Thank you for giving me the opportunity of raising this very important matter on the Adjournment. The dramatic increase in subsidies by health boards to repay mortgages and provide rent subsidies is scandalous and shows the short-sightedness of Government to the problems of the homeless, particularly in Cork. It is understandable and desirable that when a person has difficulty with repaying a mortgage for genuine reasons, ill-health, short time working or the loss of a job, the health board should step in to try to alleviate the problem until a permanent solution is found.
The figures in the Southern Health Board for rent subsidies makes startling reading. The subsidy for rent and mortgage in 1990 was £296,031 in the south Lee area; in 1991 this had jumped to £751,436. In the north Lee area the figure in 1990 was £371,548 and in 1991 this had spiralled to £780,767. The trend this year means that the figures will increase again so that a massive sum will be paid out.
A very large portion of this money goes to unscrupulous landlords who are becoming rich on the misery of thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, are desperately in need of housing. The vicious cutbacks in housing finance which local authorities are experiencing have had a serious effect on the waiting list, particularly in Cork, where for the first three months of this year 530 people applied for housing. When one considers that a mere handful of houses—approximately 25 — will be built this year, it is obvious that these people will have to go on living in appalling conditions, subsidised by the health boards.
Without private accommodation people on the housing list would be in a terrible state but the fact remains that some landlords have seen an opportunity to get rich quickly and are doing so with the help of taxpayers money. Flats, houses and apartments are now being subsidised to the tune of £20, £30, £40 and £50 per week. When landlords know that a subsidy is in the offing they raise their rents to exorbitant levels.
There is also the ridiculous situation under the present social welfare regulations whereby a young person is forced to leave home and get private accommodation because the family income prohibits him or her from receiving unemployment assistance. This is discriminatory and degrading. It is ludicrous for a young person to pay huge rents, subsidised by a health board, to a private landlord when all that is needed in many cases is a reasonable weekly amount paid by right to a person living at home. This would save the State thousands of pounds annually and would give an unemployed person independence and dignity. The present system is a ripoff of public money by greedy landlords on the misfortune of others and has condemned people to live very often in accommodation not fit for human habitation. This massive increase in subsidy is recoupable from the Department of Social Welfare but the administration of the health board is under great strain and their depleted staff cannot cope with the problem.
It is time that the present system, whereby taxpayers money is used to create wealth for these unscrupulous landlords, is immediately investigated. However, the real remedy for the scandalous social problems is for the Government to start a building programme of decent housing which takes into consideration the 1,700 applicants on the waiting list of Cork Corporation and those in many other towns throughout the country who live as sub-tenants in overcrowded conditions and the hundreds of young people forced to leave the family home——