Vol. 499 No. 2
2 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government his views on whether there is a housing crisis; if he will establish a housing commission; the proposals he has to reduce the local authority housing lists; the further proposals, if any, he has to aid renters in the private sector; the proposals he has to further assist making housing affordable to families; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2355/99]
There have been many calls to Ministers over the years to declare housing emergencies or crises. Such a declaration would achieve little or nothing in terms of a response to the current situation. I am not denying that there are problems in the housing area. However, the Government has taken a range of actions since its appointment and the priority at this stage remains action rather than declarations.
Housing output in 1998 reached a new record level for the fourth successive year with more than 41,500 new houses and apartments completed. The indications for a further increase in output in 1999 are positive. Increasing the supply of housing remains the key element of the Government's housing policy.
Social housing needs are addressed by the local authority housing programme and through a range of complementary measures funded by my Department. The local authority housing programme for 1999 is being expanded to its highest level since 1986 with a capital provision of £230 million – an increase of £35 million or 18 per cent on the 1998 provision. This will enable an expanded programme of 4,500 starts in 1999, up from 3,900 in 1998.
I have recently called on local authorities to renew their efforts to respond to housing needs in their own areas by developing to full potential the range of social housing and voluntary housing measures now available to them to supplement their local authority housing programmes. The improvements introduced over the past year to the shared ownership scheme and to grant levels under the voluntary housing schemes will facilitate increased output under these measures.
The Minister of State is reluctant to describe the present housing position as a crisis. Does he accept that since he took office house prices have increased by more than 60 per cent, more than 20,000 additional applicants have gone on the council waiting list, there has been a 50 per cent increase in private rents and a 500 per cent increase in the number of tenants evicted from private rented accommodation? If that is not a crisis, how much worse does it have to get before he considers it to be one? He did not comment in his reply about the establishment of a housing commission. Does he intend to establish one? Many of the voluntary organisations have called for its establishment and he indicated prior to Christmas that he was giving it some favourable consideration?
The action taken by the Government since it came into office only 18 months ago indicates our concern about the need to increase the housing output. There has been a substantial increase in the demand for housing, but the supply of houses has not kept pace with that demand for them. As I explained here before and this has not been denied, I inherited this problem because there was no planning for the increase in the demand for houses, which was evident for four years before that.
The Minister of State has presided over the worst record on housing.
If the Deputy wishes me to outline the various measures we have taken, I can do so.
The Minister of State has already clapped himself on the back.
The Minister of State does not even read his private memos.
The housing output has increased to 41,500 and the final figure will be higher than that. That is the highest level of housing output we have ever achieved and I have every expectation we will achieve a higher output next year.
One of the great difficulties with which we are confronted is a lack of planning, developments at local authority level and the lack of availability of zoned land. Some land is zoned for development but is not serviced. We will not be able to tackle this problem until substantially increased areas of zoned land is available for future housing needs. That will help to reduce the scarcity of building land which is driving up the price of houses and, consequently, housing rents. In addition to the action being taken by the Government, we must get co-operation at local authority level. We have allocated money to the local authorities in the major areas for all the schemes they were asked to submit which will help to service lands that have already been zoned. In some cases they have only enough land to meet the anticipated demand for houses for the next three years, but that is not adequate. We need to plan much further ahead for the availability of zoned serviced land. The Government is committed to trying to match the zoning of residential land with services. We cannot be accused by the Deputy or anyone else of failing to provide funds for services where the local authorities have sought them. We have met all their demands in the major areas. We are taking all the actions we can. We have tackled the Bord Pleanála problem and the staff at local authority level. The serviced land initiative will bring up to 100,000 sites for housing onstream over the next two years provided local authorities respond to the funding we have made available to them.
Housing is a complex market. It is gone out of balance. It was out of balance when we came into office, but we have taken a wide range of actions to bring back balance. There are bottlenecks in the way, one of the principle ones is the availability of zoned land. I have emphasised the social housing schemes that are available in the Department and I am encouraging local authorities to make better use of them. This would supplement the local authority houses we are funding, which have increased substantially. Adequate use is not being made of the voluntary housing schemes. There has been no shortage of funding up to this point in matching the needs of any scheme that has been put forward in the area of the capital assistance scheme or the rental subsidy scheme.
I continually invite local authority members – some Members of this House are also local authority members – to be more active at local level in promoting greater usage of the voluntary social housing schemes because we are quite happy to fund them when they are put forward. We are confident we are taking action which will bring about a substantial increase in the output of houses, restore equilibrium to the market, and eliminate scarcity which is being taken advantage of through the increase in prices through the system, including the price of rents, as the Deputy said.
Despite the fact that the Minister is presiding over the worst record of housing provision and social housing of any Government in living memory, he appears to think he is doing fine. Does he have new measures or interventions to announce to this House to deal with the record number of people on council housing waiting lists and the record high levels of house prices, evictions and rents?
We will leave the "off the top of the head" policies to the Deputy.
Does he have legislative proposals to provide protection to tenants in private rented accommodation who are now in fear of their lives of landlords who are evicting them? Specifically – as I have asked twice, in my question and in the supplementary – does he intend to establish a housing commission? Prior to Christmas he appeared to indicate a willingness to do so and he has had plenty of time to reflect on it. He can tell the House today whether he will establish such a commission to get to grips with a problem which he and his Government have allowed to get out of control.
It is surprising to listen to Deputy Gilmore, who was recently happy to become a member of the Labour Party, because the person who previously held my office was a member of his party.
It is time for the Minister to stop blaming his predecessors and take responsibility for his own record. By how much have the housing lists increased since he took up office?
The sheer hypocrisy—
By 60 per cent.
There are an extra 20,000 people on the housing lists, it is a shameful record. It is not hypocrisy. There are people waiting for houses and the Minister is doing nothing about it.
Allow the Minister to reply.
I want the Minister to account for his record.
On a point of order, at what point may other Members contribute on this question?
During ordinary questions.
What time is that?
As soon as this question is concluded.
I thought the first 20 minutes was priority time.
Yes, and this question is still in priority time.
This Government is on top of the housing issue—
The Minister must be joking.
—and is taking a wide range of actions which will result in bringing equilibrium back to the market. I inherited a position where nothing was being done. Deputy McManus, a member of Deputy Gilmore's party, was my predecessor.
Let the Minister account for his own actions.
The then Minister was Deputy Howlin, the deputy leader of his new party. I think the public can see through his hypocritical approach—
People could afford to buy houses when we were in power, they cannot now.
—which is a bad start in his new position as spokesperson in this area. I welcome him to the job, wish him well, and hope he will deal with reality rather than fairy tales.
The reality is that people are looking for houses—
The reality is what I inherited.
—and the Minister is clapping himself on the back
I am satisfied we do not need any further analysis, we need action.
Hear hear, but we are not getting it.
We are taking action. Making declarations and doing further analysis will not achieve my objective, which is to ensure an adequate number of affordable houses is available to people who want to own their homes.
The Minister dodged the question again.
Enough analysis, this is an action Government.
Priority questions are now concluded. We now proceed to Question No. 4. Question No. 3 has fallen – I pointed out earlier the danger that this might happen and it has happened, unfortunately.
Why does Question No. 3 fall?
I refer the Deputy to Standing Order 35, paragraph (ii), which states that priority questions cannot exceed 20 minutes.
Why can we not take it in ordinary time?
That is the Standing Order and there is nothing the Chair can do to amend it – I thought I made clear earlier in Question Time the need for Deputies to proceed. The first two questions took almost 30 minutes. The Chair must abide by Standing Orders, I have no discretion to alter them.
I am not disputing your reading of Standing Orders, Sir, but you are rightly severe with Deputies who put questions and I ask you to consider being equally severe with Ministers who are answering, because both the Minister and the Minister of State have endlessly repeated the same mantras in non-response.
The Deputy should listen to himself sometime.
The Chair has no control over the content of the Minister's replies. I ask Members to take note of the Standing Orders relevant to priority questions.
We received repetitious answers from the other side of the House for a considerable period.
