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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 23 Jun 1992

Vol. 421 No. 4

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1992: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I welcome this legislation which in effect is implementing the social housing scheme of 1991. The scheme has much to recommend it. It is innovative and covers a wide range from shared ownership and rental subsidy to improvements to private houses, voluntary housing schemes for the elderly, block loans to co-operatives, provision of sites and repairs to existing dwellings. It is in line with the thinking of both officials and elected members. Everyone will agree it is long past time there was a real look at the housing programmes for a number of reasons, principally because it has become increasingly more difficult for a person to erect his own home if he is on a low income. Shared ownership is an opportunity for low wage earners to secure a home of their own. It will give many persons in the lower income bracket an opportunity of eventually owning their own house.

However, much care must be taken that such a scheme would not over-generate competition, and it could very well inflate house prices. The Minister spoke of 1,700 applications up to 31 March with 600 approvals. That in itself is evidence of the success of the scheme and gives the lie to the arguments emanating from some quarters opposing it. It is a new concept which if properly used would be a break through for many persons who otherwise would never be in a position to own their own homes.

Down the years in my local authority I have recommended shared ownership in instances where persons who had local authority loans found themselves in arrears and faced repossession of their houses by the local authority. Shared ownership in such situations would be very effective. It could mean that a person who had built his own house and was unable to meet his commitments, maybe because of loss of job, or for health or other reasons, could continue to live in it on a shared ownership basis.

If you examine the housing programmes in any county you will realise the cost of the provision of houses. In my county we have a current housing stock of 930 houses, 575 of which are on the purchase scheme and 355 are rented dwellings. That is along with the housing stock of four urban councils. The average weekly rent for the 375 houses is £9.28 and revenue of £144,000 accrues from that. Over 40 per cent of that £144,000 goes to maintenance and that is for only minor repairs; it does not provide for major repairs to the dwellings. That gives an indication of the problems facing councils and the importance of offloading those houses if possible even at a low price. I was much in favour of the 1988 scheme but, unfortunately, it took the best houses off the market and left the local authorities with some houses 20 years old and more with the additional maintenance involved.

Many grants for housing have been withdrawn. A recent study we carried out in the county indicates that of approximately 13,000 dwellings, 1,700 are still without sanitary services. I say to the Minister that in that area alone some type of assistance is worth considering. Other parts of the country have a still higher percentage of houses without sanitary services. In most rural areas people depend on group water schemes of which there is a large number in my county. Practically half the population are served by those schemes. The other half, in the urban areas, are serviced by local authority schemes. If most of those groups want to keep within EC regulations they will have to have Phase II which requires treatment plants, and many of them have now reached that stage. There is an emphasis on the INTERREG and other EC schemes to provide funding for sewerage plants. I do not disagree with that because it is important that we get those sewerage plants if we want to have our waterways and our catchments pollution free, but I hope funding will be made available for a continuance of the development of those schemes through the second phase.

The Minister stated that it is not Government policy to build large housing estates on green field sites or on the periphery of cities and towns. I support this policy. Some years ago approximately 200 houses were built by the NBA on a sloped site on the outskirts of Monaghan town. While this housing scheme which, I think, is based on a European concept may have been regarded as an architect's dream at the time it has turned out to be a tenant's nightmare because a stream in front of the estate was not piped—it was decided instead to stoneface the sides of the river. This river is now regarded as a health hazard and a danger. The urban council do not have the necessary finance to rectify this problem. So far as I am aware no section of the Department make contributions for this work. In cases where serious errors are made in the initial stages of site planning the necessary funding should be provided to prevent the deterioration of estates and the access roads to them.

The greatest problem with which local authorities have to deal in the provision of housing is the ebb and flow in the level of emigration. As a result of the substantial building programmes carried out during the eighties, the numbers on the local authority waiting lists were substantially reduced and very few people were urgently in need of housing. I know a young couple who got a local authority house two months after they got married. As a councillor I never thought I would see the day when that could happen. Many of our emigrants are now returning home because of recession in the United States and Great Britain. As a result the demand for local authority housing has substantially increased. Some returning emigrants have savings and are able to buy properties of their own but unfortunately many others have very little savings and require housing and other forms of assistance. It is very difficult for local authorities to plan housing programmes under which houses are available on demand.

Section 6 provides that assistance may be given by housing authorities to certain bodies. I believe many voluntary bodies could avail of this assistance to provide dwellings for old age pensioners. There is a great demand by pensioners for such housing. It is also more convenient for district health nurses to call to such dwellings. I hope voluntary bodies will avail of the assistance which may be given by housing authorities under this section.

Many houses in towns and villages are in a very poor state of repair. While it may be possible to refurbish some of them many more should be demolished. As a nation we tend to waste much of our good agricultural land by building on green field sites. More consideration should be given to the demolition of old houses and to rebuilding on the same sites.

Recently I heard that people were objecting to psychiatric patients being accommodated in housing estates in, I think, the midlands. I was very concerned at this report because the scheme of relocating psychiatric patients in towns and villages in County Monaghan has been very successful. These patients who live on their own and who are supervised by the auxillary nurse in the area have intermingled very well with the local community. Great work has been done in this area. In view of the experience of this scheme in my area I do not believe there are grounds for the fears that have been expressed.

Section 11 provides that housing authorities can make block loans available to housing co-operatives to purchase sites. This is a very important provision as the price of sites in most areas at present is at a premium. The cost of building on sites where there is no ESB or sewerage connection and no piped water can be very high. In addition very strict antipollution regulations have to be complied with. Some years ago I asked the director of the co-operative building agency in my area to attend a local authority meeting. I was very surprised to learn that the takeup of the housing incentives by co-operatives in the northern part of the country was very low compared with the takeup by co-operatives in the south.

Reference has been made to housing aid for the elderly. I ask the Minister to ensure that adequate funding is provided in future to health boards so that this work which is mainly done by FÁS, can continue to be carried out. Under this scheme, which has operated very well, refurbishment work, draught proofing, etc. is carried out for old people who do not have any savings. In other cases where the house owners have funding they purchase the materials and have the work carried out. This scheme operates very well and is great value for money.

The Minister also mentioned serviced sites which are ideal for planned development. Unfortunately serviced sites in country areas have not been very attractive to house builders but in towns there has been a reasonable demand for them. With the scarcity of sites and the restriction on building in rural areas, especially in hilly areas, it is important that sites be serviced as this will ensure greater development and will be economical. Unfortunately, this is not being done on as great a scale as we would wish. Section 11 of the Bill provides for the granting of loans to purchase sites and I hope there will be a substantial take-up in this regard.

Discussions have taken place on occasions regarding the 1988 Act which legislates for the homeless. At present the number of people parking caravans alongside our national and national secondary routes is causing a serious problem for local authorities, of one of which I am a member. Money has been provided in my county for halting sites but the real problem is in obtaining sites. There seems to be a continual increase in the number of people moving around in caravans, many of them traders selling electrical goods, floor coverings and gates, and others tarmacadam contractors. These people cause serious accidents and create problems for local landowners. I do not know how this problem can be solved but money should be provided to secure sites and provide amenities.

I welcome the Bill which has a number of commendable aspects. If it is used in the best possible way it will improve greatly the position of many people who seek local authority assistance in the provision of housing.

To address this Bill positively one must at the outset recognise that a housing crisis exists. The housing crisis is now becoming a major social evil. Under the Housing Act, 1988, a national survey was carried out which found that 19,400 families were waiting to be housed nationally — we must ask what is the position now. This figure did not include homeless persons who did not seek local authority housing. A further survey was carried out in March 1991 in the Dublin Corporation area which showed that 4,377 families were in need of local authority housing; that there were 1,201 single person households and 3,970 family households. The same survey showed that 918 persons were on the homeless list. That contrasts with the June 1989 figure of 582, representing an 80 per cent increase in homelessness in one local authority area alone. The total number of local authority houses built nationally in 1983 was 6,190 and in 1990 the figure was 1,003 houses. For instance, in 1983 Dublin Corporation built 1,753 houses and only 35 in 1990, while Dublin County Council completed only 45 houses in that year. This is a national disgrace.

In my area, the new Dublin Fingal area, the problem has reached crisis proportions. The area stretches from Balbriggan to Howth and includes such built-up areas as Skerries, Swords, Malahide, Howth and Baldoyle as well as parts of Ballymun and Santry. In this area alone there are 682 urgent cases. Most families reside at present with their parents, causing serious overcrowding, or reside in rented accommodation and most have been married within the last two or three years. Overcrowding places an intolerable burden on families. In most of these families there is a high rate of unemployment and the people see no way out of their predicament. They readily tell us that Governments and local authorities generally have let them down.

This is one of the major factors contributing to emigration. People who come to my advice centres tell me that if they emigrate to England the men will readily get a job and they have a chance of getting a house there. Deputy Leonard referred to the number of people returning to Ireland but people are leaving my constituency because they cannot get a house. When they go to London they find they are housed quicker and have a better family life. They are also better looked after on social welfare.

The estimated cost of providing for the needs of those awaiting housing in the Fingal area of Dublin is in excess of £25 million. This figure has been given by the county manager and I am sure it is an accurate figure. It is not a great amount of money and if it was made available it would solve many of the problems in my area. To illustrate the point even further, in 1983 Dublin Corporation completed 1,753 houses; in 1984, 1,717 houses; and in 1985, 1,358 houses. Since this Government have taken office the number of houses completed has dropped to 33 in 1989, 35 in 1990 and 34 in 1991. People on the housing list achieve points for overcrowding and so on, but that is not good enough. I know people with 80 or 90 points but who cannot get a house from Dublin Corporation. In order to get a house they would need overall priority but, as a person who served on Dublin Corporation, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will know that to get overall priority a person would have to have a serious health problem or be a battered wife.

I commend Women's Aid who look after battered wives and get housing for them. The reason these people get overall priority is that they are in Women's Aid. That organisation do excellent work and again I compliment them. Their counsellors spend much time with the officials of Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council and are successful in their efforts to have their personnel housed. However, because these people get priority, which they deserve, there are no houses for people living in overcrowded conditions. Overcrowding in two and three bedroom houses in Dublin is leading to marriage breakdown. If appropriate housing were available families would be much happier and there would be fewer marriages breaking down. It is the duty of the Government, and local authorities, to provide adequate shelter for people. It would relieve the terrible tension that exists in overcrowded homes. Irish people like to own their own homes and like privacy and a front and back garden. The provision of this type of accommodation is a great support for families.

Under the new scheme we are trying to get people to provide their own houses. I appreciate and support that aim but our unemployment problem makes it impossible for people on social welfare to avail of the new shared ownership scheme because they would not be able to afford the repayments. Families are smaller and in the future pressure on housing will not be as great. We should legislate to ensure that smaller families can be housed in the future. In planning housing needs, we should constantly monitor the size of families.

My constituency is divided between Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation. The county council have designed beautiful estates over the years, for instance New Grove Estate in Donaghmede, a lovely bungalow design estate which is well laid out with many open spaces. At the same time the designs of corporation estates is as they were 30 to 40 years ago, concrete jungles, ribbon belt development, house after house, road after road. We should get away from that and concentrate on building small housing estates with nice open spaces.

Although there is a housing crisis I do not suggest that we should return to the guaranteed order scheme that we had in 1973 or 1974, when we built such places as Seagrange estate in Baldoyle. That is now an excellent development but the houses were built cheaply without a proper roof. It took from 1974 to the middle eighties to impress on Government, and local authorities, that without proper roofing there would not be proper heating. People in those houses worried constantly about the deterioration of the roofs. Eventually the residents association and local representatives got together to ensure that new roofs were put on those houses. It is now an excellent estate and the people there are very happy. However, it took the residents a long time to get proper housing.

We should consider Darndale, where we are refurbishing at a very slow pace. At the present rate of progress it would take another ten to 12 years before Darndale estate is refurbished. That is not good enough. The people there are trying to form a good community and to do so they need adequate housing which is properly insulated. I compliment the Department on the refurbishment work carried out so far. It is excellent, but the pace is too slow. More money should be put into this work. The refurbishment work will mean that we can house more families and reduce the housing lists, so it should be given priority.

The Swans Nest Court area, a flat complex in my constituency is in need of refurbishment. I raised this with the Department and in the House over the years. There are about 100 flats in the complex and of late there have been many complaints that the condition of the roof is deteriorating and starting to leak. That does not help the quality of life there and people are worried about it. The Minister should make more money available to repair the Darndale and the other flat complex. I am sure that Ballymun also could do with more money for refurbishment. Will the Minister take on board the need to provide money for refurbishment, and let us get on with the programme?

To solve the housing crisis, local authority house building must restart but I would not like to see the building of local authority estates on the scale of the mid-eighties, often on large greenfield sites on the periphery of urban areas. We should have proper planning. I do not want the Minister to develop the concrete jungles we had hereofore.

I know Dublin County Council have the designated site scheme. Many houses built over the years have large back or side gardens and owners should be encouraged to consider building a house for a member of the family on them under this scheme. People should be informed that they can do this under this excellent scheme. This scheme would help reduce the housing list.

I notice that houses which were built in Howth, for instance, for £500 or £600 are now fetching £50,000 on the open market. This enables people to move on to better housing or to buy two houses to accommodate a member of the family. I do not suggest that we go back to the days when we used to claw back a certain percentage of the purchase price but a sales schemes should be encouraged.

Many houses in my constituency have up to half an acre of ground surrounding them. We should encourage people to build an extra room to house a young family. It creates a good mix in society to have parents, perhaps looking forward to retirement, their children and their grandchildren living in the same dwelling. We should provide enough money for adding rooms to houses to accommodate young families. In many housing estates, I notice that in addition to having large gardens, there are large tracts of land behind the gardens. There are examples of this in Howth. We are very anxious to encourage the fishing tradition in the village. Fishing follows from father to son, however if the younger generation are not housed in the area, the tradition will die out.

Nowdays, fishing is a different skill. You must leave home at 4 a.m. to get out to the fishing grounds and it is very late before you get home. Therefore it is important to live nearby. The council should encourage the building of a second house when the back garden can accommodate it. Indeed, Dublin County Council bought some land in the area and I asked the county manager to give priority to local people, especially those involved in fishing. I am sure there are other villages like Howth which have a tradition in a particular field, perhaps weaving, where it is desirable to retain the local population but no points or priority scheme seems to cater for such persons and they must find accommodation elsewhere. That is a pity because the traditions that we cherish will just die away.

The council intend to build 14 or 15 houses in the Howth area and I asked the manager to consider allocating them to locals. However councillors being as they are look to their own constituency and indeed councillors from Balbriggan or Malahide would like to see their constituents housed in Howth and they kicked up a row about my suggestion and it was not accepted. Perhaps the Minister could help in this regard by perhaps adding a rider to any provision of money that people who follow the traditional occupations should be enabled to stay in the area.

Finding the deposit for a house puts a great burden on many people. At present the maximum loan available from a local authority is £25,000 — and this special category loan is paid back at approximately £256 per month over a 25 year period. This puts a burden on any family. The Minister should look at options such as exempting persons from stamp duty and providing grants towards the solicitor's fees. Indeed £25,000 will not go very far when you are buying a house, and in my area the cheapest house you will find costs more than £40,000. We should consider raising the maximum loan to a figure nearer to the cost of a house. Under the shared ownership scheme, the loan ceiling is £40,000, but it is very hard to find a house that costs £40,000. Indeed at present you will not find a good house for £40,000 unless the vendor is opting for a quick sale. More money must be made available for housing.

Earlier I referred to the general lack of housing. Some private and local authority estates are overcrowded and very badly designed, and this leads to vandalism. When some estates were built, there was provision for access through a back laneway. While the intention behind this was good — to allow easy access to buses and other modes of transport — they are now used by young people who congregate and hold drinking sessions, thus creating general mayhem. The gardaí in my area are constantly patrolling housing estates because the vandalism is very worrying. The young people seem to be able to get their hands on unlimited quantities of drink and drugs and are causing serious problems to local residents, especially elderly people, who are afraid in their own homes. I would like to see the Minister introducing steps as early as possible to have these laneways closed up easily. At present it takes at least a year to have this done, even when every resident in the estate agrees to it because the matter has to be dealt with through the planning process. Legislation is needed so that these laneways can be closed off quickly.

Recently in a planning application for 40 or so houses in Baldoyle, which is part of my area, I noticed that it was proposed to leave a laneway to allow residents access to the nearby DART station. I could appreciate the planner's point of view because this would encourage people to leave their cars at home and use the DART instead. However I had to object to this proposal at council level as did other local residents and we were successful in objecting to the proposed laneway. People were very worried that young people would congregate in the laneway and cause mayhem in the estate. I recently visited a housing estate in Grange Abbey where young people have pulled down the side wall of a house which is just across the road from the laneway. Indeed one man who parks his buses in the laneway constantly finds that the windows are broken. We should introduce legislation providing a procedure to close off such laneways quickly.

While I like to see plenty of open space in housing estates, the local authority should be required to patrol those open spaces in order to prevent young people creating havoc by drinking in the open air. Because of the manpower shortage in the Howth Garda station, the Garda tell me they are unable to patrol these areas and they do not have sufficient staff to put a man on the beat. Indeed they also say that if they get rid of the problem in one area they are merely exporting it to another estate where the problem recurs. Again I appeal to the Minister to empower the local authorities to implement procedures to close off laneways quickly.

In my constituency Dublin Corporation have provided houses in the county council area, and I, as a county councillor, cannot take up with the corporation their problems with rent arrears, maintenance or indeed requests for transfers. I know it is proposed to reform local government but the Department should examine this problem and consider transferring the ownership of these houses to the local authority in whose area they are located and who would then arrange to collect the rents. This problem is prevalent in a number of constituencies and we are unable to deal with it for the corporation tenants because we are not elected to the corporation.

The shared ownership scheme looks enticing and should work. A few points should be considered in order to make the scheme efficient. The law agents' offices in both Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation are dealing with a huge volume of work and cannot process documents quickly enough. People know this problem exists and that it may take a long time to establish title. Extra personnel should be appointed to process the documentation and to establish title more quickly. If that does not happen sellers will not be anxious to deal with people who are in a shared ownership scheme. An estate agent told me recently that he would be more likely to encourage a sale to a person getting a building society loan rather than somebody in a shared ownership scheme because in the latter case the sale could be held up for some time. A person selling a house should be confident that a sale will be closed very quickly. Estate agents and solicitors should also have that confidence. It would require extra money to provide more staff in local authorities but this is necessary to ensure that the scheme is a success.

I would encourage the Minister to consider joint venture schemes. At an area in my constituency, called Hole in the Wall, near Donaghmede, it is proposed to build 900 houses. The proposer tells me that the houses will cost in the region of £40,000 to £45,000. I think he is aiming towards the joint ownership scheme. We should talk to people who have planning permission of this kind to see if joint ventures can be organised with a local authority.

Deputy Leonard said it was a disgrace that there should be any houses without sewerage facilities. The Minister met a deputation from the Hole in the Wall area where there are 35 houses without sewerage. The new development will commence shortly and we must ensure that these people get proper sewerage facilities while the development is going on. I thank the Minister for meeting that group. They were quite satisfied but they are looking for action. They want the Government to provide the money for sewerage to these houses which are six or seven miles from the centre of the city. Sometimes people do not believe that there is a sewerage problem on the outskirts of Dublin. The Minister might discuss with the proposer of this development the making available of a sewerage scheme to the residents of St. Michael's Cottages in Hole in the Wall.

I draw the Minister's attention to what I would regard as a waste of money. I cite the case of one of my constituents who was living with his wife and child in the home of his wife's parents. It was a small cottage which the health board decided was unfit and they issued an order accordingly. The man duly reported to the health authority who told him they would give him a subsidy towards the rent of a house. He consulted several auctioneers and estate agents and found it difficult to find a house to rent. Most estate agents told him he would need a deposit, in one case a deposit of £600, the rent being £400 a month. The only place he could get a house was in one of the best estates in the area. He paid £600 in deposit, most of which was provided by the health board. He is paying just £400 a month in rent, with a subsidy of almost two thirds provided by the health board. To me that is a waste of taxpayers' money and it is wrong. He has one of the best houses in the area. More power to him if he can get it; it was the only house he could get. There are other cases like this. It would be better to recognise that there is a housing crisis and put the money to better use by building houses rather than wasting it in this fashion. The Minister might address this problem.

Dublin County Council and most of the local authorities insist on the highest standards in building construction, with proper regard for energy conservation and proper insulation. Proper attic insulation and double glazing should be required in all new houses. Grants for such insulation would be money well spent. It could save about £50 million a year in oil imports, according to a recent report.

We have been reading lately about water shortages in the Dublin area. Due to very dry weather conditions reservoirs have run down. A programme should be initiated by the Department or by the local authorities to enlist the co-operation of people in water saving. Manufacturers of water cisterns should be asked to introduce a smaller cistern which would save 50 per cent of water when flushing. More research would result in measures to save water in Dublin city. At times in the Baldoyle and Howth areas the water supply is throttled or turned off, giving people either reduced supply or none at all. We should encourage the manufacture of various water saving devices.

The north Dublin drainage scheme serves most of the housing estates from Finglas to Howth. One pipe takes in waste from houses, hospitals and factories and emits raw sewage at Howth Head. The EC have directed that we should install proper treatment works before 1998 or 1999. The north Dublin drainage scheme will have to be treated very shortly. Consultants have been appointed to recommend on the siting of a sewage treatment works and I understand they are looking at three locations. They tell us that the treatment works cannot be more than a mile away from the pipe. One of the sites they are considering is in St. Anne's Estate and another is a land-fill site in the Howth area. We reckon it is near the Baldoyle race-course or somewhere between Baldoyle and Portmarnock. A sewage treatment works is like an itinerant site: nobody wants it near them. The Baldoyle, Howth-Sutton area and all that area along the coast is a high amenity area. We would be totally opposed to the siting of a sewage treatment works in any of those areas. We have fought long and hard to preserve the open spaces in Baldoyle. We have fought off several planning applications down through the years and we will continue to do so. I want to put the Minister on notice today that we are not in favour of the treatment works being located in the Baldoyle or Howth-Sutton area.

There is a solution. We had a meeting recently with the consultants organised by the Howth-Sutton 2,000 group — an excellent group in that area who look after the environment — and they told us there is a solution. I have praised the group several times in this House and will continue to do so. The solution is quite simple. One can run a pipe from the North Dublin drainage scheme across to the Ringsend works. I understand that in time that will be a proper treatment works which will emit clean water into the receding waters in Dublin Bay. We in the Baldoyle, Howth-Sutton area are totally opposed to the sewage treatment plant being located in our area.

Finally, I should like to refer to the matter of housing. We have high amenity areas such as the Redrock site on which people are seeking to build houses. The answer to our problem in trying to preserve these areas is a special amenity area order. That is troublesome and it is very difficult to process through the council. I understand the Liffey Valley area amenity order was initiated by the Department of the Environment. We should look to that Department to preserve these spaces from house building. Howth needs a special amenity area order. These areas are being preserved at present by doing deals with people who want to develop these areas. For instance, we are saying to them in regard to Redrock mark II — as I call it, the second site beside Redrock — you can have two houses if you give us 40 acres. That is the wrong approach, it is piece-meal, it is not good and it is not fair to either side. In order to preserve these areas near housing estates the Minister and his Department should make a special amenity area order.

Legislation relating to the provision of housing and housing development is a very important subject for debate at any time in this House and is something that engages practically every Member. That is understandable because housing is one of the most fundamental rights of any individual or family. Much had been expected from this legislation but it is not adequate, in the present circumstances, of allowing anything like the colossal housing needs of the community to be met. While the timesharing proposal has some attractions, when one peruses the applications for local authority housing in any part of the country, one finds that the income levels of the overwhelming majority are related to the social welfare levels. This in itself is a total barrier to participating in the shared ownership scheme. The lack of local authority housing and Government investment in this area since 1988 has resulted in a crisis situation. There is no commitment by the Government to seriously address the housing crisis that has existed since then. Every Member of this House and every member of every urban council, county council and corporation know the magnititude of the problem. All such bodies are sitting on a timebomb because of the number of families and others who have been awaiting rehousing since 1989. The failure of this Bill to give any reasonable hope to the majority of those on the housing lists could be the spark which may well set that timebomb alight and bring people onto the streets to protest. It is most frustrating for public representatives week after week to meet people who are awaiting rehousing and to be unable to give them any hope as to when they may be rehoused.

In my own urban council area currently there are 95 certified applicants for rehousing. All the council and the housing manager have at this time and will have for 12 months hence is 14 houses to meet the housing needs of those 95 families, some of whom live in mobile homes, some in caravans and some in high cost rented accommodation. As I said at the outset the tragedy is that the overwhelming majority of those seeking rehousing today are social welfare recipients. If the Minister or anybody else were to tell a family in need of housing that they could not be taken out of their misery because of the Government's fiscal policy, they would hardly accept such explanation. This is a real problem for public representatives in trying to allay the frustration of those people. Investment in housing is of national advantage. Not only does it create employment but it also gives a family the dignity, and entitlement of having a proper house.

The delay in introducing a tenant purchase scheme is a disappointment, especially for tenants who have been inquiring of public representatives as to when such a scheme would be introduced. I note that the Minister recently announced outside this House that such a scheme would be introduced at an early date. Certainly many local authority tenants would welcome that because the state of local authority finances is such that the level of maintenance has had to be cut back. Many tenants who are carrying out the necessary repairs are most anxious to own the houses they live in so that they can be sure of their investment in them.

I should like to make one important point in the hope that the Minister will be able to meet the objectives to which I refer. I would ask the Minister to investigate the position of aged people who have vested their cottages for a number of years and where the income to the family reduces substantially through the death of either the husband or the wife. In such circumstances the remaining partner is under very severe financial pressure to keep up the mortgage repayments. In many such cases they are protected through the insurance policy but the case I make is for people not so protected. As of now the only freedom the housing manager has in such cases is to have the house taken back and the person transferred from mortgage repayments to rent. I request that under the provisions of this legislation housing managers be given the necessary authority to explore other means of dealing with this problem.

I am sure the Minister would agree that in the case of pensioners who have been proud to own their own home for a number of years and then faced severe financial difficulties in meeting mortgage repayments following the loss of a spouse the manager should be given the power under legislation to find a way that would be more acceptable and more beneficial to both the local authority and the Department. The Government cannot and must not evade their responsibility to provide houses for those who are in absolute need and who cannot from their own resources ever hope to provide themselves with the security of a proper home. Throughout the country there are people in need.

I welcome the provision that will allow tenants and local people to become involved in the maintenance and management of local authority housing estates. In the past the level of communication between local authorities and tenants left much to be desired. The development is an excellent one which is taking root throughout the country. Housing groups are coming together in consultation with officers of local authorities to design and maintain open areas. Provision is being made for amenities and leisure facilities for children on the estates. A general discussion is taking place about proper structures and repairs. In the long run, this development will prove to be a most satisfactory scheme financially and will be of benefit to the community.

Two other matters of concern to local authority representatives are the complete cut off of moneys for essential repairs and the lack of grants for the provision of accommodation for disabled persons.

The essential repairs scheme in the main related to old age pensioners and disabled people living alone. The scheme was designed to repair doors, windows and roofs and to keep the fabric of a structure together and in a reasonably habitable condition. The scheme has been practically stopped in my county at least and some houses that would have benefited from it will become uninhabitable and their occupants will further add to the housing lists. The seeming discontinuation of the scheme is an undesirable development, and I ask the Minister to take note of that.

Another very valuable scheme that has fallen into financial difficulty is the disabled person's grant. The scheme primarily related to two-storey buildings in which a disabled person was so incapacitated as to be unable to use a stairway and was, therefore, denied the use of toilet and bathroom facilities. Under the scheme a contribution from the family of the house was expected towards the provision of a separate bedroom, with a toilet and shower if possible. It was an excellent solution to a serious problem. Without the help of this scheme disabled people who cannot provide those facilities themselves and have no access to toilet and bathroom facilities may have to go to an institution. Such a result would only mean more Government expenditure.

I urge the Minister to carefully scrutinise with each local authority housing manager the element of need for both the essential repairs scheme and the disabled person's grant scheme. For relatively small expenditure those schemes played a major role in retaining the fabric of houses in a habitable condition and in allowing an aged or disabled person to remain within the family home.

Every housing authority and housing manager must be concerned about the number of unmarried mothers who are on the housing lists. Consideration should be given to the suggestion of assisting in the provision of a separate room cum kitchen to be built on to the family home. While that suggestion may not be practical in all cases, it could in many instances meet the requirement and, possibly, help in the stability of families. Many unmarried mothers are resorting to living in caravans, mobile homes and rented accommodation. Local authorities often have to provide expensive accommodation for two people.

There is a pressing need to find a solution for the major social problems presented by the volume of marital instability caused by a lack of housing. Often when there is a break-up in a family living in a local authority house one spouse has to seek further housing, thereby adding to an already serious housing list. The sooner we engage on a programme to clear the colossal backlog on the housing lists the sooner we will find solutions to the other social problems arising from the need for housing. This is a national crisis and one on which action cannot be delayed because very serious social problems could result.

I join Deputy Moynihan, and other speakers from the Opposition benches who virtually unanimously expressed disappointment at the contents of the Bill. We do not wish to be negative, we do not wish to be obstructive and we certainly do not wish to be dismissive, but one could justifiably describe this Bill, which was heralded for a long time, as an elaborate ado about nothing. We could have all the Bills, measures, schemes and programmes in the world and the most elaborate and sophisticated framework, but without the necessary financial back-up and assistance all such plans, programmes and approaches are meaningless and count for nought.

Since a Fianna Fáil Government took office in 1987 housing has slipped down the social agenda and priority list. One could say that it has been almost completely pushed off the agenda. This year the total being made available for local authority housing is £18.5 million.

That is not true.

The Minister will have an opportunity to reply in a few moments. According to the book of Estimates there will this year be a reduction of £2 million on what could be described as a disastrous provision for 1991. The amount provided would build 600-plus— and it would be a very small "plus"— local authority houses. The provision is certainly put into perspective when one considers that the two inspectors on the Greencore case received more money for their travails than the entire County Mayo, with its three urban councils and one county council, received for its 1992 housing programme. With a housing list of 500, the Mayo County Council building programme this year provided for the building of a mere 25 houses. The position is the same throughout the country, as has been pointed out by every Opposition Member who has spoken. The housing lists are getting longer by the day.

Every local authority housing agency is in the middle of a major housing crisis, as Deputy Moynihan said. The problem is particularly acute in the City of Dublin. It is at crisis level and its association with crime has been very much understated judging by the comments by Dublin Deputies in the House. Instead of reacting to the looming social and civic unrest which invariably arises from a national housing crisis, the Government have contented themselves with high-sounding, complicated, unfunded — or under-funded—new initiatives such as the provisions in this Bill.

This Bill seeks to build a legislative framework round the Government's document A Plan for Social Housing, as the memorandum states, “published by the Minister for the Environment in February 1991”. To use the word “published” is underplaying the significance of what happened, as the word is a misnomer or a modest description of what occurred at the launching. The then Minister — a fellow county man — called in the TV cameras, the national radio and newspapers for the launch of what was to be a major new initiative, a new, all-purpose document for housing, the panacea for all our ills. However, if one contacts the housing officer in any local authority he will confirm that the plan for social housing is a sick joke. The waiting lists have grown longer, the condition of local authority houses has deteriorated, the number of homeless has escalated — and is escalating further every day — and at the outset it was difficult to accept the bona fides of the Government's social plans for housing.

The Fianna Fáil Government, within a matter of weeks after assuming office in 1987, abolished the highly successful house improvement grant scheme but did not introduce a substitute. The grants scheme introduced by the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government was prudently managed and, more than any previous scheme in this decade, updated the housing stock, particularly from the point of view of the lower and middle income private house owners who could, under the scheme, receive finance to reconstruct or renovate dilapidated houses. It helped to bring thousands of tradesmen out of the black economy into the open by virtue of the fact that they had registered for value-added tax. The scheme put a buzz back into local economies by generating much welcome business activity for builders' providers, and by taking unemployed carpenters, plumbers, block layers and plasterers off the dole queue, thus greatly improving the quality of the housing stock by the erection of bathrooms and toilet facilities where previously there were none. It also led to the erection of additional bedroom space and the provision of a water supply where previously none existed and the improvement of the fabric of houses generally.

This Government, in the same year on assuming office, virtually abolished the SDA loans as we know them, whereby somebody earning up to £10,000 could get a loan of up to £21,000 at approximately 12.5 per cent repayable over 30 years. This was an excellent scheme but the conditions attached to the new scheme meant that one had to hawk one's financial credentials to a bank, credit union or building society and be refused, not by one but by all these agencies, before one could be eligible for a county council loan. It is safe to assume that the reason a person would be turned down for a bank or building society loan is that the bank or building society were not convinced of the applicant's creditworthiness. Therefore, the county council were expected to come in to pick up the slack. It is ridiculous to impose a condition on a county council whereby they would give a loan to someone whose creditworthiness had not been approved by a bank or building society. As was said on the other side of the House, this Government have caused the disabled person's reconstruction grant scheme and the essential repairs grant scheme— which were operated so effectively and judiciously by the local authorities over the years — to grind to a halt.

This Bill provides for extending the Housing Acts, 1966 and 1988, and introduces a number of innovations, which are fine provided you allocate the necessary finance and complement them with the resources to back them up. One of the much vaunted features of the Bill is the provision of a statutory basis for shared ownership, a scheme whereby the occupier is enabled to purchase a portion of the House and to pay the balance by way of regular repayments over a period of between 20 and 100 years. I will give an example of the irrelevance of the scheme to reality. In County Mayo there is normally a high take-up of new schemes and innovations whether by way of loans, joint ventures or tenant purchase schemes. Since the scheme was introduced in County Mayo only one person has availed of it. The period is too long, the scheme is too complicated and is much too unattractive to the normal house purchaser. Apart from that, the money has not been made available to the local authorities.

When I asked parliamentary questions, written or oral, in relation to the new low interest rate scheme for housing and the allocation to Mayo County Council I was told that the total allocation to the council is £900,000 to cover all the new programmes envisaged in this scheme — loans, a capital programme, essential repairs grants and disabled persons' reconstruction grants. Local authorities are given the cake and it is up to each one to slice it in the number of ways it thinks fit. However, if the cake is not large enough there simply are not enough slices to go round; unfortunately, that is the key failing in the social housing programme.

I welcome the general thrust of section 5 which provides that a local authority can carry out works to improve, extend or to adapt a house not owned by the authority — again it is a way of addressing the crisis. Various options in relation to the recovery of the expenditure are put in place and fundamentally it is a good idea. It uses existing housing resources and stock to provide additional housing capacity but, unfortunately, the money has not been made available to the local authorities.

I welcome the provision in the Bill for the establishment of management associations by residents to manage, as far as possible, housing estates and schemes. The more residents become involved in the control of their own affairs and the more participation there is at management level, the more one devolves power to the people themselves and the greater the sense of pride and responsibility. It is amazing to see the contrast in the upkeep of estates; often a relatively new estate falls into disrepair within a very short period and yet another very similar estate, built at the same time and to the same design and standards, is kept to the highest possible standard, indeed very often it is improved and enhanced compared to the condition in which it was handed over by the builder to the local authority. Invariably, one finds that estates which have active tenants' associations are the best performers. Each housing scheme, from its inception, should put in place a local tenants' association, or indeed a management association, as specified in this section, which would enable people to exercise their democratic powers of electing representatives to participate in decisions affecting their collective welfare and generally to be collectively responsible for the presentation, preservation and appearance of their areas.

One of the crippling costs on local authorities, as any county manager or local authority member will testify, is that of housing maintenance and repairs. The concept of tenant purchase schemes and the selling of houses to local authority tenants is a good one in principle in that it gives ownership back to people — it is one of the great yearnings of every Irish person to own his or her own home— but the most saleable and modern and better kept houses were purchased by tenants while the more dilapidated and older houses remain in the ownership of the local authority. Undoubtedly, difficulties sometimes arise due to poor quality construction or to the age of the building while in many cases the costs incurred by the local authority in repairing the housing stock arise from sheer neglect or indeed, vandalism by the tenants themselves.

I would have to agree that the rents charged by local authorities are reasonable and that people get good value for money. However, if houses are to be kept in good repair every local authority without exception should insist that the local revenue collector carry out an inspection of each house in his area at least once ever two years and forward a short report on the condition of the house as a matter of form to the local authority. It is appalling that the green and grass areas in the general environment of local authority housing estates may be unkempt. It should, therefore, be one of the objectives of local management committees and tenant associations to try to ensure that the public are conscious of the need to keep the general environment up to standard and that there is a sense of community pride. Provision should be made in every housing scheme of over 25 houses for a common play area.

Halting sites are mentioned in the Bill and have become a major bone of contention in many areas. However, the general principle in relation to halting sites is a good one. I have come across well managed halting sites in Castlerea, County Roscommon, and in Roscommon town itself but on the other hand I have come across disastrous halting sites such as the one on the outskirts of Longford town. Unfortunately, we do not have any halting site in County Mayo. There should be at least one halting site in every local authority area. Without exception, every local authority should be given 12 months to provide a halting site because without a proper spread section 10 of the Bill will not work.

I welcome the general principle that any caravan parked within two miles of an established halting site should be towed away forthwith and that certain penalties should be imposed. However, I would go further. Communities are regularly invaded by convoys of up to 30 or 40 caravans at a time, which are parked on the roadside often for long periods in defiance of orders and injunctions issued by the courts or the county council. This amounts to an intrusion on the rights of settled communities. I have no objection to a single caravan or indeed two to three caravans parking for short periods but particularly at this time of the year caravans are parked bumper to bumper very often on busy national primary and secondary roads. As I said, this amounts to an unwarranted intrusion on the rights of the settled community apart altogether from being in many cases, a traffic hazard. At present the local authorities seem to be powerless in dealing with the matter. While the principle that people should use halting sites is a good one, the provision of a distance of two miles is too restrictive.

The design of rural housing leaves a lot to be desired. They have been designed in the same unimaginative way for the past 25 years and this does not do justice to our planners, architects and builders with a sense of innovation. It is high time therefore that each local authority produced and submitted their own design to the Department of the Environment for approval to remove the stigma attached to a local authority house.

Mortgage interest relief which is supposed to have been protected by Governments during the years has been whittled away in each successive budget through the use of an uncanny device, that is, the elimination of relief for endowment mortgages. During the months of September, October and November in the lead-up to the budget we have the normal attack by certain economists on what are known as the traditional reliefs, VHI relief and mortgage interest relief. However, following the crescendo from the various defensive sectors the reliefs are either not dismantled in the budget or there is the minimum intrusion despite all the speculation — woe betide any Government who would touch either of those reliefs.

There has however been an intrusion by stealth on another relief, that is, interest relief for endowment mortgages. In the most recent budget, following a series of deductions in previous budgets, interest relief on the life insurance element was eliminated. As a result damage has been done to endowment mortgages. Indeed this is one of the reasons for the decrease in new house starts of 1 per cent in 1990 and 4 per cent in 1991.

The Bill is fine in theory and amounts to a glorious social housing plan, but without money, resources and finance it will be meaningless. I attended a meeting of the housing committee of a local authority yesterday evening when the complaints which those of us on the Opposition benches recite time and again were par for the course and we ended up in a whirlpool of frustration. There are 500 people on the housing list; yet we do not have the money or the resources to build houses to meet our requirements. Unfortunately, there is no indication that additional finance will be provided.

Let me make one final point in relation to social housing. During the years we have failed to provide a livelihood for a huge number of people. It is estimated that in the United States there are 40 million people of Irish origin while there are six million people in Great Britain who were born within these shores. I am sure that anyone who has had the pleasure of addressing emigrant associations abroad — I am sure the Minister has addressed the Tipperary Association in various parts of London — will testify that it is one of the outstanding ambitions of many of those for whom we were not able to provide a livelihood here to return and spend their final years here.

I am not referring to the people in cardboard city but the many people living in the inner cities of Birmingham, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds and Edinburgh who are now in recept of reasonably good retirement pensions from the DHSS or from various firms for whom they worked for 35 to 40 years after leaving these shores. Many of these people would love to return here for their final years if we could provide them with decent low cost housing. I know it is a bit much to ask that we provide housing for our emigrants given that we cannot provide it for the people living here at present, but it would make good economic sense as well as good social sense to look at the possibility of rehabilitating some of these people here if they genuinely want to come back.

If we were to bring back from the United Kingdom two people who are in receipt of DHSS pensions, which amount to approximately £150 per week — the average industrial wage here — this would put bread on the table for many a shopkeeper, publican, baker, draper and sales representative in a rural community. I honestly believe that we should consider our social policy with a view to rehabilitating some of our emigrants who have a desire to return here. In deference to those living here at present who have not got a house they have to be our first priority, but one of the major defects in our economic performance is that we have not got a large domestic consumer population. There are simply not sufficient people within our shores to consume what we produce. Whether it be a returned DHSS recipient from Birmingham or London as long as he or she consumes here they are helping to create economic wealth. A plan we might usefully examine from the point of view of our overall economy and our entitlements within Europe in the post-Maastricht Treaty period is whether it would be possible to negotiate with the European Community some type of rehabilitation, displacement or return package for the millions of our emigrants who would like to return to a reasonable standard-type house in rural Ireland.

This plan is great by way of a philosopher's dream, it is a planner's plan but, from the point of view of providing answers to the growing housing crisis, indeed its attendant potential social explosion, we will ignore that housing crisis at our peril.

Deputies McGrath, Byrne, Garland and Gregory rose.

The Chair now finds itself in an unenviable position. Ordinarily the Chair endeavours to accommodate the group referred to as Independents. I notice that no Independent Member has been called as yet and that two Independents are offering.

I hope Deputy Garland does not mind my referring to him as an Independent in that I know that he represents a party but he is one Member of that party. Ordinarily I would be anxious to call a Member of the group that had not been called to date. Is there any possibility, in circumstances in which the Government would not appear to be offering, that those Deputies anxious to make a contribution—and here there is the difficulty that someone else may present himself or herself in the 30 minutes or so remaining — could come to some agreement to share that time? This would be directed, first to the Independents?

Since there are almost 40 minutes remaining may I suggest that the Minister would gracefully give us two minutes of his time, which would leave ten minutes each for the four Members present? Would that be acceptable to the Chair and the Members present?

The Chair would reserve the right to alter that slightly in that we cannot decide on behalf of people who are absent and who may wish to participate at a later stage. I would hope that perhaps we could carry out that agreement in spirit.

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, while not wishing to interfere with any directive from the Chair, with the greatest of respect, I would remind you of the long-established procedure of the rota which operates for speakers——

The Fine Gael Party have already had two participants.

——since it was indicated by the Government that this debate would be brought to a conclusion at 7 p.m. That was agreed on the clear understanding that the long established rota principle would be applied.

That principle has been applied. The Fine Gael Party have had two speakers. Therefore, it would be in order for the Chair to call another Member, apart from Fine Gael, who can, if he wishes, take all of the remaining time. That is in perfect accord with the long established principle.

Not two in succession.

Deputies Cosgrave and Moynihan have contributed, as they are entitled, in accordance with the rota system and Fine Gael have had a second speaker. I am now calling Deputy Gregory.

I thank you for allowing me time to speak, not a regular facility available to me.

I might first refer to some of the Minister's introductory remarks to which I listened with interest. For example, he said he wanted to make clear that the social housing plan was intended to supplement rather than supplant the traditional local authority house-building programme. I regret to say that I consider that to be a most dishonest statement on the Minister's part. It is clear, within the context of the Minister's remarks and the almost total scrapping of the local authority house-building programme, that the Government's plan for social housing, in effect, is one to bring to an untimely end the great work of previous Governments in the provision of modern houses for families who could not afford homes of their own.

The reality is that in Dublin the average number of local authority houses built annually prior to 1987 was 1,500. Over the past four years, in some years there was not one local authority house built and, in the past couple of years, there was an average of 50 built annually. Those figures speak for themselves. While £66 million was allocated in 1982 in Dublin city for local authority house-building, that figure has been reduced to approximately £6 million this year.

It is equally dishonest to suggest that the social housing plan provides an alternative strategy to make accomodation available to persons and families in need.

Any plan that does not, at the same time, allocate adequate funding cannot achieve its aims. Clearly adequate resources are not being made available to local authorities. The all important question is whether the proposals envisaged provide for the needs of families on the Dublin Corporation housing list and for Dublin Corporation tenants living in substandard, overcrowded flats. In Dublin city in excess of 80 per cent of Dublin Corporation's tenants rely on social welfare benefits solely for their livelihood. Indeed, the bulk of families and individuals on the Dublin Corporation housing list are social welfare recipients, as are the majority of families on the corporation's transfer list. By and large they are people who benefit from the public house-building programme. Will the Minister say where they are catered for in the Government plan because I contend the answer is "nowhere". The answer lies in the 50 local authority houses that may or may not be built in Dublin this year. Those people flock to the Dublin Corporation housing offices daily in search of an ever diminishing number of vacancies and, in most areas, none at all.

Local authorities need funds to purchase or build houses. The Government are, and have been, starving local authorities of funds. I must emphasise the importance of building one house in Dublin city which is not merely that it will house a family. By and large, a family accommodated in a two-bedroom flat in a Dublin Corporation housing estate will transfer into a larger flat because of their overcrowded living conditions. Then a family living in a one-bedroom flat in overcrowded conditions will transfer to the two-bedroom flat; two persons living in a one-room flat will transfer into a one-bedroomed flat and then a homeless person will usually be allocated the one room. It can be seen from that that when one local authority house is built in effect it caters for the housing needs of four or five families. Conversely, when one ceases to provide houses one exacerbates the already intolerable living conditions of many families. Indeed, those intolerable living conditions constitute one of the main factors leading to crime, drug dependency and a range of other social problems.

It is ironic that the Minister for Justice, Deputy Flynn, is responsible for the spiralling drugs and crime problem since, in his period as Minister for the Environment, it was his Government's policy of urban neglect that led to the drugs and crime problems we now experience. I do not blame the present Minister for the Environment. He is simply implementing well established Government policy, to cease providing houses for families too poor to provide their own. That policy is dictated by one consideration only, the high cost of providing such houses. This policy, followed since 1987, has resulted in a severe housing crisis not only in the Dublin area but nationwide. The Minister must be aware of the problem if only from the feed-back of his party's local councillors. If he is not prepared to accept that he might visit Dublin Corporation's housing department to verify those facts.

Any Member of this House who holds an advice centre in a poor area knows full well the extent of the housing crisis. I trust they are honest enough to tell the unfortunate families who come looking for assistance to get a house or home of their own that it is Government policy to deny them that right. However, perhaps there are many Members on the Government benches here who would be too ashamed to tell the people the truth on this issue.

Deputy Gregory, let me remind you of this ad hoc arrangement.

I will finish but I will try to get in the remaining few words I intended saying.

You will have to succeed, Deputy, because there are three others who have not had an attempt at all.

Unfortunately, even the media do not see the issue as one of major social and moral priority, as we see from the empty media benches here today. Perhaps that is because it is not a middle class issue, it is one for the urban working class poor. I will finish on this point in deference to the Minister, the House and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. It must be an extreme irony that at the same time as the Government are talking about the high cost of local authority houses and have scrapped the local authority house building programme, there was a great upsurge in building the most expensive, exclusive houses and apartments. Week after week there are property supplements like this one I have here from The Irish Times dated 14 May. The headline refers to “The season for half a million pound houses”. While we are here listening to a Government saying there is not enough money to house the poor in this city and the towns and cities around the country, the property supplement of The Irish Times thinks there is nothing more important to highlight and draw our attention to than the £500,000 houses for the rich. Where in Heaven's name, can we find a greater recipe for social conflict? We are beginning to see the start of that social conflict and its source is the present Government's policy.

I have much more to say. I had prepared quite a lengthy contribution on this issue which is very important in my constituency and Dublin city, but I regret I have to allow the other speakers in because of constraints of time.

We can take it that maybe other speakers have allowed the Deputy in too. I know it is an unusual agreement, but it is better that Deputies get the opportunity. Deputy Byrne, I will be calling you next and I will be asking you to conclude not later than 6.10 p.m.

Thank you, Sir, for your co-operation. I want to try to explain to the Minister, given his relatively recent appointment and probably his lack of experience and understanding of living in an urban capital like Dublin, and his probable unfamiliarity with Dublin Corporation housing estates and schemes, the tragic, disturbing and very difficult conditions under which many people are living in our public housing schemes. Also, I want to highlight for him the extreme frustration, annoyance, difficulty and overcrowding because of lack of a proper local authority house building programme.

The plan for social housing as presented by the Minister can be accepted by those of us in the Democratic Left in so far as it attempts to bring in new concepts in public housing and in accommodating people. New concepts are always welcome. However, new concepts on their own are not going to make any impact on the disastrous housing crisis that exists in this city. The missing point about this programme is that it cannot work on its own and needs to be complemented by a major capital housebuilding programme.

In Dublin Corporation at present, in excess of 4,500 people are on the housing allocations list waiting desperately, in overcrowded conditions, for accommodation to be provided by the local authority. In excess of 1,000 homeless families are living in our capital city. Of course, we see homeless people living in cardboard boxes not 50 yards from where I am speaking. There is a homelessness crisis in this city. About 8,000 families are on a housing transfer list. That is indicative of their frustration at living in an environment in which they are not happy and mainly they want to transfer from a local authority flat to some other complex, generally a housing complex. They are being frustrated because the corporation have not got a house building programme as the Minister's Department will not finance it.

Is the Minister aware of the tragedy of the basic breakdown of law and order in estate management affecting many of our housing schemes? For example, is he aware that about 400 squatters are occuping the limited accommodation available? 400 of the limited numbers of houses and flats have squatters in them at the moment. For the very first time in my experience as a public representative, the Eastern Health Board have a special homeless section where, because of the crisis in housing, people are diverted, to hostels which very often are full to overcrowding. These people have to be turned away and end up in bed and breakfast accommodation because there is nowhere to house them.

There is no confusion in my mind as to why this situation arises. The stark statistics produced yearly by Dublin Corporation show there was a massive house building programme estimated to run, since we started building in 1932, at approximately 1,500 units, but suddenly in 1987 we were down to 446 units. In 1988 we built only 148 units. Lo and behold, to the very lasting shame of Fianna Fáil and the Coalition Government in 1989 we built no houses, not a single one. In 1990 the proud record is 25 units built, possibly senior citizen accommodation but no family housing units. The figures show that in 1991 only 74 units were built and in this year, 1992, 100 units have been built, of which 50 at least are to accommodate tenants of Sheriff Street flats which are being detenanted.

Therefore, there is a crisis, and an extremely dangerous one, and I ask the Minister to address the question which he tries, to some degree, to address in his plan for social housing, that is the question of co-operative housing or housing associations. There is an ideal opportunity, with proper funding, encouragement and organisation, for groups who might be interested in their own traditional co-operative, family housing schemes. With proper encouragement and financial assistance housing co-operatives could be a real contributor to alleviating the housing crisis. There is, of course, a need for a greater social mix, and that could be done effectively by using the desire of people to house themselves through housing co-operatives.

I ask the Minister to pay very close attention to the breakdown in law and order in many of our housing estates and flat complexes. This is due primarily to a breakdown of estate management coupled with the always present squatters who are squatting more often than not now because no alternative accommodation is available. Consider the intimidation, trouble and havoc being caused by these illegal occupiers, who know the system inside out, who know it is taking 12 months, and in excess of that, to be evicted; that if they vacate before the court order arrives they can squat in another flat or house and get 12 months free living there and move on again. They have it off to a "t". I ask the Minister to address as quickly as he can the massive legal delaying process local authorities are required to go through in this eviction procedure.

In conclusion, I compliment the Minister on the excellence of the refurbishment scheme as it applies to Oliver Bond flats. It is an excellent project, but I am very concerned about the massive amount of money that has been injected into flat complexes. I believe the original plan was that it would be accompanied by a new theory of management control and tenant participation. I ask the Minister to look seriously at the immediate involvement, particularly in refurbished flat complexes, by tenants of these complexes to be involved with the local authority, the Department of the Environment or whatever, in making a contribution in the continuation and management of these schemes.

I am now calling Deputy McGrath. I ask him to accept that the time now is eight minutes for himself and eight minutes for Deputy Garland.

Thank you, Sir, and I ask you to remind me when it comes to the time. I welcome the opportunity of speaking in this House on the Bill. It is to provide a legislative framework for a range of measures contained in this famous document, A Plan for Social Housing. This document which was published in February 1991 with the appropriate pomp and ceremony was full of aspirations but had very little substance.

The number of people on the housing waiting list on 31 March 1991 was in excess of 24,000. This is a frightening statistic. This number has increased every month since then, but unfortunately the Government have responded with indifference and inactivity. It is shameful that local authorities were allocated £51 million in 1990 and £62.6 million in 1991 for public housing as against £206 million in 1984.

Since 1988 the Government have ignored the housing needs of people. Neither the document A Plan for Social Housing nor this Bill gives answers to the problem. In the document A Question of Choices, a submission to the Dáil and Seanad on aspects of the 1992 budget, the Justice Commission of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors say:

While this plan contains some imaginative proposals for the future it is hopelessly under-resourced. There must be some serious questioning of whether it is adequate to tackle the present scale of housing needs.

Those are the views of independent commentators on this issue. They go on to say under the heading "Choices":

The first choice Government faces in this context concerns responsibility for tackling housing problems. There is a danger that Government will try to place the responsibility for this principally on the voluntary sector. Such a move would be totally unacceptable. Housing is a basic human right and should not be dependent on voluntary activity. It is a Government responsibility.

The Minister has the task of living up to that responsibility.

While I am very sceptical of many of the measures contained in the document A Plan for Social Housing I have to say that it contains some worthwhile proposals which I hope will be implemented in full. Statistics recently released by the Minister's Department indicate that the number of activities under the various sections of this document is very limited, for example, the small number of sites allocated to people on which to build their own houses.

I wish to dwell on two aspects of this Bill. I will deal first with the section on improvement works in lieu of local authority housing. This is an excellent concept and I hope the Minister can make it workable. As it stands at present, this section is almost unworkable. For example, in 1991 a sum of £50,000 was allocated for this work in my county but to date none of this money has been used. Why is this so? I believe the problem arises mainly from the requirement that people must create a mortgage and set up a repayment system in order to get this money. I have written to the Minister about this issue but unfortunately he has told me that the system has to stay as it is.

I believe this money should be allocated by way of a grant to the people concerned. We should remember that we are talking about people on the housing waiting lists. Because a widow in my locality does not own her house she has to go through the legal wrangle of putting this right so that a mortgage can be created and a repayment system set up. What will the local authority get out of this scheme? They will get repayments of £3 or £4 per week from each person. It will cost them more to work the system than they will get by way of repayments. I accept that the Minister is trying to protect the Government's interests but many times in the past grants for housing were paid to people who were not means tested. I ask the Minister to allocate this money by way of a grant, which I believe would make the system much more workable. If the Minister wants to protect the Government's interests he should include a provision that the dwelling cannot be sold or passed on. I think local authorities would agree that the present system is unworkable and should be scrapped.

I will cover this issue by way of an amendment on Committee Stage.

I appreciate that very much. My second point relates to the shared ownership scheme. I am very sceptical about the way this scheme operates and how it will operate in the future. I should like the Minister to give an example of somebody who has availed of the shared ownership scheme, the costings and how it works.

There are hundreds of examples.

In the booklet published by the Minister reference is made to the repayments on a house which costs £30,000. A person will have to repay £37 per week on the £15,000 they borrow, plus rent to the local authority, and if they earn in excess of £10,000 they will have to pay £15 a week in rent, giving a total of £52 per week. If they want to buy out the other £15,000—this may increase every year as it is index-linked — they will have to put away some money. I contend that people in local authority houses will not be able to avail of this scheme. I accept that the scheme may be workable in the case of people who buy houses which cost £18,000 or £20,000. Nevertheless, I should like the Minister to give examples of where the scheme has worked and the type of people who have availed of it.

The Green Party, Comhaontas Glas, believe that while this Bill supposedly presents a new departure from the traditional means of housing provision through capital allocations to local authorities for housing construction, it nevertheless fails to address the real issue in housing, that is, affordability. The reason we have a housing crisis is that people are too poor to house themselves. The State-local authority housing provision perpetuates poverty through social segregation, which begets in turn concentrations of unemployment and inadequate environments for tenants.

The solution to the current crisis lies in a decentralised approach. As long as housing policy is formulated in the Custom House with no measures to tackle poverty, there is no guarantee that we will see the right kind of buildings in the right places nor the provision of the means whereby people, can afford to live in them. When I say a "decentralised approach" I mean giving real, flexible powers and funding for local authorities to meet housing demands and, more importantly, recognising that much of the current crisis is due in no small measure to the unsustainable urban concentration in our big cities. Rural Ireland is also experiencing a demand for housing which county councils cannot provide due to a lack of resources. The erosion of traditional livelihoods gives rise to an increase in the number of people moving to towns and cities where there is equally little prospect of employment. I had intended to speak at some length about travellers, but I will return to this issue on Committee Stage as many of the sections dealing with travellers are unsatisfactory.

The central thrust of our housing policy has always been the encouragement of owner-occupation, to the detriment of those who cannot raise the necessary capital for a deposit on a house or sufficient income to meet monthly repayments. Thus the line between owneroccupation — which gives security of tenure — and State provision is based on means. Somewhere in between lies the private rented sector which offers little security and often poor living conditions for those on low income. The section dealing with notice to quit in the private rented sector gives extra security for all of three weeks. This is absolutely outrageous. It is the persistent emphasis on owner-occupation which precipitated the measures outlined in the Bill, specifically those regarding shared ownership. While this is a welcome measure, it makes no impact on the pattern of resource allocation and distribution within the housing system as a whole. Why is so much of the burden being placed on the voluntary sector to provide accommodation for the homeless, while they receive no assistance with running costs and the only housing authorities defined in the Bill are local authorities? If voluntary housing bodies, particularly housing associations and housing co-operatives, were given funding and statutory recogition and, indeed, a definition to manage more effectively and at lower cost, local authorities might spend their time and efforts more fruitfully devising ways to accommodate those in immediate need of housing. Until there is a redirection of housing subsidies in a more progressive manner between owner-occupiers on the one hand and tenants on the other, owner-occupiers will continue to enjoy a tax advantage. Obviously tenants should also enjoy tax relief on rent as counterbalance to mortgage interest allowed to owner-occupiers.

The Green Party believe there is sufficient wealth in this country to provide an adequate living environment for all. Homelessness in such a severe problem throughout the country that we should consider requisitioning property that has been empty for a long time, particularly in Dublin where vacant floors and buildings contribute to widespread urban dereliction which in itself creates further problems. None of this is possible, however, without a firm commitment to a real redistribution of wealth which we propose through a guaranteed basic income scheme which would offer those in need a choice of housing as well as the means to provide it for themselves. A crucial interim measure is the provision of more rented property through community-based housing associations and co-operatives. Local initiative is a determining factor in the success of such schemes. While the conventional parties usually see the housing problem in terms of more units, such an approach leads to rhetoric about crash house building programmes. Rarely do such large scale plans respect local people or local environments. Except for a few experimental initiatives, housing has rarely been understood as part of the socio-ecological system. The obvious need for housing invariably leads us to ignore the fact that house building is a short-life, resource-intensive industry geared towards a growth in economics which is responsible for homelessness in the first place.

Bad buildings, as can be seen from the number of major refurbishment schemes underway at present, are not the only failings in contemporary housing. Modern housing construction virtually never makes use of the best form of heat insulation and practical advances in solar energy, water treatment and sewage disposal. Energy use in housing represents 27 per cent of total energy use, with heating accounting for almost 80 per cent of that. Housing, therefore, is a major contribution to man made emissions of CO2 gases, the worst of the greenhouse gases. Current building regulations only scratch at the surface of insulation technologies and capabilities. It is thus a great pity that there is no mention of energy use in the Housing Bill. We believe that the implementation of a comprehensive insulation programme should be intrinsic to a housing policy, local authority dwellings in particular should be upgraded to provide proper standards for tenants. It is no longer acceptable that those most in need of housing are living in appalling damp and overcrowded conditions. The Bill should rightly establish a new criterion to define energy efficiency and space requirements in houses.

Tenants in local authority dwellings may not even perform the most basic maintenance for themselves. Thus, dependency on the State by such a huge proportion of the population is increased. As the organisation, People First, put it, housing is often the key to independent living which is paramount to green philosophy. This would free resources to tackle the problems of those who genuinely require urgent and ongoing assistance in housing. I regret that I will have to oppose this Bill for the many reasons outlined in my speech.

The Chair appreciates the common sense and co-operation of Deputies. I now call on the Minister to conclude the debate.

I thank all Deputies who contributed to this debate. Housing is a subject of wide interest and vital importance. A lively and substantial debate can always be expected whenever housing issues come before the House. I listened carefully and took note of the numerous points made during the debate and I will try to respond as positively and as constructively as I can. I will attempt to deal with the main themes which ran through the debate and to answer as many as possible of the specific issues raised.

At the outset, I would like to acknowledge the general agreement among most Deputies that the broader more rounded approach to social housing needs in the Plan for Social Housing and the Bill is the right one. I must, however, express my disappointment at hearing Deputy Kavanagh, Deputy Rabbitte, Deputy Ferris and many other Deputies talking as if the building of large scale local authority housing estates had proved to be the best solution to housing problems. This sort of sentiment is worthy only of someone stuck in a time warp, advocating the policies of the past as the solutions to the problems of the present and the future. Deputy Mitchell seems to favour the opposite extreme — a total cessation of local authority housing. That, of course, is not on the agenda either. The local authorities still have a major role to play as providers of social housing.

I was disappointed too, at the cynical attitude of Deputy Gilmore. He acknowledged the merits of the new approach but accused the Government of having hidden motives for it. I totally reject this allegation. The Plan for Social Housing was agreed with the social partners in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. It is a totally honest, straightforward and forthright effort to improve the manner in which we address social housing needs by developing a more diverse and flexible range of policy measures. Why proposals that clearly try to be innovative, to learn from the experience of the past and to correct the mistakes that have been made, should be treated with suspicion I do not understand.

Surely we must learn from past lessons and adapt our policies accordingly. We must also look at the experience of different trends in other countries. We must recognise the changing nature of the problems we are trying to solve. All this tells us that blanketing large areas of our cities and towns with vast expanses of local authority housing is not the right policy for the future. We cannot afford the costs — financial, economic or social — of going back to these policies of the past.

One cannot with any credibility call for the building of thousands of extra local authority houses without saying how they are going to be financed, because building houses is a very expensive business. Not one Deputy addressed this critical question. Deputy Mitchell asked the cost of each local authority house to the taxpayer. That figure now stands at approximately £85 per week. What other services are going to be cut back to provide the estimated £90,000 which the average single local authority house today is going to cost the taxpayer over the next 20 years? On top of the rental income we receive from local authorities the tax-payers have to provide, between refurbishment and repair, almost £45 million every year. Are we not right to see whether there is a new and different way to approach this problem?

To suggest that we should engage in local authority house building as a job creation measure is off-the-wall thinking. Jobs will only last if they are based on a sustainable foundation. Likewise, we can only build houses where they are part of a cohesive plan to deal with housing needs in a balanced way. Deputy Jim Mitchell referred to the house improvement scheme and the number of jobs created by that scheme of the middle-eighties. If the Deputy looks at the statistics for employment he will see that the number employed in the building sector dropped during the operation of that scheme. It took the correction of the public finances and the lowering of inflation and interest rates to get the building industry to grow again.

There are also the social costs of housing segregation. I do not need to go into these in great detail as Deputies are already well aware of them. The Minister for Justice has found it necessary to set up a special group to look into urban crime and its associated problems, much of it in larger local authority estates. The concentration of the weaker section of the community into certain areas is a bad principle and exacerbates problems. We must strive for socially mixed communities and try to replace a dependency culture with one of initiative, self-help and responsibility. People must be given the chance to take initiatives towards housing themselves through appropriate support for voluntary and co-operative housing. People must be given more choice in regard to the kind of housing they want.

I am not interested in understanding the extent of real housing needs. Nor will I for a moment, deny that needs have been increasing over the past couple of years. This is shown by the latest assessment carried out by local authorities in March 1991, which indicates that some 23,200 households have been approved for local authority housing but not 30,000 as quoted by at least one Deputy. While the actual figure represents an increase of approximately 20 per cent over the 19,400 households recorded in 1989, it is substantially less than the levels of 30,000 which were experienced in the early eighties. It is also worth noting that of the 23,200, 6,700 are one person households and another 2,800 are couples without children or almost 42 per cent are one person households or married couples without children. Contrary to the suggestion made by Deputy Gilmore, there has been no attempt to conceal the true extent of housing needs. The position is in fact set out in fulsome detail in my Department's 1991 housing statistics bulletin which is available to anyone who wants it. Not alone does the bulletin contain the total figures it breaks them down by category for each housing authority and down to urban council level. Opposition Deputies should resist the temptation to exaggerate the true extent of housing needs. I suggest to them that this is not a responsible approach. It certainly does no service to those in housing need to paint an unduly gloomy picture of their prospects.

As I indicated in my opening speech, I expect that we will see a substantial increase in social housing provision this year as the social housing plan measures begin to show results. If local authorities make full use of the various measures and resources at their disposal we could cater for up to 7,000 households in 1992. This figure is made up of new local authority house lettings, additions to their housing stock and casual vacancies, as well as the cumulative effect of the new schemes. I expect shared ownership to make a significant impact this year. The voluntary sector, through both the established capital assistance scheme and the new rental subsidy scheme, will also make an increased contribution. The improvement works scheme and the mortgage allowance will also help to relieve pressure on housing lists.

I want to reiterate that the Government are committed to maintaining the local authority housing programme at a level that will have regard to needs and to the resources that can be made available in the very difficult fiscal circumstances in which this country finds itself.

I also want to put paid to suggestions that while the plan for social housing and the housing Bill are laudable, the absence of adequate funding will prevent their objectives being achieved. This is not true and to suggest otherwise fails to take account of the substantial increased funding which has been made available in tandem with the plan. In fact the overall capital provision for housing, including both Exchequer and non-Exchequer resources, will be £158 million this year. This represents a full 30 per cent increase on the outturn for 1991. This substantial increase on the 1991 provision is primarily due to the increased take up of the various new schemes and, in particular, the shared ownership scheme. A provision of £35 million has been made to cover the capital funding requirements of this scheme in 1992.

During the period 1990 to 1992 the overall capital allocation from the Exchequer for housing purposes has increased from £51 million to just under £78 million. The allocation for the provision of local authority housing has increased from £33 million to £41 million while that for the remedial works scheme, including the provision of bathrooms, has increased from £15 million to £18 million. In addition, the voluntary housing allocation has increased from £9 million to £11 million, with a further £5 million being made available for the rental subsidy scheme. Allocations in 1992 for the improvement-works-in-lieu scheme, the provision of sites scheme and the mortgage allowance scheme totalling £4.4 million did not exist in 1990. These increased provisions have been made available during a difficult period for Government finances and are a clear demonstration of the Government's commitment to social housing progress.

How much of it was taken up?

Continuous efforts have been made by myself and my predecessor to get local authorities to attain the best possible progress with the various new housing measures. I refute Deputy Farrelly's suggestion that my Department have not replied to queries about the conditions of these schemes. Each manager has been briefed and regional conferences have been held for housing officers to deal with any problems or questions that have arisen since the schemes were introduced. Any practical assistance my Department can give is available. I agree however that while some authorities have performed well, others have not been as quick to make use of the new options. Deputies can be assured that I will do everything I can and provide any help I can to see the measures implemented as fully and efficiently as possible.

That said, I have to make the point that many of the Deputies who come here and criticise progress on the implementation of the social housing plan are members of local authorities. I would like to see those Deputies encouraging and assisting their authorities to speed up progress on the ground. Elected members of authorities have a vital role to play in seeing that each authority makes the optimum use of the various measures now available to address the housing needs of their area. This role involves informing public attitudes and helping to spread an understanding of the options and combinations now available. It also involves working to remove local obstacles and fostering voluntary and co-operative effort. I may embarrass Deputies who criticised this plan by letting them know that in their councils the money which was provided for house construction last year was not fully used. They do not seem to be aware of that.

Deputies and councillors can do much for housing in their areas if they choose to be constructive and positive. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

As regards the local authority housing programme, a further 1,000 new starts have been authorised this year which when added to the starts authorised but not actually commenced in previous years, should enable local authorities to commence up to 1,500 new houses in 1992 as compared to the 1,180 actually started in 1991.

I have already asked local authorities to ensure that all new starts and completions for which resources have been provided are fully achieved in 1992. The 1991 outturn figures were disappointing given the pressure on the waiting lists. For example, 1,180 dwellings were actually completed as against projected completions of 1,300. In the present difficult economic climate which restricts the resources that can be made available, it is incumbent upon housing authorities to ensure that the building/acquisition programme for which they get allocations are fully carried out. Deputies who are members of local authorities can assist in this regard by positive action at local level where delays or other problems can best be addressed.

For the sake of historical accuracy, if nothing else, I want to correct the contention by Deputies Kavanagh and Gilmore that it was a Fianna Fáil Government in 1987 that started cutting back the local authority housing programme. The facts are that substantial cut-backs in this programme were commenced by the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition in 1984 and progressively continued by them until they left office.

(Interruptions.)

If the Minister believes that he would believe anything.

I would now like to clarify a number of matters relating to shared ownership which arose during the debate. Deputy Kavanagh is clearly under a misapprehension when he suggests that the requirement in section 2 for the initial downpayment on a shared ownership lease to be between 25 per cent and 75 per cent of the value of the house represents a departure from the 50 per cent initial equity purchase brought in under the local authority system. It is nothing of the sort. Section 2 contains the framework for shared ownership leases generally. It enables the terms of these leases to be tailored to meet the needs of lessor and lessee. The shared ownership system being operated by housing authorities continues to require an initial payment of 50 per cent, in full conformity with the provisions of the Bill. Under section 3 that 50 per cent figure can be adjusted up or down within the 25 per cent to 75 per cent limits. I will not, however, be changing it unless I consider it justified in the light of experience.

The use of private sector finance in the shared ownership system, as advocated by Deputies Mitchell and O'Brien, is not alone provided for in the Bill but is envisaged as one of the keystones of the system. Sections 2 enables individuals and companies, including, builders, banks, building societies and so on, to go into the business of granting shared ownership leases without any reference to housing authorities. Section 3 envisages financial institutions advancing loans to individuals so that they can acquire houses by shared ownership lease from housing authorities. I have invited these institutions to provide mortgage funds for local authority shared ownership transactions and also to consider offering shared ownership after the Bill is passed.

Under the shared ownership system currently in place, the cost of buying out any portion of the equity in the house during the lease period is calculated by adjusting the original value of that portion of the equity in line with subsequent increases in the consumer price index. The rent only covers part of the cost of the housing authority's borrowings in respect of that share of the equity. The authority must borrow the money to buy the house in the first instance and must pay interest on their outstanding borrowings until they clear their debt when the buy out of the lease is completed by the shared owner. Therefore, the buy-out cost of any equity during the lease period could be frozen at its initial value only if the shared owners rent payments were high enough to cover the housing authority's borrowing costs in full. This would increase the outgoings on the house to an extent that would make shared ownership no longer viable.

Deputy Rabbitte said he would not advise anyone to enter shared ownership. People should be careful not to be misled by someone who has made a cause of trying to scuttle the shared ownership concept from day one.

In reply to Deputy Mitchell's concern about the burden of repayments under the shared ownership system, I would like to mention again that section 4 provides for a subsidy towards the rent payable under the lease. Under the arrangements already in place for housing authority leases, a graduated subsidy, amounting to £700 per annum at maximum, is payable to households earning less than £10,000 per annum. I am confident that this will be effective in ensuring that low-income households have access to the shared ownership system. It will also protect them in the event of an unexpected drop in income during the lease period.

It will be an albatross around their necks for years.

The objectives of section 9 are to bring about an improvement in the maintenance and management of the local authority housing stock and to maximise the return for the associated annual expenditure of £70 million by housing authorities. There is great potential for improving the image and quality of the management and maintenance service if properly constituted tenant's bodies become involved in the delivery process. This will lead to greater satisfaction on the part of tenants who will have a direct role in running their estates. Section 9 is also capable of dealing with estates where there is a mixture of tenanted and tenant purchase houses. My Department have in the past few months issued two detailed circulars to housing authorities requesting them to take positive action in relation to tenant participation. Options that they could consider were suggested. Obviously, housing authorities will have to provide the necessary resources to enable any delegated functions to be discharged by residents and this is fully provided for in the Bill.

I also want to reassure Deputy Mitchell that local authorities continue to carry responsibility for maintenance and management of every dwelling until such time as a disposal process has been completed. Section 26 does not change this.

Deputy Mitchell expressed concern over the problem of homelessness and wondered what measures were being taken to resolve it. The Housing Act, 1988, defined homelessness for the first time in Irish legislation and provided housing authorities with special powers to deal with it. This Act was put through by a Fianna Fáil Government after four years of indecisive dithering by our predecessor.

We built 6,000 more houses than this Government have built.

There was no homelessness then.

I had to stay quite when listening to the Deputies. I have only a couple of minutes and I have not gone close to the bone yet.

We built six times the number of houses the Minister is now providing.

In addition to their usual powers to provide housing for homeless persons, housing authorities can now give assistance by contributing towards the cost of accommodation provided by voluntary bodies. They can also give financial and other assistance directly to homeless people or arrange private accommodation for them. My Department recoup 80 per cent of the housing authorities expenditure and in 1991 these recoupments amounted to £377,000. The 1992 provision is £750,000 which represents an increase of almost 100 per cent over last year.

Revised guidelines for operating the homelessness provisions have also been issued to housing authorities giving them more flexible spending powers and emphasising the importance of having adequate arrangements in place to meet the needs of emergency cases.

How many people's needs have been met?

Deputy Mitchell also mentioned the aspect of the voluntary housing scheme which allows a voluntary body discretion in allocating 25 per cent of the accommodation qualifying for State grants and 75 per cent of the accommodation must be allocated to persons having specified categories of housing needs. There is a reason for this flexibility. It allows for a healthy mix of tenants and enables a development to benefit from higher rental income. Despite these potential benefits, however, I would agree with the Deputy, that allocations should be confined to those who have a specific need for housing and that housing authorities should have a strong consultative role in tenant selection.

Voluntary housing bodies are not, as Deputy Ferris suggests, being unfairly expected to meet social housing needs. They are making a major contribution to housing disadvantaged groups because they see the benefit that self-help initiatives can bring to communities. They do not go along with the shortsighted attitude that local authorities on their own can and should solve all housing problems. I also reject that argument. It has long been recognised that voluntary bodies of their very nature have certain strengths and advantages which enable them to make a unique contribution to meeting housing needs. In particular, they can operate more speedily, flexibly and economically than housing authorities in the delivery of housing services for elderly, homeless and other people in need. What the State must do is to encourage this commitment and help it to grow so that, between State and voluntary sectors, the best possible service, be it housing or otherwise, is provided. In recognition of this, the Government have since 1984 actively promoted voluntary housing activity by financial and other assistance resulting in the provision of 580 units of accommodation by the voluntary sector last year alone.

The new rental subsidy scheme will add further to this level of output by the voluntary sector in 1992. I am satisfied that the enhanced role for voluntary bodies envisaged in the Plan for Social Housing is absolutely right. It is in fact a necessity if we are going to deliver a balanced and flexible response to housing needs and not miss the opportunity to harness all the resources, both human and financial, that are available to help meet this objective.

I am sorry that I must interrupt the Minister as in accordance with the Order of the House, I must now put the question on Second Stage.

The Minister is trying to privatise the misery.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 67; Níl, 57.

  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Andrews, David.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Brady, Gerard.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Brennan, Mattie.
  • Brennan, Séamus.
  • Calleary, Seán.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
  • Cullimore, Séamus.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dennehy, John.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Fahey, Frank.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • Fitzgerald, Liam Joseph.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Flood, Chris.
  • Flynn, Pádraig.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Rourke, Mary.
  • O'Toole, Martin Joe.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Foxe, Tom.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Hillery, Brian.
  • Hilliard, Colm.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kelly, Laurence.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael P.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Leonard, Jimmy.
  • Leyden, Terry.
  • Lyons, Denis.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • McDaid, Jim.
  • McEllistrim, Tom.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Morley, P.J.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
  • O'Connell, John.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Donoghue, John.
  • O'Hanlon, Rory.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Stafford, John.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wallace, Mary.
  • Walsh, Joe.
  • Woods, Michael.
  • Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

  • Ahearn, Therese.
  • Allen, Bernard.
  • Barnes, Monica.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Bell, Michael.
  • Belton, Louis J.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Connor, John.
  • Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
  • Cotter, Bill.
  • Deasy, Austin.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Doyle, Joe.
  • Dukes, Alan.
  • Durkan, Bernard.
  • Farrelly, John V.
  • Fennell, Nuala.
  • Finucane, Michael.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Garland, Roger.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harte, Paddy.
  • Higgins, Jim.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Lee, Pat.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • McCartan, Pat.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • Mac Giolla, Tomás.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Noonan, Michael. (Limerick East).
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • Owen, Nora.
  • Quinn, Ruairí.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Reynolds, Gerry.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Shatter, Alan.
  • Sherlock, Joe.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Taylor, Mervyn.
  • Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies M. Ahern and Clohessy; Níl, Deputies Flanagan and Howlin.
Question declared carried.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Next Tuesday, subject to the agreement of the Whips.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 30 June 1992.
Barr
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