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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 2 Nov 2006

Vol. 626 No. 5

Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2006: Second Stage (Resumed).

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

I wish to share time with Deputies Brady, Curran, Andrews and Fitzpatrick.

It is interesting that the Fianna Fáil rota of speakers today is confined to Dublin Deputies because it indicates the interest we share in this particular issue. Other colleagues made that point last night. I preface my remarks by complimenting my colleague, Deputy Crowe, on his work in this regard. He and I are constituency neighbours. In any discussion on affordable housing, it is relevant to talk about major population centres. The Ceann Comhairle appreciates from his visits there that Tallaght is the third largest population centre in the country and housing is a serious issue throughout the constituency of Dublin South-West, in Firhouse, Greenhills, Templeogue, Brittas and Bohernabreena. When the affordable housing handbook was issued a couple of months ago, the picture on the front cover depicted a scene in the Belfry in Tallaght. Deputy Crowe and I must not have been around that day or we would have slipped into the picture. It highlights the importance of the issue for our constituency and many others.

The various contributions last night dealt with a range of issues. In any discussion such as this, it is difficult to tie matters down. However, before I talk about affordable housing, I wish to make a couple of other points. As someone who has been involved in the community for many years, I am particularly interested in the issue of homelessness. In any discussion such as this, it is right that we talk about people who are homeless. In that regard, I extol the virtues of the Tallaght Homeless Advice Unit, which has brought out an interesting publication, Out of the Gaff — Handbook, a guide to homelessness, housing and health services in south County Dublin. It is important that those of us privileged to represent our constituencies should take an interest in homelessness. As regards my constituency, I believe we should not be sending our problems into Dublin city and every effort must be made to facilitate homeless people in their own environment.

I would appreciate it if the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, would point out to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, that I believe strongly in tenant purchase. Much progress has been made in this regard throughout the country, but there are still many gaps. With all the discussion taking place in recent days about the cost of housing, the price of houses and so on, it worries me that local authorities are taking advantage of current prices — South Dublin County Council is no different in this respect. People who have been tenants for many years, who went into houses that were priced in a different time, look longingly at the opportunities as they exist. Local authorities should be open to a situation where people would be enabled to purchase their houses as cheaply as possible, without them being given away. Whatever arrangements must be made to ensure they cannot be sold on for profit are fine by me, but we should be making tenant purchase easier.

I am a strong supporter, as are my colleagues, of the voluntary housing schemes. My constituency has benefited enormously from initiatives by CLÁR, RAPID and other groups. I have been campaigning on the basis that people who go into voluntary housing should be given an opportunity to avail of tenant purchase. I know the Minister is examining this and starting to think about a pilot project. I urge him strongly to consider this — there are many people in my constituency who would avail of it.

I want to deal specifically with the issue of affordable housing and I know my colleague, Deputy Crowe, made a point about this last night. I do not want to talk about Tallaght forever, but it is an interesting place in the context of housing.

Is that right?

If the Deputy has a spare hour, I will take him out there on the Luas some day to see the type of place it has become. We are very proud——

The Deputy is doing a good job.

There are still challenges, however, as far as housing is concerned. Following the council's adoption of the master plan, a very big debate is going on at present and community groups are critical of some of the housing development, particularly as regards apartments. There appears to be over-development of apartments in the Square, the town centre and the village where I work every day. The council must be challenged as regards the type of housing it is providing. My Sinn Féin colleagues made the point last night that to have affordable housing development in places such as mine is surely the way forward, giving people homes and not just having apartments springing up into the sky. That is not to say that it is not a very positive place.

The Ceann Comhairle will have noted that it has attracted some negative publicity in the past two weeks or so, however. I am very sensitive about my area because it is a great place. It is a vibrant, very young community and has developed enormously since the Square opened 16 years ago. It is a place to be proud of, in which people should be given the opportunity to live. I am delighted that so many people want to live there, particularly those who grew up in the area. It is very important to give people whose families were reared there, as were my sons, the opportunity to stay in the area and to purchase affordable housing.

I will not stand on the Government side of the House and argue that the price of housing is not outrageous. Of course it is and all of us need to continue to do what we can to correct that position. We need to create the situation whereby affordable and social housing is available where possible, and that should be the priority of Government. There was criticism last night of the shared ownership scheme. There will always be mixed views about shared ownership, but it is an opportunity for young people in particular to get houses and we should be encouraging them. However, there is a case to be made for examining the various shared ownership schemes to see how they could be improved.

There has been much progress in south Dublin in regard to affordable housing in recent times. As part of Sustaining Progress, the Government provided for affordable housing, using a variety of mechanisms to deliver on the programme. One of these was the affordable housing initiative, where State lands were to be swapped for turnkey units. This initiative was to be delivered regarding State-provided lands, with developers providing and selling units and private institutions supplying the finance for purchasers. The first of these to be delivered was the exchange of units for the land at Harcourt Terrace. Bids were invited from developers and the successful tender was won by Durkan New Homes, which offered 193 units in Tallaght, Lucan and — Deputy Curran will be pleased to know — Clondalkin in exchange for the land.

The properties represent excellent value and provide private housing at incredibly low prices — two-bedroom units from €142,000 and three-bedroom units from €172,000. These units went on sale in April and I understand the sale has now closed. A further 191 units — again in Tallaght, Lucan and Clondalkin, under Harcourt Terrace phase 2 — are on sale. Again, the council tells me they represent incredibly good value for money. As regards the units on sale through South Dublin County Council, I understand the closing date for applications was 20 October and 1,760 applications were received. South Dublin County Council has told me the draw for successful applicants will take place this Thursday evening. I look forward to people being looked after in that regard. I understand the successful applicants will then be given ten days to complete the necessary supporting documentation to ensure the validity of their applications. That will be a good night for some people, maybe not for enough, but we are at least going forward.

I compliment Deputy Crowe again for his work in this regard. I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2006. Along with my colleague Deputy O'Connor, I represent an area of Donaghmede where many apartments are being built. There is quite an amount of development, including high density development.

One of the complaints I have noted is where a builder or developer buys 100 acres of land, for example, and the first phase of housing or apartments may go on sale for €340,000. Three weeks' later, the exact same residence, built at the same cost of labour and materials etc., may be €40,000 dearer. This cannot be justified. It is total exploitation of house purchasers and a type of extortion. Representatives of developers and auctioneers should be brought before the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government to explain and justify how this occurs.

Management committees are also a form of extortion and exploitation. People, mainly young people, are being charged anything from €1,100 to €1,500 a year for maintenance when there is absolutely no maintenance to carry out. There might be no grass or open space whatever, and people are still being charged without option. If the people do not pay, they are threatened. I spoke to a person who works in the Oireachtas and who was at a meeting last night where there was a threat of eviction, among other things.

Nobody knows who these management companies are. They are governed by company management and no other law. I have spoken to the relevant Minister about this, and he informed me we do not have control over these situations. We should take control. It is very important we do not allow this to go on and that we protect the consumer. The Director of Consumer Affairs should be brought in on this, as well as the Competition Authority. The whole trading practice is unfair, and it does not happen in any other business.

I compliment the Minister on what is being done on affordable housing, which is working very well. It is being rolled out fairly quickly. Many parts of the shared ownership schemes need to be tightened up. When a person applies for shared ownership in the local authorities in Dublin — I do not know about elsewhere in the country — the person is refused if not in permanent employment. In other words, a large percentage of workers on contracts in most of the big companies cannot qualify for the shared ownership scheme or affordable scheme in Dublin city or Fingal, and that should be examined.

Density should also be considered. Houses and apartments are getting smaller. This is quite noticeable when looking at or measuring a showhouse and considering the property that is being bought, which can be much smaller. This can be verified. That practice is wrong. Streets being constructed in developments can be so narrow that two cars cannot pass on them. That also must be looked at, particularly with regard to emergency service access, as vehicles may not be able to access streets. The whole issue should be considered and brought before the relevant committee. I intend to do this.

The management committee issue must also be examined, and a group representative of such committees should be invited in. Some house purchasers have told me they are setting up their own organisation called the House Purchasers' Organisation, HPO, to stop these unfair practices.

We are also mentally conditioning buyers, particularly young people, into queuing at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning to buy houses because they are persuaded into believing that if they do not do so, the house supply will run out and they will be left out. That is also wrong. We must take a firm grip on these unfair practices and sort them out once and for all.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, and I am pleased that many who have contributed on the opposite side of the House have found an enthusiasm for Part V of the Planning and Development Act. As the rate of delivery under Part V increases year by year, so will the enthusiasm for it. It should be remembered that it was introduced and amended by this Government. I state that to make the following specific point.

When it was introduced and amended, there was a clear understanding that delivery would take a number of years because there were current and existing planning applications that would be built. This was a brave thing, as there was a lead time. As is the function of Opposition, during that lead time it was easy to knock Part V. A year could be picked when delivery under Part V was quite low, and it could be stated that nothing was achieved. Each year as it delivers more, there will be a new-found enthusiasm for it.

I wish to be fair to Sinn Féin and particularly Deputy Crowe by assuming the legislation he has put down is well-intentioned, where the intention is to improve Part V. Last night, Deputy Crowe stated:

We want to amend the Planning and Development Acts 2000 to 2002 to oblige developers to provide 20% of social and affordable housing and remove the option for developers to make a financial contribution to local authorities in place of providing social and affordable housing units. This will ensure that Part V delivers social and affordable housing in an integrated manner, as originally envisioned.

It was amended because Part V would not and could not do what was originally intended. I agree with the ideology, which is to be admired. The approach envisaged by the Deputy is both naive and flawed. I do not think Deputy Crowe really believes we should go back to the old system. If we did, what would happen? We would have a rigid system which would result in some houses coming to the market under Part V as affordable housing with price tags of €500,000, €600,000, €700,000 or €1 million. If the rigid system requested by the Deputy was in place, there would be so-called affordable housing.

Even €300,000 is extraordinary.

That is the point. If the Deputy were to insist, he would be removing the option to go back and introduce a scheme. There would be five-bedroom houses in parts of this city coming to the market at a reduced rate, but they would not be affordable. It is precisely to address that issue that the amendment was introduced. We can deliver multiples of those houses at cheaper rates. Realistically, it will not work.

The insinuation and misinformation is there that local authorities are doing deals with developers, and money is coming in. Last night in his response, the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, pointed out that it is only in 13% of cases that the cash alternative to houses is being used. The vast majority of the argument therefore falls flat. By and large, local authorities are not taking cash but the built product.

I agree with the Minister of State in his comment that the preferred option is to provide housing. If there is to be a recommendation at all, it should be that where a local authority decides to take an alternative, such as the cash alternative, it could require ministerial approval. That would put more pressure on local authorities to deliver housing rather than take cash. The issue should not be taken out of proportion.

Meath County Council has €4.5 million and has delivered three local authority houses.

Deputy Curran, without interruption.

We should then be looking specifically at what Meath County Council is doing. We should not take it that local authorities are only dealing in Part V. We should be aware of the number of houses which have and are being provided under Part V.

It is 1.4%.

It is quite significant.

That is right.

Up to June 2006, over 2,700 homes were acquired under Part V, 3,800 dwellings are under construction and a further 4,100 were planned on foot of agreements with developers. It is easy to sit here and be critical. When it was introduced the original Act could deliver nothing by its nature. It was always going to have a lead time and the Deputy has missed the point of Part V if he does not understand that.

I understand it and I understand how it was changed.

It was always going to take a few years to have an effect. Anyone who examines the figures can see that growth is being achieved. It is easy to state that 80,000 houses were built but not every scheme was within the terms of Part V. Of 80,000 last year, some 20,000 were one-off houses and 40,000 were exempt because they were smaller developments, built on unzoned land or had planning permission before Part V was introduced.

One third were purchased by investors.

It is convenient to ignore the reality. Part V is delivering, and that will grow. Deputy Crowe is aware the amendment he proposes would not work.

I agree with the views of Deputy Curran. In the period 2000-02 a number of complications arose with the levies applied to existing planning permission under the original Part V. Deputy Crowe wishes to revert to that situation, an unrealistic suggestion. It is welcome to have a debate on affordable housing but the Bill is an exercise in futility. If this Bill passes Second Stage every developer and council will have to stop negotiations immediately.

It would only restore what we had in 2000.

Supply would also stop and we would return to a situation regretted by all sides prior to 2002. The drafting of the negotiation framework legislation is difficult, another reason why there is a brake on the supply of affordable housing. The Government and councils were under pressure——

From builders.

——and developers were trying to produce housing within a short period. Household sizes were reducing and the population was increasing by thousands each year.

The type of housing being produced currently raises eyebrows. Irish people are not used to living in cramped apartments. It is acceptable for students, first-time buyers and the new population but we must consider what will happen in 30 years time. Will it resemble the outskirts of Paris where apartments are accommodation for those with low skills on the margins of society? These matters should be considered with a view to building communities in those areas.

Empty nesting is a contributory factor. We should consider exemption from stamp duty for those who are downsizing from larger houses. This may improve supply and provide more appropriate accommodation for households of a certain size.

We must consider whether it is appropriate to have separate planning authorities within the Dublin area. There should be one greater Dublin planning authority. In Shankill, on the border with Bray, three local authorities were involved in the development of Bray Golf Club, namely, Bray Town Council, Wicklow County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Mr. McNamara's proposal for the Tara Towers Hotel had the same problem because Dublin City Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown are involved. The latter appealed against Dublin City Council's proposal, a ridiculous situation.

We must also consider the pressure to avoid social segregation. The 2002 Act introduced this concept, which had never been referred to in legislation before. While speaking on the debate I was surprised it was not welcomed more by all sides. It is a section of the 2002 Act that must be developed. The Government has explained to local authorities how they can negotiate on development costs, profit and land value but local authorities must also develop an ethos that avoids social segregation. Part V was revolutionary when it was introduced in 2000, which is why it was considered by the Supreme Court. The amendment was——

Counter revolutionary.

——grounded in reality but avoided undue segregation.

I understand the thinking behind this Bill but agree with the Minister of State that the system would become rigid and would fail to deliver Deputy Crowe's wishes. Like Deputy O'Connor I hate to be parochial but I note we have had the greatest boom in apartment building in the north-west inner city between O'Connell Street and Stoneybatter over the past five years. Most of the building has taken place on derelict ground. The area between North King Street and Smithfield was derelict for most of the past 30 years. A patient of mine, a haulier in the markets, could keep his horses on derelict ground for free. All he had to do was buy hay for his horses and let them roam on other people's property. These people did not want to develop it because there were no incentives to do so.

We must examine the accommodation we are providing. Most planning applications for apartment blocks are for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, with fewer three-bedroom or penthouse apartments. These do not cater for the future because they are not family friendly. They are geared towards students and investors.

Deputy Martin Brady spoke about management companies and we must examine their role. Other Deputies will be aware that complaints about faults, carelessness and the lack of accountability of management companies are beginning to increase. In many cases residents have no comeback because the management companies are controlled by developers. The latter withhold a few apartments to block other residents effecting improvements in their environment. Part V needs more time to reach its full potential because most development took place under permission that predates 2000. Obligations under Part V apply only to planning permissions granted after local authority housing strategies were put in place.

While I do not wish to speak outside my area of expertise some local authorities have been neglectful in allowing estates to be built around old villages in the hinterland of Dublin with no footpaths connecting the estates and the villages. That type of structure should be built first. I see parents pushing go-cars along country roads without the safety of footpaths, while lorries thunder by and cars pass driven by people with no regard for speed limits or pedestrians. Children and their parents walk on the road because there are no footpaths. This endangers lives. When local authorities grant planning permission they should ensure that the infrastructure, footpaths, drainage, schools etc. is in place first or will be there when the population moves in.

I wish to share time with Deputy Gilmore. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate which has extended beyond affordable housing, creating the scope for us to address the many other issues around housing developments and apartment buildings. I refer specifically to my constituency which overlaps the Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council areas where the glut of predominantly high rise apartments is more or less taking over any patch of land available to developers.

I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that the infrastructure that should be aligned to that development is almost always ignored, resulting in concrete jungles and the potential for major problems later. We seem to have learned nothing from the history of such developments in the past. While this topic is not intrinsic to this debate it is an important point that should be debated at length without undue delay.

The way in which some local authorities distribute and manage affordable housing is a matter of concern, for example, South Dublin County Council regards 15% as an adequate percentage to allocate for social and affordable housing. I represent part of that constituency and have a long list of people who would be very happy to avail of social or affordable housing in that area but the housing is not available. Dublin City Council allocates 20% which is fine. The problem is that developers, when submitting their planning applications, make no commitment as to how they will deliver that 20%. They are not obliged to do so within that application, although the Minister of State, at the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern, said last night:

Each and every applicant for permission for residential development, other than certain exempted residential developments prescribed in legislation, must specify in the planning application how it is proposed to meet the requirements of the housing strategy with regard to the development for which permission is being sought.

I continue to write letters to local authorities to find out exactly how that percentage of social and affordable housing will be distributed, when it will become available, whether it is for senior citizens, and which type of housing it is. The buildings exist. I live around the corner from two large developments yet I do not know how the social or affordable units within those developments are to be distributed. This is a significant anomaly and gives the developer an unfair degree of wiggle room. This is unacceptable and must be sorted out.

The financial contribution is one way of dealing with the problem if the location is considered inappropriate or the cost of the affordable housing would be such as to make it unavailable. The money is ring-fenced for housing but that does not mean that the number of social or affordable units that would have been available in the first development is dedicated somewhere else, or this does not seem to be the case. Does ring-fencing the money for housing simply mean upgrading certain housing? While that is welcome it does not seem to deliver the required number of social or affordable units. These are major issues.

Local authorities must address the real cost of affordable housing and the income requirement. Hundreds of couples in my constituency seek affordable housing. They may meet the income requirement but the repayments are too high and they end up in a catch-22 as they try to save money for a deposit and to make the repayments, while also paying rent somewhere else. Affordable housing must be made genuinely affordable for these people.

The Labour Party supports the Bill before the House which seeks to restore the affordable housing units that the Government handed back to individual builders and developers in the 2002 amendment to the Planning and Development Act 2000. When that amending legislation was rushed through the House on the last sitting day before Christmas the Labour Party strongly opposed it, pointing out that it would result in a significant loss of affordable housing sites and units for those who need them.

I listened to yesterday's speech by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and have read the text today. It is easy for Government to muddy the water and try to confuse people in this complex technical area. It is worthwhile therefore to trace the history of Part V which arose from the debate in the late 1990s when house prices started to rise dramatically.

In the period following the 1997 election of the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government house prices rose dramatically. At one point in 1998 they were rising at a rate of 40% per annum. There was much concern that this would prevent young working families from purchasing their own homes. I argued at the time that the Government should establish a commission on housing to get control of the situation. That did not happen. Instead, there was a succession of Bacon reports and various individual suggestions.

One idea which the Labour Party proposed was that 20% of private development land be set aside for social and affordable housing. The former Deputy, Eithne Fitzgerald, floated the idea but it was not original. We borrowed it from the British Labour Party, which was making similar proposals after being elected to Government.

The former leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Quinn, raised the matter on the Order of Business, suggesting to the Taoiseach that the Government take up and pursue this idea. The then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey, included it in the Planning and Development Bill published in August 1999. The proposed implementation method, however, would have failed to deliver the measure as proclaimed. Some newspaper reports at the time described it as a radical new idea, others claimed it would deliver 10,000 social and affordable housing units a year. Unfortunately, the way in which it was proposed to be implemented meant it could never happen. The lengthy Bill was published in August 1999 but was not enacted until July 2000. It provided for a complex process where each local authority was required to adopt a housing strategy. This was a new idea, something local authorities had never done before. It had, therefore, to be piloted in County Louth. After the adoption of housing strategies, they had to be incorporated in county development plans. Only after the county development plans were confirmed to include housing strategies and target percentages were set for social and affordable housing would this apply to planning permissions sought after that date. It did not come into practical effect until the end of 2001.

From August 1999 to the end of 2001, anyone who owned development land knew the 20% requirement was coming down the track. They did what any landowner or developer would sensibly do. They hotfooted it to their local authorities to get planning permissions on their lands in order that the 20% would not apply to them. I raised this scenario on Committee Stage and pointed out it would frustrate the legislation's purpose. The then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey, accepted this. The Bill was amended on Committee Stage to deal with any planning permission obtained between the publication of the Bill in 1999 and the coming into operation of the county development plans at the end of 2001. If the developer had not begun construction of a house to the outer wall stage, the planning permission would wither and the developer or landowner would have to apply for a new planning permission. There was nothing new in this. Developers and landowners apply for new planning permissions all the time. For most large developments there will be up to nine applications to include house type changes and so forth. The idea of applying for a new planning permission if it withered was not new.

After the 2002 general election, the Government came under pressure from sections of the building and development industry for the withering provision to be removed. The Government willingly caved in. The essential change made in the 2002 amending legislation was not the one described by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern, as providing flexibility. There is debate as to whether this was a good or bad idea. The major change was that all planning permissions granted between August 1999 and the end of 2001 automatically became full planning permissions and the 20% quota would not apply to them.

When the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, claims that the 40,000 social housing units built last year were units to which the 20% requirement did not apply, he is both right and wrong. He is right that this is the case. However, he is wrong because that was the effect of the 2002 amending legislation. The 20% does not apply to them because the 2002 amending legislation made those full planning permissions.

The then Minister informed the House that there were 80,000 units to which those permissions would have applied at the end of 2002. By anyone's mathematics, 20% of that figure is 16,000 units. At the end of 2002, 16,000 affordable homes that should be available for young families were gifted back to individual builders and developers. That is why the affordable housing scheme in Dublin is operating by way of a pathetic lottery. Young people, trying to get an affordable home, apply to their local authority for their names to be entered into a drum. If they are fortunate, as with the national lottery on a Saturday night, their names are pulled out. They are in this situation because 16,000 homes that should be available are not. That was the essential change made in the 2002 amending legislation. In effect, the Government robbed young people of opportunities to acquire an affordable home. It did so to benefit individuals and companies in the building industry.

There is a need to change the way the affordable housing scheme operates. The Minister claims that fewer than 3,000 units have been provided under the scheme. Up to 400,000 housing units have been built in the State since Part V came into operation. Even if we allow for the fact that half of those were one-off houses, built on sites of fewer than five units, on sites of less than 0.1 of a hectare or unzoned lands, approximately 40,000 affordable homes should have been provided under Part V if it was working properly. Fewer than 3,000 have appeared to date. Even the Irish Home Builders Association acknowledges that Part V, when fully operational, should deliver between 5,000 and 6,000 units per annum.

To ensure delivery, it must be a requirement that the agreement on affordable housing should be made before planning permission is granted. The arrangement that applies is that it is attached as a condition to the granting of planning permission and the agreement is subsequently made. This is why arrangements of buying out of it or offering land in lieu exist. The agreement must instead be made prior to the granting of planning permission. The planning applicant must be required to propose in the initial planning application how the social and affordable housing commitment will be made.

The 20% target needs to be increased, particularly in areas of serious affordability problems. A much higher proposition of newly zoned land should be made available for social and affordable housing. When Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's housing strategy was assessed, it was pointed out that 50% of new house purchasers would not be able to afford to buy in the area. We argued that 20% would never meet that but their need was used to justify the increase of zoning more land to build houses these purchasers could never afford. The proportion of newly zoned lands devoted to social and affordable housing needs to be significantly increased.

The affordable housing and shared ownership schemes need to be married to maximise the purchase opportunities for young families. There are a series of traps in public housing policy. A person whose earnings rise above the limit for social housing is taken off the housing list. There are different limits for the shared ownership scheme and affordable housing scheme. For many young families on a housing list, by the time their turn comes around or their names come out of the drum if it is a lottery, their earnings have increased and they no longer qualify. These traps must be removed from the system by amalgamating social and affordable housing and shared ownership schemes to enable the maximum number of people to purchase their own home.

There must be a fundamental change in public housing policy because the existing policy consigns people to continuing poverty. It is absurd that people in private rented accommodation and in receipt of rent allowance lose that allowance when they get a job. People are required to keep their incomes low, to stay poor, to qualify for public housing. If their circumstances improve over the years in which they are on a public housing list, they will no longer qualify and will be moved into another category where they must start all over again.

We need a new public housing policy that is appropriate to the times in which we live and which is not based on the 19th century Victorian attitudes that underpin much of existing policy. Instead, it should be based on 20th century welfarism, which assumes people want to improve their circumstances and will ultimately seek to purchase and own their home. I hope to return to these issues at a future date.

I propose to share time with my Independent colleagues, Deputies Healy, James Breen, Connolly, McHugh and Gregory.

I agree with the excellent summary set out by Deputy Gilmore of the incredible reversal that has taken place in the Government's public housing policy in respect of its original legislative provision that all new planning permissions must involve the setting aside of 20% of units for social and affordable housing. This reversal tells a tale of how this Government has mismanaged housing policy in the last ten years. There are many other tales of reckless mismanagement in housing for which the Government will be held accountable and culpable.

It was interesting to hear Fianna Fáil Deputies complaining that housing estates are being built in areas surrounding Dublin without even a footpath to connect them to the existing towns and villages onto which they were tacked. It is as if Fianna Fáil councillors in those constituencies had nothing to do with such developments and that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government had no interest or say in the nature and style of development that has occurred in the last 15 to 20 years.

Deputy Andrews spoke about planning that is not well thought out or considered. I share his concerns in regard to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in whose jurisdiction development seems to be based on the interests of developers rather than public policy. In regard to the long-term development of Luas connections to the rapidly growing town of Bray, instead of connecting to that existing settlement, where there is a major transport need, the council is looking to open up new rezoned lands. Such an approach can only be on the basis that councillors and developers will benefit in terms of the massive rezoning profit that will occur.

No lessons have been learned from any of the mistakes made in the last ten years. We are left with a housing crisis that benefits nobody other than a small number of estate agents and perhaps those who are retiring and whose homes can be sold at a massively inflated price. The reality for anybody under 40 years of age, particularly in Dublin city, is that the mismanagement of the property issue, through various errors and a lack of effective planning, has left home owners with large mortgages to pay for the next 30 or 40 years. The lack of social and affordable housing is a direct result of decisions by the Government in the lifetime of this Dáil to abandon its original sensible commitment. As Deputy Gilmore said, that commitment would have provided at least an additional 16,000 houses under those planning permissions already given on the basis that the relevant developments would include 20% of units for social and affordable housing.

Changes are required in many aspects of public housing policy. The stamp duty regime must be amended to encourage greater flexibility in the market and to allow for the use of existing housing stock in a more effective way. Better design and planning guidelines are required. There is nothing wrong in developing apartment buildings, especially close to towns and city centres where higher-density and high-quality development is required. There is no reason that apartments cannot be built to a standard that ensures they are sustainable, of a high quality and suitable for long-term accommodation rather than a vehicle for Fianna Fáil friends in the investor community to turn a quick buck.

That is what has driven housing policy. For 30 years, we have balked at making a decision on the massive rezoning profits which, particularly in Dublin city, can account for half the house price a young person faces. There is no reason that a decision should not be made immediately to try to claw back some of that profit to help people on their way. The Government's record on housing is one of utter disgrace. It is reckless not only in terms of the imprisonment with which young people are faced in terms of long-term mortgages but also in regard to the market conditions it has created, which are unsustainable and of benefit to nobody, whether those in the building industry or those seeking housing.

I commend Sinn Féin on putting forward this Bill. It has the support of the Green Party.

I support this Bill and I hope it will be taken on board by the Government.

There is little hope of that.

This Government has been in power since 1997. It is an absolute disgrace that after ten years of the Celtic tiger, in one of the richest countries in the world with major resources, 43,000 families are on waiting lists for local authority housing, sometimes for years. The legislative changes made by the Government have contributed to this debacle. There is no doubt that 16,000 to 20,000 houses would have been provided under the terms of the 2000 Act if it had not been amended. Whether because of closeness to developers or otherwise, however, this legislation was changed, with the result that up to 20,000 families remain languishing on local authority housing lists.

The resources are available to reduce and ultimately eliminate those waiting lists quickly. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul seeks a completion rate of 10,000 local authority house units each year from now until 2012. This is very much achievable when one considers that in the last ten years, there have been current budget surpluses amounting to some €44 billion. Consequent on political decisions by the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government, however, that money has been spent not on the provision of housing or health and educational services but on roads, broadband and bridges. It was a political decision to condemn 43,000 families to local authority housing waiting lists.

The debate on the price of building land must take place in the context of a review of the Kenny report. The recommendations of that report, which was completed as long ago as the 1970s and is agreed by everyone to be excellent, must be implemented.

With the national development plan the Government promised to deliver to the people a means by which many of them could at long last get on the property ladder. Like so many of its promises, the Government has failed to fulfil that initial promise. As others stated, we are approximately 15,000 behind the number of housing units which should have been delivered. Speculators and developers have blossomed during the term of this Government to the detriment of those who require the protection of the Minister and the delivery of affordable housing.

One of the biggest problems ensuring the required number of houses are located in social housing schemes by developers is the lack of enforcement measures to monitor this. Frequently, I have been told by local authorities in County Clare that they are not receiving the proposed percentage of houses for the schemes. Those same developers continue to get planning permission for future projects. Developers realise it is more profitable to pay a contribution to a local authority than to risk a fall in the value of houses by allocating part of the development for social housing. This must stop. All this achieves is further profiteering and speculating by developers and the marginalisation of the less well-off with this "not in my back yard" attitude.

All local authorities should have a housing inspectorate division to ensure that an appropriate number of housing units are handed over to the authority. If there is any delay, that inspectorate should have the power to veto any other planning applications to which that developer is party until such time as the developer meets the terms of the Act. Greater analysis of land zoning is required so that speculators can be isolated and not allowed to hold the local authorities to ransom.

The Tánaiste must be the toast of land developers and speculators at present given the king's ransom he paid for land to accommodate his new prison. We saw recently on "Prime Time" how Fingal County Council cannot now buy property for development unless it pays the same rate the Tánaiste authorised. Given the outrageous statement he made in the House regarding the value of all similar land in the area, it is little wonder he did not take up the invitation to appear on "Prime Time" that night.

Clare County Council and Ennis Town Council do their best to help people seeking to avail of social housing. Shared ownership schemes, while ideal in theory, are failing because of the house values of those approved. The affordable housing scheme should come into its own but such is the over-subscription for this scheme that most have no realistic chance of being housed.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, which I support. Housing is one of the biggest issues for every family. It is the big lifetime issue which people face and it is the one major decision they will make. Affordability is now the big issue, although it probably always was, but perhaps in a different context.

At one time when one applied to get on a county council waiting list, one got on the list and got a county council house. One's big ambition then was to buy a site and build a house, which one could do. As one was in a county council house, one could get a county council loan.

One could borrow one and a half times one's salary and could certainly buy a house on one salary. The situation moved on and one could borrow twice one's salary but the one caveat was that one needed 10% of the deposit. If one had a friendly bank manager, he or she might have helped one over that hurdle and offer one a 15, 20 or 25 year mortgage. At the time it seemed like a long time and the naysayers said people would never get out of debt.

In the 1980s, two people with jobs could borrow and build a house but now the situation has moved on. That was achievable once but is less achievable now for two ordinary income earners. People's dream once was to build a house, buy a car etc., but that has changed.

I would like to think social housing would cure all our needs. There is no doubt it will help. However, it will be a lottery and will create a type of new poverty housing trap. The issue is whether people should earn less to stay under the income limit. Prices are driven by the speculators, which is a big issue. The fact that banks and lending institutions are offering 100%, lifetime and intergenerational mortgages is also a big issue. Recently I heard that a bank is offering mortgages and €2,000 cash. There is no cap on it.

A number of county council housing schemes are 30 to 40 years old. Money should be pumped into those schemes, many of which need a face-lift. I would like the Government to provide money for such schemes.

I am glad of the opportunity to speak on this Private Members' Bill put forward by Sinn Féin. The Bill seeks to reverse the unforgivable decision of the Government to row back on the most desirable elements of Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000. I put on record previously my admiration for the work of the former Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, who brought forward very laudable measures in Part V of the 2000 Act. He indicated his commitment to social integration, his desire to eliminate ghettos and a new approach to residential development. The action of the former Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, was courageous. By taking such actions, he had to take on vested interests, the big backers of his own party and influential people in his party. He had the commitment, foresight, conviction and courage to press forward and implement what he firmly believed in.

What a let-down it was when his successor, the former Minister, Deputy Cullen, who was not a wet week in the Department, completely undermined his predecessor and introduced measures which effectively undid the very good work of his predecessor. The former Minister, Deputy Cullen, did what his predecessor refused to do, namely, he capitulated to the might of the property developers who his predecessor had the courage to take on. The farcical situation in which we find ourselves as a result of the former Minister, Deputy Cullen's, capitulation is that a developer is no longer required to provide the 20% social housing element on the relevant site but can provide lands for the local authority in another area miles away from the specific site. That surely is the nub of this issue.

The big developer with his extravagant houses and exorbitant prices would not countenance the possibility of rubbing shoulders with the ordinary people of Ireland and the former Minister, Deputy Cullen, obliged. The 20% social housing requirement can now be provided miles away. In Galway, for example, the land was provided 30 miles away from the specific site. That is a scandal. This legislation encourages segregation in housing and supports the continuation of a two-tier society. Now enshrined in legislation is the position of the high and mighty in their big mansions in gated developments, consumed with a sense of their own self-importance and a revolting view of their superiority over their fellow citizen, many of whom are banished to live in areas which have been deemed unsuitable for the high and mighty by the big developers and the former Minister, Deputy Cullen.

I fully support this Sinn Féin Bill because if we are serious about providing social and affordable housing in an integrated manner, we must restore the obligations which existed under the previous Part V.

I support this Bill which again draws attention to what should be a priority issue for the electorate in the upcoming general election. The breathtaking cost of housing and the massive ongoing price increases must be one of the great scandals of recent times. It is impossible to justify the present situation. Homelessness at a time of great affluence is a blot on this State, as are the increasing waiting lists for local authority housing.

The irony is that the one measure agreed in this House that might have gone some way to relieve the housing crisis was the Part V arrangement in the Planning and Development Act 2000, which provided for 20% of all housing developments to be set aside for social and affordable housing and that it would be an integrated part of each scheme. The irony was that it was a Fianna Fáil Minister who introduced the measure. At the time I was almost impressed with the former Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, or whoever it was who came up with the progressive policy. We did not have long to wait until we saw Fianna Fáil in its true colours.

Once the builders and developers resisted the Part V arrangement, the writing was on the wall for it. Fianna Fáil very quickly capitulated to its builder and developer paymasters and produced the watered down version instead. This let the builders off the hook and thousands of houses and apartments which would have come on stream never materialised. That change represented the worst betrayal of all those who cannot afford the unaffordable prices of houses today.

The profiteers and racketeers in house prices and development land values won the day just as surely as they won when they corrupted local authority councillors in the litany of scandals that we see before the tribunals. The handful of billionaires who control the bulk of development land in the Dublin region must have felt very reassured that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats can always be relied on to support their scandalous exploitation of people trying to provide homes for their families.

This issue never received the media attention it deserves. I welcome this debate because it puts this scandal before the public yet again. All of those who cannot afford a home at today's exploitative prices should examine this issue to determine in whose interests Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats work. It is certainly not in the interests of the PAYE sector, the homeless or those on local authority waiting lists. This is a clear and classic example of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats representing the interests of the rich, the big builders, developers and exploiters of the ordinary people of this country. This is one issue that I hope goes before the electorate in the forthcoming general election because if people see clearly what happened with the Part V arrangements and the implications for their families in their attempts to obtain homes of their own at reasonable prices, they will ensure that this coalition of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats is never again returned to this Houseto act in the interest of developer billionaires, which is precisely what it did on this occasion.

Tá sé scannalach gur bhris an Rialtas seo na hoibleagáidí a bhí leagtha amach aige i bPáirt V d'Acht 2000. I support the Bill.

I welcome the opportunity to respond to all of those who have contributed to this important debate. We have heard that the options introduced by way of amendment in 2002 have acted in a way that has positively affected the capacity of Part V to deliver many more units than had been the case prior to their adoption. The suggestion seems to be that if everything had been left as it was, there would be more units on the ground today than is actually the case. We have also heard that ordinary aspiring home owners and tenants have been the losers in some design manipulated by vested interests and supported by the Government. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I reiterate the Government's commitment to the provision of social and affordable housing and housing in general. Furthermore, as the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, said last night, the review of the 2000 Act was promised in the agreed programme for Government. It was done to ensure that Part V was meeting all the objectives relating to social and affordable housing. As it stood at that time, the provisions of Part V were clearly inflexible, overly bureaucratic and simply were not achieving the desired result of improving the supply of social and affordable housing. This was not solely the Government's view, but also of those who had a stake in the success of Part V. Whatever about twin woes of inflexibility and bureaucracy, we could not but react appropriately to the obvious. I am satisfied that the right move was made at that time and that we are now seeing the yield from the amendment.

Some criticism was made of the strategy to swap State lands for ready-built housing units. The land swap strategy has been used to date on three sites and has yielded almost 500 affordable housing units. Phase one of Harcourt Terrace has given us 193 units, phase two of Harcourt Terrace, 215 units, and Brock House, 89 units. One of the main advantages of using this strategy is that it enables a much quicker delivery of affordable housing. With regard to pricing, in the case of the Harcourt Terrace phase one land swap, 193 units were successfully completed at prices that range from €142,000 to €189,000. The original site of 0.4 acres would have taken a number of years to develop and would have delivered just 30 apartments. The yield from the other swapped sites has resulted in a similar favourable outcome.

Last night, some Deputies referred to the soaring waiting lists. In fact, the 2005 assessment of housing needs identified 43,684 households in need of social housing, which is a decrease of 9.7% on the level of need identified in 2002, when the figure was 48,413. The 2005 assessment was the most rigorous to date as it required all the local authorities to collect detailed data relating to all households on their waiting lists. For the first time, an IT framework was developed which enabled the Department to analyse data in respect of all households in much greater depth. The assessment was further evidence that Government measures introduced in recent years have been successful in boosting the supply of housing to meet the unprecedented demand.

House completions in Ireland are at the highest level in Europe vis-à-vis population at approximately 19 units per 1,000. The introduction of the five-year action plans in 2004, covering all social and affordable housing programmes by local authorities, provides a strong basis for a strategic and measured approach to housing investment and improved funding provisions will continue the upward trajectory of output of recent years.

Some Deputies also commented on the apparent low level of social housing in this country. I stress the word "apparent" because while the overall percentage of social housing is low in comparison to other countries, this can be attributed to the uniquely high level of private home ownership in Ireland.

I am aware of some instances where Part VIII proposals for social and affordable housing are being brought forward by local authorities but rejected by councillors in those authorities dominated by the Opposition parties.

Reference was made to the need for rights-based housing. However, it is not considered appropriate to legislate for a specific right to housing. This could distort the operation of the current housing programmes and priorities. These have been resourced in accordance with the democratic decisions of Dáil Éireann, the Government and local authorities and have been effective in delivering increased output.

Part V is not the only mechanism used to provide housing for lower-income groups. It is anticipated that the needs of 14,000 households will be met this year through the full range of social and affordable housing measures. Additional investment in social and affordable housing measures between 2007 and 2009, which was outlined in the new partnership agreement, Towards 2016, will enable the needs of approximately 60,000 households to be met over that period. Among the new and developing measures is the introduction of the rental accommodation scheme. The Government is very happy that this is delivering quality accommodation at a reasonable rent.

It is interesting to note that Deputy Gregory, who is no longer in the Chamber, had no problem making a deal with Fianna Fáil, accepting expenditure and developers building additional accommodation in his patch. As with everything else and Deputy Gregory, the phrase "if the price is right"applies.

I reiterate that the Government has delivered on its promise and will continue to take all necessary action to ensure the maximum number of units will be available through Part V to house our citizens and offer others the opportunity to purchase.

I wish to share time with Deputy Morgan.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

The media would have one believe that the phenomenon of housing waiting lists is peculiar to urban areas in major towns and cities. However, although the figures might be lower in rural areas, the damage inflicted by waiting lists and people being forced out of their communities in search of housing is even greater. While numbers might be smaller, so too are the communities themselves. Agricultural and fishing communities have come under sustained attack from the policies of the Government. During the summer, the Government abolished the sugar beet industry in this State. Yesterday, it announced the destruction of the drift net salmon fishing industry. Rural and coastal communities that are long-abandoned by the Government in its fanatical determination to ensure all investment is based around Dublin and its suburbs now find their existing industries under attack.

Housing is another example in which rural communities are left knocking on the door of the Dublin political establishment. Despite the growth in house building in recent years, rural communities constitute a section of society that has not reaped the benefits. While poverty, exclusion, unemployment and inadequate income are suffered in both rural and urban areas, they tend to manifest themselves differently in rural communities. Such results arise from different social factors such as depopulation and poor transport. Many areas in rural Ireland lack public transport and have limited access to other essential services and facilities. A key issue in rural communities is that the increasing cost of housing often leaves people priced out of the housing market. This means that people are forced to move to the nearest town, thus further depopulating their rural area. They are forced out to make room for holiday homes and getaway cottages for the business class and those same developers who profit from the loopholes introduced in Part V.

People from rural communities have a right to live in rural areas and have a right to demand that Government policy supports sustainable development. Many people brought up in a rural community wish to remain in a place where they feel secure in the knowledge that they belong in that community, which is built upon strong family connections. More importantly, such communities can only remain sustainable if people continue live in them. For too long, people living in the countryside have been neglected when it comes to housing. Due to inept Government policy, there is little opportunity for people to access housing in rural areas.

In my native county of Kerry, the number of people on council waiting lists jumped spectacularly between 2002 and 2005. The Kerry County Council housing waiting lists rose from 512 in 2002 to 883 in 2005. This constitutes a 72% increase within three years, which was the second largest percentage rise in this State. Astonishingly, Tralee Town Council's waiting list saw the State's largest increase, that is, an increase of 85% from 512 in 2002 to 948 in 2005. Moreover, Listowel Town Council's list increased by 22%. A total of 1,526 of the 1,657 new houses completed in Kerry between January and July 2006 were privately built. In other words, 131 social or affordable houses were built in that time.

Addressing the inadequacies of rural housing policy by amending Part V to insist on the figure of 20% of new development, regardless of whether it is in urban or rural settings, will go some way to providing social or affordable housing for people in rural areas. In the past, the Government has been unwilling to acknowledge the local authority waiting lists in rural areas. More often than not, the right to have a home in one's own community has been extinguished——

The Deputy's time has concluded.

——because of the Government's willingness to toe the line of the movers and shakers, the fundraisers, the donors and the construction industry.

In the Official Report of 15 February 2000, volume 514, column 595, when referring to Part V, the former Fianna Fáil Deputy, Mr. Eddie Wade, told the House:

This provision is the best way to guarantee housing for all who need it. As the Celtic tiger passes over Ireland, there is no excuse for hard-working citizens to be denied a new home in which to live.

The Celtic tiger did not pass over many parts of Ireland and it certainly never passed over my constituency. Thousands of hard-working citizens have been denied homes by the Government.

I thank all who took part in this debate. In particular, I thank Members from this side of the House because despite various political differences, there is unanimity in respect of this Bill on Part V tabled by Sinn Féin. My party recognises that Part V is not the solution to the housing crisis in this State but is merely a small part of the solution. However, were this amendment to be accepted by the Government, it would at least go some way towards improving the problem and ensuring a proper social mix within the local authority housing sector.

I listened, almost with amusement, to the remarks of the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern, about the Bill introduced by Sinn Féin. All are clear that there is a housing crisis in this State except for the Minister of State with special responsibility for housing. Members have listened to the Minister of State bandy about all sorts of figures and statistics to the effect that waiting lists are falling and housing output is increasing. This assertion by the Minister of State neglects the underlying reasons social housing waiting lists have fallen and housing output has risen.

Part of the reason for the waiting list falling from 48,000 to 44,000 is the obligation placed on families on the social housing waiting list to fill in a 22-page assessment form. Although the Department has been approving eligibility to go on the social housing waiting lists based on this 22-page form, this did not recognise that many people were simply unable to fill out the form or may have made a small error on the form thus causing their applications to be discounted, or many simply did not return the form. Such people are unaware they are no longer on the housing waiting list.

There was much talk from the Minister of State in this debate about people misinterpreting Part V of the Planning and Development Act. There is absolutely no misinterpretation of Part V by my party. In one part of his speech, the Minister of State claimed that Part V was "an important mechanism in [the] approach to meeting the ... increasing demands for ... housing". However, later in his speech, he stated the maximum potential yield from Part V could be up to 3,000 units per annum. Hence, it is quite clear that in its current state, Part V is not delivering what the Government would have Members believe. It is not delivering on the social housing units required to house the 44,000 family units on the social housing waiting lists.

Part V is not about the development of preferred options, as the Minister of State put it. If a local authority has no funding, no option exists. When local authorities are underfunded it becomes completely irrelevant and they will take the money from developers. If Part V was delivering, thousands of people would not remain on waiting lists, nor would thousands more, who because the Government has done nothing to stabilise the increases in house prices lack the means to purchase their own home, be obliged to live in sub-standard private rented accommodation owned by landlords, some of whom do not even comply with basic minimum legal requirements.

Last night, the Minister of State asked me what would be achieved by amending Part V of the Planning and Development Act. I will explain it to him in simple terms. As the Bill states that developers will provide units or sites, logic would dictate that it would do exactly that, namely, it would provide units or sites.

Developers throughout this State have been let off the hook when it comes to this cash option and are buying their way out of their social obligations. Although overall housing output has risen, in percentage terms, the social housing output is decreasing steadily. Many people cannot afford to buy and many more cannot get on the social housing list. Even if one succeeds in so doing, one could be obliged to wait for seven years or longer to get a house.

Talk of ring-fencing €38 million for social and affordable housing is almost worthless unless the Department has a plan to start the process of constructing another 73,000 social housing units between now and 2012, as recommended by NESC, to meet the social housing needs of this State. As it stands, Part V provides flexibility. It is flexible enough to ensure that more private units are built and the fat cat pals of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats can get even fatter. The Minister of State's friends from the Galway races scratch his back with political donations and he scratches their backs with the absolute farce that is Part V in its current form.

Sinn Féin brought this Bill before the House because we believe in equality, namely, the provision of quality housing that is available to all and not just those who are lucky enough to have the means to afford it. We believe that people should not be forced to live in ghettos, which they have been for many decades in this State. It is an absolute scandal that we live in a State where 44,000 families are on the waiting list for social housing, where we spend more than €1 million a day subsidising private landlords through the rental accommodation scheme, where mortgage interest rates rise percentage upon percentage each quarter, where house prices, for the most part, can increase by 17% in comparison to the previous year and where the Government still has the cheek to tell people that it is combating the housing crisis or, in the case of the Minister with responsibility for housing, denies the existence of a crisis.

Deputy Morgan must conclude.

If amended, Part V could deliver meaningful targets for the building of social housing. It is not the complete answer, but it is a start. The version of Part V in the 2000 Act was never given a chance to have its potential fully realised. The Minister of State said that it was slow to get going but his Government never gave it a chance to do so.

More than 44,000 families are on the waiting list for social housing, some of whom are enduring extreme hardship, and countless others across this State cannot afford to buy their own homes and are being churned from tenement to tenement by unscrupulous landlords. It is time this state of affairs ended. This Government has presided over it long enough.

In 1973, the Kenny report concluded that part of the solution to the housing problem was to give local authorities the option of making compulsory purchase orders in respect of land for housing. This view was supported by the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution as far back as April 2004. Like the Kenny report, this committee's report is sitting on a ministerial shelf gathering dust while the Government does nothing about it. Members from every party, including those from the Government, sat on this committee so it is time the Minister of State examined the report and gave those powers to local authorities. It has been clearly proven that by virtue of the clearance of Part V through the Supreme Court such a move would be constitutional. The Minister of State should immediately avail of this move to resolve this housing crisis on behalf of people on the waiting list for social housing and the considerable tranche of people who simply cannot afford to buy their own homes. These people are being left at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords. It is time the Minister of State moved to resolve this crisis. He should acknowledge the pain felt by these people, recognise what is happening and deal with this issue once and for all.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 56; Níl, 59.

  • Boyle, Dan.
  • Breen, James.
  • Breen, Pat.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Connolly, Paudge.
  • Cowley, Jerry.
  • Crawford, Seymour.
  • Crowe, Seán.
  • Cuffe, Ciarán.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • English, Damien.
  • Enright, Olwyn.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Gogarty, Paul.
  • Gormley, John.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harkin, Marian.
  • Hayes, Tom.
  • Healy, Seamus.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hogan, Phil.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McEntee, Shane.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McHugh, Paddy.
  • Mitchell, Gay.
  • Morgan, Arthur.
  • Moynihan-Cronin, Breeda.
  • Murphy, Catherine.
  • Murphy, Gerard.
  • Naughten, Denis.
  • Neville, Dan.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • O’Dowd, Fergus.
  • O’Shea, Brian.
  • O’Sullivan, Jan.
  • Perry, John.
  • Quinn, Ruairí.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Ryan, Eamon.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Sargent, Trevor.
  • Shortall, Róisín.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Timmins, Billy.
  • Twomey, Liam.
  • Upton, Mary.
  • Wall, Jack.

Níl

  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Andrews, Barry.
  • Brady, Johnny.
  • Brady, Martin.
  • Brennan, Seamus.
  • Callanan, Joe.
  • Carty, John.
  • Collins, Michael.
  • Cooper-Flynn, Beverley.
  • Cregan, John.
  • Curran, John.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Dempsey, Tony.
  • Dennehy, John.
  • Devins, Jimmy.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Fleming, Seán.
  • Gallagher, Pat The Cope.
  • Hanafin, Mary.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Hoctor, Máire.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Keaveney, Cecilia.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Kelly, Peter.
  • Killeen, Tony.
  • Kirk, Seamus.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lenihan, Conor.
  • McGuinness, John.
  • Moynihan, Donal.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
  • O’Connor, Charlie.
  • O’Donnell, Liz.
  • O’Donovan, Denis.
  • O’Flynn, Noel.
  • O’Keeffe, Batt.
  • O’Malley, Fiona.
  • O’Malley, Tim.
  • Parlon, Tom.
  • Power, Peter.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Ryan, Eoin.
  • Sexton, Mae.
  • Smith, Brendan.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Wallace, Mary.
  • Wilkinson, Ollie.
  • Woods, Michael.
  • Wright, G.V.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Ferris and Finian McGrath; Níl, Deputies Kitt and Kelleher.
Question declared lost.
Barr
Roinn