avail of the opportunity—which I maintain he has under the Housing (Miscellaneous) Act—to ask those local authorities who wish to do so to draw up a scheme for the rehabilitation of certain areas of their inner city which they reckon could benefit from a scheme of unique rehabilitation grants, loans and so on. This is not new territory for this House, and certainly not for the Minister's Department.
When last speaking I made brief reference to the most recent joint housing conference between the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and the Minister's Department from which a number of recommendations and proposals emerged now on file in the Minister's Department. The Minister has the expertise. Additionally, there is now sufficient accumulated experience in other western European countries, with similar legal and political systems to ours, to enable a scheme such as the one I propose to be drafted, not with ease but certainly, with hindsight, benefiting from the wisdom of experiences in other cities and States.
In relation to the City of Dublin where the major problem exists, it is fortunate that we have at our disposal an immensely useful piece of housing research which was produced by Deirdre O'Connor, an architect, funded by the Cement-Roadstone group of companies. She obtained a Housing Research Fellow for 1976-77 and produced this report entitled Housing in Dublin's Inner City. Undoubtedly it is the most definitive work that has been produced in terms of field survey. It makes fascinating reading to the extent that it demonstrates what is the capacity for a creative programme of rehabilitation, on the one hand, and, on the other, what are the dangerous implications for not just pockets of the city but virtually entire zones within the area between the canals if some scheme of rehabilitation and conservation, with financial aids and loans, is not produced when many of these houses will get into a serious condition of obsolescence before the end of this century. We know the cost of replacement of units is extremely high, added to which there is the interim period of blight which has so scarred this city since 1965 or thereabouts. Undoubtedly the Minister's Department have a copy of this report. However, I should like to briefly put on the record of the House part of its conclusions and recommendations because undoubtedly it is the concern expressed in 1968-69 which produced the legislation we are now seeking to renew. The Minister said in his opening speech that the policy was under review, that whereas two years ago he thought he had got the policy right, he admitted now that he had second thoughts about it. I welcome that kind of honesty in this House. There is never anything lost by saying that one is looking at something openly.
Since the Minister has opened the door I will suggest one candidate for entry into the policy that might be produced. On page 97 of Deirdre O'Connor's report she states:
It could reasonably be stated that Dublin's Inner City is experiencing a severe housing problem. Combined as it is with a complex variety of other urban problems, it is apparent that without immediate action the residential population in the area will continue to decrease, and housing/environmental conditions continue to decline. The Inner City communities have actively protested against their living conditions and the general public expresses little desire to live in the area given the adverse conditions. Present State policy follows the European and American attitude in wishing to preserve a residential content in the area, but may be in danger of failing in this aim unless it recognises the real extent of the present housing problem and combines general urban and housing policies with a serious strategy for residential renewal.
She goes on:
Given the available land in the Inner City it will be difficult to maintain the existing population level; to increase this level would require a radical change in present land-use and development policy. However, it is possible to halt the present rapid decline in population and to provide good living conditions for present and future residents in the area.
A policy of extensive rehabilitation combined with a steady input of redevelopment could improve existing housing conditions and prevent the loss of more housing, upgrade the environment and provide new housing for persons living in overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation.
She makes a number of recommendations which should go on the Official Report because they are the objectives of any policy that the Department might seriously consider. This was a considered piece of research. She says:
Present redevelopment programmes and rehabilitation policies are inadequate, and cannot provide a solution to the housing problem.
Future redevelopment must be more extensive if it is to eliminate overcrowding and solve the problem of housing shortage.
Redevelopment must provide a sufficient range of house types and sizes to suit a variety of household groups.
To prevent increasing social polarisation in the area, and to contribute to the development of a heterogeneous community, housing must be provided for all socioeconomic groups. The Corporation must use its existing powers to encourage this development.
To preserve the existing urban form, environmental standards should relate specifically to the Inner City rather than to suburban locations, and regulations governing redevelopment should be applied more flexibly.
Present rehabilitation policy should be revised and should encourage more individuals to improve their dwellings by providing better grants.
The Corporation should undertake the initiation, management and control of rehabilitation schemes, operate area rehabilitation programmes and engage in environmental improvement work.
Before a realistic policy can be formulated to deal with housing problems in the area, it is essential that a conditions survey is undertaken to gauge the exact extent and location of the problem.
The success of any future policy depends fundamentally on a serious State commitment to the renewal of the residential areas in the Inner City.
This was a Dublin-based study but it could equally apply on a reduced scale to areas in Cork, Limerick and specifically in Waterford, because at the housing conference a field work study done in Waterford was presented by a Mr. Eugene Gribbin and a colleague whose name I cannot remember. What Deirdre O'Connor called for here was a detailed survey on the ground. She has provided the basis of where to look and how to do it.
This is essentially the responsibility of the local authority and all I am asking the Minister to do is to give the green light to the local authority to initiate this kind of work and to make provision for adequate finance to be made available. I am asking him to clear the ground in relation to queries that will undoubtedly be made by my colleagues in the housing authority as to whether the funding of such a study, which would amount to about £20,000 or £30,000, will come from the capital allocation deemed to be part of the construction account or whether it will come out of the housing revenue from rents and so on. These points need to be clarified. The Minister, as the political master responsible for housing and for the maintenance and management of housing stock, has—admitting the inadequacy of this legislation—the responsibility to give them the green light.
The range of solutions exist in principle but what they need is the initiation of a course of solutions that will produce the detailed form of the scheme for which I am looking. This will require a recognition in principle by the Minister and the Minister of State that part of the total housing budget currently made available for grants or an extra amount of capital, depending on how much the Department can get from the Department of Finance, will be set aside with a view to designing a special grants scheme for certain parts of the State where the existing housing stock is at risk of approaching obsolescence in a reasonably short time, with serious planning implications for the adjoining areas. It is also required that the Minister release the hands of the local authority so that they can do the kind of research work that can only be done by them. I do not expect the Department of the Environment to do the kind of detailed on the ground study that Deirdre O'Connor has referred to. I have previously criticised the Government for increasingly tying the hands of the local authority. In order to release the hands of the local authority so that they can respond to a politically originated motion of the housing committee of the corporation, it must be made clear from the Custom House where the funds required for such a study will come from. They are not there at the moment. If I am wrong in that, I would be happy to be corrected.
The local authority who are always tight with money will not initiate a programme of study which will cost something in the region of £20,000 if they feel they will get no money at the end of it. The Government should indicate, without committing themselves, that they are contemplating setting up such a scheme, that they recognise in principle the problem, and that in principle subject to a local authority putting forward a pilot scheme of rehabilitation, the Department will respond positively. We should certainly look at the problems of implementation which were thrown up in the British and Dutch experiences of housing action, because we can benefit from it.
When I refer to the local authority producing a viable scheme I mean viable in the sense that the administrative procedures attaching to such a programme have been worked out in considerable detail. This is a complex area which is compounded, in the context of Dublin, by the nature of the ownership of many of the houses and housing areas to which I refer. Frequently the houses most at risk are not owned by the residents in legal terms but in terms of security of tenure, which they hold under the Landlord and Tenant Act. They might as well own the house because they have full protection under the 1931 Landlord and Tenant Act and their grandchildren and great grandchildren can stay in it. Frequently they stay in these houses at ludicrously low rents, with the result that the landlords will not do repairs because they are not getting any revenue from those houses.
Some legal method has to be found to overcome the reluctance of some landlords to carry out repairs. A one-off ex-gratia payment could be made to landlords who withhold permission for rehabilitation grants on the ground that they have not got any return from those houses for 25 years. The local authority grants scheme enables local authority tenants to get housing improvement grants for the local authority houses in which they are the tenants, not the owners. I am not sure if the same procedure exists for privately owned houses. If that is the case, the problem to which I am referring does not occur. There will be a reluctance on the part of some tenants to carry out repairs when they do not own their houses and many people may not be in a position economically to pay for the repairs. The scheme of rehabilitation referred to, and which is in existence in Britain, Holland and other parts of Europe, requires that a whole area be done at the same time rather than the individual owner-occupied orientated rehabilitation scheme we are talking about. Frequently rehabilitation will include area improvement works in the streets, gardens, footpaths and so on, which form part of the residential environment. This problem has to be recognised and overcome.
I could go on at some length about this but I do not think it is necessary. The political will required to initiate this scheme is now extremely urgent. The 1977 statistics were used in the Deirdre O'Connor report recently published. The 1979 census figures confirmed the rapid decline to which she referred in population in the inner city, and the trend is accelerating.
This Act which we are being asked to renew in reality does nothing to protect the housing stock, although its one defence is that it brings into the inner city area certain high income socioeconomic groups to which she referred and who would otherwise not come in there. Regrettably from experience I know their tenancy is much more transient than the lower income group who lived there before. The population for the inner city is declining despite the presence and continued renewal of this Act.
I want the Minister to consider positively my suggestions, to begin a process of discussion and negotiation with the major authorities affected and to invite the local authorities which might be interested to respond. As the Minister said, the operation of the 1969 Act confined itself in the main to two major authorities, Dublin and Cork Corporations, despite the fact that 38 authorities operated it at different times.
The political will across the board at local level in Dublin Corporation would respond positively to the type of schemes I am suggesting. If the Minister has come to a cul-de-sac in one particular policy review in relation to this area, I am suggesting another area he might look at. I hope he respects the fact that these suggestions are made in a constructive sense. Having made what I think were legitimate political criticisms of what I consider to be a bankruptcy of policy, I am now suggesting something which does not necessarily have to be considered to be partisan, and it is something my constituency colleague, the leader of the Fianna Fáil group, Deputy Seán Moore, would welcome.
We want the Minister to study this report and the reports made by his own officials on the joint housing conference and to invite the affected local authorities to discuss the problem and the possibility of movement in that area. They will look for a financial commitment to a specific exclusive system of grants at serious economic levels. Last day Deputy Fitzpatrick spoke in terms of £5,000 and £6,000—I am not going to put a figure on this—but we are talking about something beyond the £600 grant and the £2,500 local authority loan. We want some kind of serious financial commitment designed exclusively to confine itself to the areas where this problem exists. There is ample precedent with Gaeltacht housing grants, for example, and with the skewing of the local authority construction capital to certain areas of the country, for the Minister to deal with any political criticism—criticism that will fall on any Minister—coming from his own colleagues as well as the Opposition—about being unfair to one part of the country at the expense of another because the housing problem is universal and so on.
I recognise that that argument could be put forward, but the Minister could defend it on the grounds that there is a precedent and, on top of that, there is a critical need to defend and hold part of the housing stocks of our inner cities because the cost in money terms of replacing them would be enormous. The other political commitment required is to get local authorities to do the basic research and field study which is a prerequisite before they can come up with a detailed programme of rehabilitation plans.
