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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Sep 2015

Vol. 891 No. 1

Social Housing Policy: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

The following motion was moved by Deputy Dessie Ellis on Tuesday, 29 September 2015:
That Dáil Éireann:
accepts that there is an emergency social housing crisis resulting from years of under-investment in social housing builds and acknowledges that the only way to fully address this crisis is to immediately commence a major social house building programme;
further accepts that, as a consequence of lack of investment, bad planning, property speculation and incompetent governance, combined with successive ideologically similar Governments that have incentivised the private sector to increasingly deliver social housing needs, there is an unprecedented homelessness crisis;
demands that the Government address its abject failure to deal with the housing and homelessness crisis which has resulted in almost 5,000 people State-wide living in emergency accommodation; an estimated 2,298 people living in emergency accommodation in Dublin, 1,275 of whom are children; and an estimated 80 plus families presenting to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive on a monthly basis;
notes that in the period succeeding the temporary provision of 260 extra beds last Christmas in response to the death of Jonathan Corrie on Molesworth Street, Dublin, the number of people sleeping rough on the streets has doubled;
commends charitable organisations, community groups and housing agencies for the work they are doing to assist people who are homeless or living in housing distress throughout the State;
acknowledges the findings of the Dublin Simon Community Annual Review 2014, that highlighted the unprecedented levels of homelessness and the growing numbers of people sleeping rough and in emergency accommodation in the capital;
commends Threshold’s Dublin Tenancy Protection Service in preventing 900 families from homelessness over the last year;
agrees that current Rent Supplement levels are wholly inadequate to meet people’s needs as illustrated by figures released recently by the Private Residential Tenancies Board, (PRTB) that reveal a significant increase across both the private rental housing and apartment markets in Ireland up to June, 2015, with average rent for private accommodation increasing 7.1 per cent in 12 months from the second quarter of 2014;
notes:
— that since this government came to power the spend on Rent Supplement has reduced from €516,860,000 in 2010 to an estimated figure of €298,415,000 in 2015 and that the Mortgage Interest Supplement decreased during the same period from €77,246,000 to €11,930,000 and that this Government has made it easier for the banks to evict people in mortgage arrears, resulting in more homelessness and housing overcrowding;
— recent figures released by the PRTB that starkly show housing rents were 6.4 per cent higher in the second quarter of this year, while apartment rents increased by 7.6 per cent, meaning tenants leasing a house paid out an average of €878 per month in rent - €50 more than in the same period in 2014 - and for people renting an apartment, the national average rate was recorded at €922; and
— that in Dublin, rental rates continue to increase close to ‘boom’ time levels, with housing rents increasing by 8.8 per cent, while apartment rates went up by 9.4 per cent, meaning the typical rent for a house in Dublin in the second quarter of this year was €1,387 and €1,260 for an apartment, while the Rent Supplement threshold is €950 a month;
recognises the key role approved housing bodies have in providing and managing social housing;
agrees that housing homeless families in hotels and bed and breakfasts is wholly unacceptable and unsustainable;
further agrees that modular housing as proposed by this Government as an emergency response measure is not the correct response to the crisis but does not oppose the provision of any shelter for homeless families on condition that modular housing is of high quality, is short-term, is well integrated and does not act as a replacement or financial impediment to a proper social housing build programme; and
calls on the Government to:
— review Part VIII of the Planning and Development Act 2000, with the view to temporarily amending legislation in order to provide social housing in a more timely manner;
— significantly increase the direct funding to local authorities to commence a long-term plan of social housing expansion;
— provide the legislative framework for local authorities to be able to access Housing Finance Agency loans off balance sheet to further supplement a major expansion of social housing;
— reverse the prioritisation of State-subsidised private rented accommodation through schemes such as the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) and leasing, in favour of local authority and Housing Association direct build, or purchase social housing;
— implement immediately a number of measures to address the housing and homelessness crisis which Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has conceded is now a ‘humanitarian crisis’;
— contact the European Union Commission and have the housing crisis declared a‘national emergency’, allowing the Government to speed up the public procurement process when building social housing and to fund the building of social housing off balance sheet;
— work in tandem with the PRTB to introduce emergency legislation to cap and reduce rents to reasonable rent levels and to index-link future rent rises;
— accept that with approximately 38,000 mortgage holders experiencing severe mortgage distress, there is a need to introduce emergency legislation to cap mortgage interest rates;
— strengthen the protection of the family home in the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2013;
— compel the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to engage in an emergency consultation with local authorities, and give local authorities the funding and power to have the first refusal on suitable NAMA properties or land banks;
— review all property-related tax reliefs that encourage speculation for profit;
— set up municipal trusts with local authorities to source off-balance sheet funding to build social housing;
— give local authorities first option on empty State lands and buildings to address social housing needs;
— adequately fund local authorities to allow for regeneration projects, new-build social housing, making voids ready for allocation within the agreed six week period, and to refurbish existing stock;
— acquire on a temporary basis empty buildings, including office space, unused retail units and other vacant properties that can be suitably converted quickly for accommodation use;
— increase requirements under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to 20 per cent social and affordable housing on all new developments;
— increase funding for local authorities to build extensions to address overcrowding and disability adaptation needs in existing housing stock;
— reintroduce the Financial Contribution Scheme for senior citizens with monies raised being retained for future social housing needs;
— accept that local authorities are severely hampered from addressing the homelessness issue due to a lack of State funding and commit to adequately fund local authorities to address the short-fall in funding required for homelessness;
— ring-fence and increase funding to refuges that house survivors of domestic violence;
— re-examine the feasibility of the rural resettlement scheme;
— provide adequate funding to approved housing bodies to ensure they play a full role in provision of social housing; and
— expand and extend Threshold’s Tenancy Protection Service to include Galway, Limerick, Wicklow, Meath and Kildare.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 2:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that the economic downturn and contraction in construction activity, which began in 2008 and continued for a number of years, have created a significant shortfall in housing supply generally, including social housing;
recognises the high priority which the Government has afforded to increasing housing supply, including through its Construction 2020 strategy;
acknowledges the Government’s on-going commitment to ensure that a full range of options is available to distressed borrowers and to keep as many people as possible in their homes;
welcomes the decisive action taken by the Government in relation to mortgage arrears, including the package of measures announced in May 2015 to provide additional support to early engagement borrowers, raise awareness and improve take-up of insolvency measures, improve the operation of the Courts Service of Ireland and the support available to borrowers through this process, and improve schemes to try wherever possible to keep people in their home, including changes made to the mortgage-to-rent scheme to enable more properties to qualify for the scheme;
recognises that social housing is a key priority for the Government and, in particular, welcomes the:
— additional €2.2 billion in funding announced for social housing in budget 2015;
— Government’s Social Housing Strategy 2020, published in November 2014, targeting the provision of over 110,000 social housing units in the period to 2020, through the delivery of 35,000 new social housing units, at a cost of €3.8 billion, and meeting the housing needs of some 75,000 households through the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to address the needs of all households on the housing waiting list, with flexibility to meet potential future demand;
— implementation of the HAP scheme, a key component of the Social Housing Strategy 2020, which is also progressing at pace, with almost 4,000 households now in receipt of HAP across the 13 local authority areas involved, and the intention to expand the operation of the scheme to a further cohort of local authorities in the coming months;
— significant progress made in bringing vacant local authority housing stock back into use, with over 2,300 vacant units funded in 2014 and a further 2,500 units targeted for 2015;
— enhanced role for approved housing bodies, AHBs, in the provision and management of new social housing under the Social Housing Strategy 2020;
— important contribution made by the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, in the delivery of social housing, sourcing almost 1,400 houses and apartments for social housing use by local authorities and approved housing bodies and investing some €40 million in making these properties ready for social housing;
— recent amendments made to the Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 mechanism by the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015, which will mean that in future, the focus of Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 will be on the delivery of completed social housing units; and
— innovative funding mechanisms provided for in the Social Housing Strategy 2020, including the progress being made on site selection under the proposed €300 million programme of investment in social housing via the public private partnership model, which is expected to deliver 1,500 housing units;
welcomes the multi-stranded Government response to the homelessness issue, in particular the:
— key measures identified in the Government’s implementation plan on the State’s response to homelessness, May 2014, and in the action plan to address homelessness, December 2014;
— whole-of-Government approach to dealing with the complexity of homelessness, involving all key State agencies concerned, including the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government; Social Protection; Health; Children and Youth Affairs; the Health Service Executive; Tusla, the Child and Family Agency; the Irish Prison Service; and local authorities;
— supports provided for the critically important role performed by non-governmental organisations, NGOs, working with homeless persons and helping to deal with the multi-faceted issues that homeless households face;
— increase of over 20% in funding provided for homeless services in 2015, and the commitment of the Government to provide additional funding, where necessary;
— excellent work being done through the tenancy sustainment protocol operating in conjunction with Threshold in Dublin and Cork, with over 1,200 of the 4,000 cases supported with increased rent supplement limits arising from engagement under this protocol arrangement, with active plans to extend the protocol to Galway city; and
— proactive approach being taken to the exploration of further steps to fast-track the delivery of additional social housing to meet the needs of homeless households, including through a programme of modular housing;
notes the important role that the private rental sector plays in the overall housing market, with approximately one in five households now privately renting their homes, and in that regard:
— acknowledges that the continued increase in rents is a cause for concern, with the latest Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, figures showing that housing rents were 6.4% higher in the second quarter of this year, while apartment rents increased by 7.6%;
— accepts that a shortage of housing supply is at the heart of rising rents and that the Government is addressing this on a number of fronts, including through its Construction 2020 strategy;
— acknowledges that the housing supply shortfall will take time to address fully but welcomes the signs of recovery, particularly the increase in the number of house completions in 2014 to 11,016 units nationally - an increase of 33% on the 2013 figure - and the 16% increase in completions in the first seven months of 2015 compared to the corresponding period in 2014; and
— notes that the regulation of rent raises many complex economic and legal issues and that in any consideration of such measures, it is critical that they are balanced and have the desired effect on the rental market, while being fair to landlords and tenants alike;
notes, in respect of rent supplement, that:
— the scheme plays a vital role in housing families and individuals, with the scheme supporting approximately 65,000 recipients at a cost of €298 million in 2015; over 13,700 rent supplement tenancies have been awarded this year, of which almost 4,300 are in Dublin, showing that landlords are accommodating significant numbers under the scheme;
— a review of the rent limits undertaken by the Department of Social Protection earlier this year found that the impact of increasing limits at a time of constrained supply will increase costs disproportionately for the Exchequer with little or no new housing available to recipients; and
— continued flexibility will be applied through the national framework for tenancy sustainment for both existing customers of the scheme and new applicants, under which a tenant’s circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis, and rents can be increased above prescribed limits as appropriate; this flexible approach has already assisted approximately 4,000 households throughout the country to retain their rented accommodation;
welcomes the additional safeguards included in the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2013 which already provide the Courts Service of Ireland with a very broad margin of discretion when dealing with repossession applications in respect of principal residences;
notes that the extension of the living city initiative beyond the original pilot cities of Limerick and Waterford, to also include the cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny, followed from a comprehensive, independent ex-ante cost benefit analysis, in line with the Government’s commitment to evidence based policy-making, and that this initiative is targeting particular areas of these six cities which are most in need of regeneration, and is available to owner occupiers and certain commercial premises only; and
welcomes the steps taken in 2015 to centralise the funding for domestic violence services under the aegis of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency."
-(Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government).

Members of the Technical Group, namely, Deputies Thomas Pringle, John Halligan, Finian McGrath, Catherine Murphy and Joan Collins, are sharing a ten minute slot.

I fully support this motion, which is very important. We have debated this issue in the House on a number of occasions in recent months, all in Private Members' time. That shows the importance the Government has placed on this crisis.

The most remarkable element to remember about this crisis, and it cannot be said often enough, is that it is a totally manufactured one. It has been manufactured through the Government's inaction in dealing with housing as an issue and its inaction in investing in our people and in the people who require support from us as a society. The lack of Government policy has directly caused it.

All during the time when the Government slavishly followed the troika and the EU masters, it refused to have an investment programme. That has led to the current situation where 130,000 people are on the housing list, thousands of children are living in hotels and people are living on the streets across this city and country. That is due to the Government's inaction and refusal to do anything about it.

In addition to that, we have a rent crisis. That also comes down to the Government's inaction, its failure to do anything to address it, its failure to introduce a system of rent controls or rent certainty for clients and its steadfast refusal to increase rent allowance limits because it does not want artificially to inflate the market, as it has said, but yet it is quite happy to see people becoming homeless because their landlords have racked up the rent and they can no longer afford to pay it. The Government is quite happy to pump money into the hotels around this city to house families while they are waiting for it to deal with the housing crisis that it has manufactured. It has not taken any action to address this issue and that is the problem. The plan the Minister announced in recent months, which will take years to initiate and which is all back-loaded in terms of funding, will not deal with the issues or the crisis. It is time the Minister got his finger out and did something; he needs to introduce rent certainty and deal with the crisis in hand.

It is unbelievable to think that in 2015 the Simon Community would declare there to be, and use the terminology, "a humanitarian crisis in Ireland". If one heard that description in any other country, one would wonder what the hell was going on, were thousands of people dying or being imprisoned or tortured, but in a sense that is exactly what is going on. If one meets people on the housing list - people whose children and their children are living with their mothers in houses - people who are struggling, with the support of high rent allowance or no rent allowance, to pay the high rent charged by the landlord, one will see that they are close to the edge, on a knife-edge or blade-edge, of living in terrible conditions and then they could find themselves out on the street. That is how close it is. Somebody used the analogy that if a family is in the middle-income category in America, that family is close to being impoverished. The position in Ireland is that if one does not have a reasonable wage, if one cannot pay the rent or if one's landlord is overcharging, one is close to, and on, the edge. The Simon Community was correct in what it said - this is a humanitarian crisis.

Any Deputy or councillor worth his or her salt speaks to the people who come into their constituency offices and those people may start to cry, may be distressed or, sometimes, they may be suicidal and all for what but the constitutional right to own a house, or have a house or live in a home. It is unacceptable and unimaginable that in 2015 the number of people on the housing list would climb. The Minister can speak about five years of a recession but we must remember that the five years prior to that Ireland was regarded as one of the richest countries in the world and one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. We are now at the stage where more than 100,000 of our citizens are homeless. It is a humanitarian crisis.

I warmly welcome the debate and I will be strongly supporting the motion. What I want most to happen as a result of this debate is for action to be taken to address the housing crisis. For years we have seen under-investment in social housing. We also have seen the reality that 5,000 people State-wide are living in emergency accommodation, with an estimated 2,298 people living in emergency accommodation in Dublin, 1,275 of whom are children, and an estimated 80 plus families present to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive on a monthly basis. This is the reality of what is happening on the ground. We also have the situation of those who are homeless. The number of homeless people sleeping rough has doubled. The fourth aspect to this debate is the fact that families who are renting are being turfed out of the houses they are in because the landlords want to get them out or want to sell their houses.

I ask the Minister to examine the proposals in this motion. He needs to review Part VIII of the Planning and Development Act 2000, with a view to amending legislation temporally in order to provide social housing in a more timely manner. Second, he needs to increase the direct funding to local authorities to commence a long-term plan of social housing expansion. Third, he needs to provide the legislative framework for local authorities to be able to access Housing Finance Agency loans off balance sheet. These are very important issues.

Another important issue that is often ignored is the fact that Dublin is full of empty plots and sites. NAMA is creating a hyped up market in land. This excludes the developers or builders and rewards the speculators. A "use it or lose it" tax could be introduced to force the speculators to sell to the developers. Also, a tax on land hoarding would bring down the price of land. Those are some proposals in this area, and the Minister should have a look at them and get on with the job.

The real tragedy of this emergency is that it was perfectly predictable. The families who I have been meeting for the past two to three years, and not two to three months, have been struggling to find accommodation within the rent caps, which were way below market rents. They are no different from other families. They all find it impossible to comprehend that homelessness is something that can happen to them.

The crisis has presented even further challenges to charities, which are trying to provide services for homeless people with more complex challenges. They should not be entities that are criticised. The problem is that we are back to making quick-fix solutions. The one statistic that keeps cropping up is that there is a huge need for housing units to meet the needs of single people or couples, and at the same time there is a huge under-use of buildings that could be brought into use. Initiatives on the fiscal side could potentially deliver some of that accommodation quickly and free up larger accommodation for families. The financial contribution scheme, for example, was very popular in the Dublin city area and if that was replicated around the country, it would provide accommodation for older people, which would have the effect of freeing up houses for families.

While there is nothing wrong with modular or system-built housing, it needs a two-staged approach. For example, if accommodation is built near universities, it can then become student accommodation over time and it has a longer lifespan. It does not mean that it is permanent accommodation for the people who are temporarily accommodated in it.

Another issue is that the housing assistance payment scheme will cause serious administrative problems for local authorities, but that has not even been thought about.

I welcome the debate and generally support the motion put forward by Sinn Féin. The current crisis in social housing provision is as a direct result of this and the previous Government's policy of effective privatisation of the sector, whereby responsibility for the provision of housing for those in need of social housing has been transferred to the private sector to private landlords and subsided by the State. I am dismayed and angry at the Government's response. It is the same response we have seen for the past six or eight months. It is like the child who has his or her finger stuck dyke trying to stop the water coming through. The housing crisis is continuing to get worse. We know the figures involved - 5,000 people Statewide are living in emergency accommodation and an estimated 2,298 people are living in emergency accommodation in Dublin.

Of these, 1,275 are children. There are up to 130,000 people on the housing waiting lists. Families are couch-surfing or sleeping in cars or, in the case of one family, sleeping in the Phoenix Park. Yet in the first quarter of 2015, only 20 social housing units have been built and 187 voluntary housing units provided. That is not dealing with the crisis.

The regulation of the private rental sector should include enhanced security of tenure. The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 only provides for four years for security of tenure. That should be raised to at least a minimum of ten years, possibly even 15 years. That can be dealt with in one Bill either tomorrow or next week.

It is also important to address the right of a landlord to terminate a tenancy on the basis that the property is to be sold. More families affected by this provision are attending our clinics every week. It should be changed to simply give a right to a landlord, or to a bank which has repossessed rental accommodation, to sell the property with the tenant in situ. This would not cost the Government any money and could be dealt with in legislation immediately. The rent cap should be introduced for a minimum of two to three years, if the Government is not willing to go all the way with it. The Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, has rightly called this a humanitarian crisis. It should be described as a national emergency. The Government should request the European Commission to allow it provide the moneys needed to deal with this humanitarian crisis.

Deputies Brendan Ryan, Jerry Buttimer, Anthony Lawlor, Michelle Mulherin, Arthur Spring, Áine Collins, Dan Neville and Patrick O' Donovan will be sharing time.

We have a serious housing problem. The root cause is simple, namely the lack of housing supply. We are dealing with it through the Housing Strategy 2020. When we emerged from the troika shackles and were first in a position to do so, we set out an ambitious housing strategy, costed at over €3.8 billion. We have begun to build social housing units again. In Fingal County Council, local authority houses are again being built in Balbriggan, Balrothery, Lusk, Swords and Ballyboughal. The number of void units in Fingal has been reduced from 201 in December 2013 to 28 as a result of Government funding.

Some local authorities still have a problem with voids, however, which is unacceptable. The planning process and building of homes does not happen overnight. The lag between the announcement of funding and turning the key means we need other emergency measures. The private rental market, as well as rent supplement, still has a role to play in solving this crisis. There are calls from some in opposition and the non-governmental organisation, NGO, sector to raise the rent supplement threshold across the board. I do not believe, however, this would solve the problem as it would serve to further inflate the rental market.

The statutory discretionary power of community welfare officers to set an agreed rent over and above the rent supplement limit is an important tool in tackling the threat of homelessness resulting from rent increases. Community welfare officers are using this discretion in Fingal when they can and it is helping to keep people in their homes. It must be expanded to all areas.

The real tool we need to combat extortionate rent increases is rent certainty. This was a recommendation made by my colleagues and I on the Labour Party’s housing committee. It needs to be brought in urgently as it has been talked about for far too long. It is immoral for a landlord to hike up rent without having to compare it to another measure such as the consumer price index. The scandalous discrimination by landlords against rent supplement tenancy applicants will be outlawed by the Minister of State, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

I see the housing crisis at first hand in my constituency clinics and it must be given the urgency it deserves. I have confidence that with Labour in government we can and will solve this problem. We need a strong, sensible and multifaceted approach. What we do not need is what we have seen from Sinn Féin at local level. Its councillors supported a full 15% reduction in the local property tax in Fingal County Council and other areas to the detriment of housing and homelessness budgets. Neither do we need what we had in Fingal and other areas when councillors from People Before Profit and the Anti-Austerity Alliance voted against the provision of social housing in Balrothery and Balbriggan. Nor do we need anti-tax socialists crying crocodile tears about the housing crisis and then refusing to take responsibility to help when the opportunity presents itself. We need every stakeholder and organisation, be they political party or approved housing agency, to pull together to deliver solutions. Government funding is not a problem in this regard.

Undoubtedly, as the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, said, we are in the middle of a perfect storm regarding housing. It is distressing and heart-breaking when one meets constituents, neighbours, friends and past pupils caught up in dire straits with housing problems. Thankfully, however, we have a housing strategy.

It amused me to hear Deputy Barry Cowen and his colleagues opposite shedding crocodile tears about housing when his party, Fianna Fáil, presided over a debacle of social housing policy when it was in power for over a decade. It has no credibility whatsoever in this.

What we must see is the implementation of the housing strategy put forward by the Government. When one takes the capital plan announced yesterday and the €2.2 billion already put forward, up to €3.1 billion will be provided for housing policy. However, where has the money for social housing gone over the past decade? Will the Minister provide a breakdown?

We need to see the resources in place and shovel-ready projects approved and fast-tracked. It requires local government and those with vested interests to come together to ensure we put in place a social housing strategy. We have seen an increase in funding for the homeless budget. I commend those who work in the area of homelessness as their work sometimes gets brushed aside by those who do not understand what they do, particularly in Cork city.

I call on Cork City and Cork County Councils to use the millions of euro given to them to fund the provision of social housing. From information I have obtained from parliamentary questions and other sources, allocated moneys for social housing have not been spent in Cork city which Deputy Jonathan O’Brien and I represent.

The reason it has not been spent must be answered by the councils. As Deputy Jonathan O'Brien knows - we worked together quite closely when on the city council - there is a need for a joined-up approach between the local authority and central government. Up to €5 million has been allocated to the councils in Cork to support the return of vacant social housing units for use. However, only a fraction of that money has been drawn down. It beggars belief as to why that money has not been drawn down. In 2015, Cork County Council was allocated funding for 71 units and Cork City Council for 122 units. In real terms, that is €3.6 million but not one claim for a drawdown has been processed by the city. That does not make sense to me. Despite this, the councils have got 41 houses back into use, a development which I commend. Cork County Council has got €1.4 million, with a drawdown claim of over 30 units which the Department is processing. Given the demand for and the shortage of housing in Cork city and county, I hope the Minister will expedite this drawdown. I hope the city of Cork is not unique in the allocation of funding not being drawn down.

The Acting Chairman is aware of the situation we have in Kildare. The Opposition spoke about finding quick-fix solutions to this problem but there are none. This has been a long-term problem, which started back in 2000 when Fianna Fáil introduced the provision of 20% social and affordable housing in the Planning and Development Act. No houses were delivered under that provision because of High Court cases taken by Fianna Fáil’s friends, the builders and developers. Since the crash, no houses have been delivered under the 20% rule. It is amusing then to hear tonight that Fianna Fáil is looking to bring the provision back, so as to assist its builder and developer friends. Last Friday in Kildare, it was amusing to see among the crowd at a function for a Fianna Fáil councillor, a large contingent of builders. They felt they were back in town again because Fianna Fáil feels it is coming back into power. I can tell Deputy Barry Cowen that there is no way I will let the 20% social and affordable housing rule ruin the social housing structure and fabric again.

We, therefore, have a situation in Kildare where not one house is currently being built by the local authority even though the money is available. The authority is not ready because it expected the 20% provision for social and affordable housing to be delivered, but this has not happened. That is the reason I was delighted the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, reduced the requirement to 10%.

Some 10% of nothing is the same as 20% of nothing.

The local authorities-----

Thanks for giving away 10%.

Some 10% of nothing is the same as 20% of nothing.

I would have advocated for 0% but I accept the fact we had to do something. I applaud the fact the Minister of State allowed local authorities to purchase, long-term lease or build houses. The sad fact is that in Kildare no social housing is being built at the moment; it is being purchased. When local authorities are purchasing houses, it makes it difficult for people with families and first-time buyers to buy them. They are in competition with the local authority. I plead with the Minister of State to write to the local authorities and get them to put Part VIII schemes in place on whatever lands they have as quickly as possible so that social housing is on stream.

I also find it extremely difficult to understand the turnaround of houses which have been left vacant. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Durkan, will know the housing estate in Derrinturn where there has been three boarded-up houses for the past six months. The local authorities have not moved quick enough. It takes only four weeks to turn around a house in a situation such as that one.

That is if the staff is there.

Will the Minister of State write to the local authorities to find out exactly how many vacant properties they have and how quick is their turnaround? Something such as that would help those on housing lists and waiting for accommodation, particularly families in overcrowded situations, gain access to appropriate housing. Will the Minister of State to take on board those matters regarding local authorities? The Government has stepped up to the mark and provided funding. We now need to get the local authorities to step up to the mark as well.

Next to speak was to be Deputy Michelle Mulherin but she is not present and neither is Deputy Arthur Spring. I, therefore, call Deputy Áine Collins. I presume her two colleagues are not coming back in and that the time is to be shared between the rest of the Deputies, but we will see what happens.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. As we all know, every Member accepts that there is an emergency social housing crisis, which is the result of years of underinvestment. We know that one of the principal ways to address this crisis is to commence immediately a major social housing building programme, but the main reason this has not happened is quite obvious. Five years ago this economy was bust and borrowing money at an unaffordable rate of 15%. Admittedly, during the boom years, the previous Government could and should have done more to deal with this developing crisis but that did not happen. As a result of this Government's goals and management of the economy, as a nation we can borrow money at a rate of just 1%. This is the reason this Government is able to initiate a new building programme. For the past two years, the Department has begun to find new projects through local authorities and voluntary housing associations. It has also introduced the housing assistance payment scheme, which is far less cumbersome and more effective than the rent allowance scheme. This Government is working hard to develop a rent certainty scheme, which must be constitutional first, as well as being fair to the tenant and the landlord. We need all sectors working together to solve this problem.

We have a huge opportunity to regenerate our smaller towns and villages. There are 130 ghost estates in Cork. I am sure the people of Cork would be delighted if it was possible to work with the local authorities to get those estates viable and ready for families and homeless people as soon as possible by assisting the local authorities purchase and refurbish these houses. This Government has begun the process. The current improving state of the economy will ensure that progress can and will be successful over the medium to long term. I welcome the announcement yesterday of the €3 billion capital programme. Short-term solutions must be found for the homeless and families who through no fault of their own are about to lose their homes. To be really successful in dealing with the housing crisis, we need both the private and public sectors working together. Many houses are needed not just for people who require social housing but also for families willing to rent or buy houses. A long-term strategic view is the only way to solve this problem.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I wish to deal with a specific area, which is homelessness and people with serious mental health issues. Our mental health is as important as our physical health and it is essential for Ireland's economic and social recovery. Whether personally or through family, friends or colleagues, everyone is likely to be affected by mental health difficulties at some point in their lives. The next Government must ensure people with mental health difficulties can be assessed for and have access to appropriate social housing with tenancy sustainment services in order to support their recovery.

Between October 2012 and September 2013, every nine and a half days someone was discharged into homelessness from the Tallaght mental health service. According to the Housing Agency, nationally 1,034 people with a mental health disability were on the housing lists nationally in 2013. Those are the latest figures I could obtain. Having a home is essential to maintaining one's mental health. People using the mental health services should have access to appropriate social housing, if required, to support their recovery. It is unfair and wrong that people, having been treated, are being discharged from mental health services into homelessness. We must ensure there is an adequate supply of social housing places for people with a mental health disability in order to prevent homelessness and unnecessary long stays in hospital. This may require allocating a number of new social housing units to people with a mental health disability.

We must fund sustainable support for people with a mental health difficulty so that they can maintain their tenure, which will prevent homelessness. We must ensure that rent supplement and the housing assistance payment is provided at a level that reflects the real cost of rental accommodation so that people with a mental health disability can have security of tenure. We know the difficulties people with a mental illness already have in obtaining housing under a tenancy due to the stigma surrounding mental health, although this is a debate for another day. The combination of official rent contribution increases and tight rent limits means that individuals in competitive rental markets such as Dublin are increasingly at the risk of homelessness. For those with a mental health disability living in rented accommodation, the insecurity of tenure can lead to a deterioration in their mental health as can homelessness itself.

There is a higher prevalence of mental health illness among homeless people than there is in the general population. They are also more likely to be alcoholics and suffer from drug dependency. Some 20% to 25% of homeless people, compared to 6% of non-homeless people, have a severe mental illness. Others estimate that up to one third of homeless people suffer from mental illness.

Studies have found that there is a correlation between homelessness and incarceration in prison. Those with a mental health illness or substance abuse problems are found to be incarcerated at a higher frequency than the general population. Yesterday, I attended and was involved in the launch of a project to look at the level of mental illness in our prison population and young people. A high proportion of our prison population has a mental health challenge. Some 65% of people in prison have a mental health challenge and a further 35% have an intellectual disability. It is unclear how many people within the prison population have both a mental health challenge and an intellectual disability. This is an area that is rarely debated in relation to homelessness but a very serious one none the less. The project, which is based mainly in Ireland and is supported by Trinity College, Dublin and internationally, was launched in the European Parliament yesterday. It is important that this research is supported. We hope the project gets the required support and funding, both nationally and within Europe. At the launch yesterday, there were people from the United States, Germany and Italy who are supporting this initiative.

We are still dealing with homelessness today.

It is probably ten years since I raised the issue of people being discharged from mental hospitals and institutions onto the streets. It has not changed but is still happening. A large proportion of people who are homeless have a mental illness. This debate is about homelessness and we appreciate its importance, but there is another issue that is marginalised, when it should not be, in respect of homelessness and people with a mental health issue.

I am grateful to Sinn Féin for bringing this issue before the House in this format because it gives us a greater opportunity to look again at the housing issue and the origins of the problems we face at present.

This crisis, and it is a crisis, does not have its origins in the last three and a half or four years, or even in the last ten years. Its origins are in bad planning in the last 20 years. A decision was taken 20 years ago to phase out local authority house building as a project and to shift it instead to voluntary agencies. Voluntary agencies do a great job in general. In particular, they look after special housing needs and sheltered housing better than anybody else and much better than local authorities can. Of course, this was a great opportunity for the Government of the day, which will remain nameless, to wash its hands of responsibility and to hand it over to the private rental market. There was no housing policy, no plan and no provision for the future. All that was done from time to time was a count of the number of people on the various housing lists. They were then counted again, after which people said there were a few things wrong with the application forms and some of the people should be struck off because they were not really in need of a house.

In the meantime it became more obvious that the Department of Social Protection was supposed to fill the housing void and provide the funding over a prolonged period to pay for the houses that the applicants for local authority houses required. Housing policy was handed over to the Department of Social Protection, much to the annoyance of that Department and the various Ministers in the intervening period. It was an appalling disaster and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

Some Members of this House have said in the last couple of weeks that this is a crisis which has only become obvious now and that the Government should have done something about it. Four and a half years ago was way too late to have done something about it, and if any Member of the House thinks that a problem of this nature can be resolved in six weeks, six months or six years for that matter, they are wrong. It requires emergency measures in the first instance and a long-term plan. In fairness to the Government, it has introduced a plan. It might not be sufficient to meet the requirements that are now envisaged by the Opposition, but it was introduced by the Government. Nothing had been done previously. Previously, the issue was postponed from next week to next year to thereafter.

The problem now is that there is an urgent need to deal with the immediate emerging problem of homelessness, which is caused by a shortage of supply. That is strange when one considers that we had a housing boom just a few years ago and Members of this House were talking about demolishing houses all over the country, saying bulldozers should be used and so forth - so much for that plan and for their insight into the future. The Government's policy is correct. We need emergency housing in the first instance and we need it quickly. We must recognise that people cannot exist without a home.

The last point I wish to make is important. I have listened to people over a number of years expound the theory that Irish people have a predilection towards ownership of their houses which they should not have. We have all heard this debated many times. Why should they not have it? We have a right to own our houses. In particular, it is important that the householder has an opportunity to pay his own mortgage as opposed to the landlord's mortgage. I do not see the merit in paying somebody else's mortgage if it costs the same to pay one's own.

There is another issue, which we have inherited from our history. We have a feeling that we should own our own house. That is built into every person in this country. It has a benefit. The benefit is that the person has an investment, something they wish to retain, improve and work for. They have an incentive to do what they wish to do for themselves and to provide for themselves, and they will do it.

Another point I wish to raise has also been raised by other Members. Where have the local authority loans gone? Every effort was made to squeeze them out of the system, and that has succeeded to a great extent. It is virtually impossible to qualify for a local authority loan. The nonsense that takes place to assess a person is laughable. For a ten year period it was made impossible for people in that income bracket to qualify for a loan and they were squeezed out of the market. As they were squeezed out of the market, they became more vulnerable. We should look again at the local authority loans fund with a view to ensuring that it is re-opened.

Finally, under the 1966 Act the local authorities have a function in respect of housing. They have a two-pronged system whereby they build houses with the support of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or they offer loans to people who wish to build their own house. An earlier speaker already referred to the possibility of private sites. This was very successful in many schemes throughout the country. There was great work where people in the relevant income bracket built their own homes. They simply had to qualify under the local authority guidelines and they were able to build their own house on a serviced site. It was an excellent provision.

All of those things happened in the recent past. They were all well capable of being resolved satisfactorily. If they had been addressed, planned for and if provision had been made for them, we would not be in the current position. There would have been an adequate number of houses. A local authority, such as the one of which I was previously a member, must provide 800 houses per annum, either by loan or by direct build. That is the way it is.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on an issue that affects all constituencies. It is not just an urban issue, but affects every town and village in the country. People want to hear about possible solutions as well as a plan for the future.

I have mentioned something in the House on a number of occasions and I urge the Minister to examine it. In the city of Dublin, within walking distance of this Chamber, there is a university with approximately 16,500 students. I do not have a copy of the register of electors for Nassau Street, Molesworth Street, Kildare Street, Grafton Street and O'Connell Street, but I presume very few people live in those streets now compared to the number that lived there 40 or 50 years ago. If we have building stock in urban, town and village areas that is vacant, is there something we can do to incentivise the people who own these properties to put them to use for people who need to be housed? Of course, there is. As I have said previously, it can be done through an examination of the system of commercial rates and the incentivisation of people to upgrade their existing facilities and convert them into units in which people could be housed comfortably and safely in a modern facility.

There is no need to go 15 and 20 miles from the heart of a large urban centre such as Dublin, Limerick, Cork or Galway to try and solve this problem. Around the world large urban centres such as Amsterdam and Paris are living cities. We have cities in which nobody lives. There are thousands of empty units throughout Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, but no plan to address that. At the same time, Dublin City Council, for example, is reducing the local property tax by 15%, costing approximately €11 million. That €11 million will be taken directly out of services. South Dublin County Council will take out €5 million. One could house a large number of people with those amounts. The Government will take its share of responsibility but county and city councils throughout the country do not have Part 8 provisions ready, do not have sites ready, have not sought planning permission and have no idea where they would put houses if they won the lotto, for want of a better word, and received all of the money they required tomorrow morning. They have no plans in place. The reason is, as Deputy Durkan said, that this problem has been sat on for a generation.

The Minister and other Deputies will be aware that not a single rural house has been built by local authorities for probably more than a decade.

It is said there is no housing problem outside the 50 km/h speed limit zones in parts of this country, which, of course, is not the case. There are sons and daughters of farmers in smallholdings in the west and south who simply cannot afford to build a house. As Deputy Durkan said, they bring a site to the table. In previous years, the local authority would have financed the construction of a house but those people are now on the same housing list as tens of thousands of others because they cannot access loans because the conditions attaching are so onerous.

There are things that can be done, although I am not for one minute saying there is a panacea. There are problems in regard to housing repairs for elderly people and the situation relating to voids is scandalous. No wonder this is the case if there is a city council that can take €11 million from its budget because it says it does not need it while at the same time it has hundreds - if not thousands - of units that need to be upgraded in order to be let. There is a question of morality. If a local authority such as Dublin City Council can afford to take €11 million from its budget while having thousands of people on its housing waiting lists, then the councillors who voted for this need to take a look at themselves and ask if this is the appropriate use of resources. I do not believe it is. They should have taken that €11 million and, within four weeks, tried to find how many of those void units could house families.

We have all experienced this issue as public representatives. A huge number of people are offered local authority houses and refuse them. They have no choice but to the refuse them because, in many cases, the houses are in areas that are blighted by antisocial behaviour. Local authorities and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government have failed tenants in those local authority housing estates for years by not looking after them. If we are going to have a discussion in regard to local authority housing and social housing, we need to include the existing tenants who, in many cases, have been abandoned by local authorities and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

As Deputy Durkan said, what we need is a long-term plan. We do not need falsities and pipedreams. We need a short-term programme in the context of modular housing and emergency accommodation. However, as Deputy McDonald will know, NAMA offered 5,753 properties to local authorities and only 1,068 of them were taken up, which shows there is a deep-rooted problem in local authorities when it comes to the housing crisis. It is not just the Government.

I call Deputy Pearse Doherty, who is sharing time with Deputies Ó Caoláin, Ó Snodaigh, McDonald, Stanley and Mac Lochlainn.

I listened to the debate earlier and it is very clear who is to blame. It is every single local authority in the State, it is every single county manager and city manager and it is the councillors who sit there. The Government has provided everything but, somehow, all of these local authorities have colluded to make sure that no houses are built and no houses which are currently not fit for purpose are being repaired. For some reason, they have done all of that with the support of local authority members. It is simply unbelievable.

I would agree with one aspect - and one aspect only - of what I have heard in the last while from the Government spokespersons, namely, there is no quick-fix solution to this crisis. This crisis will take time to resolve. However, there are things that can be done immediately that will help to solve the situation we are in. We have heard from the Government backbenchers about there being no quick-fix solutions. It is as if they came to office just yesterday when they are in their fifth year of Government.

This is a crisis that did not happen overnight. We did not all wake up one morning and find there were thousands of people homeless and hundreds living on our streets. It did not happen overnight. It was pointed out time and again by agencies and by people working at the coal face in dealing with these issues that this was going to happen. At budget time every year, when I talk about those who are homeless, I have stated that the budget measures the Government has brought in will make the situation worse. It is very clear that the policy of this Government is to accept the fact of homelessness. It cannot cut capital spending in the way it has done and pretend there would be no homeless crisis. The Government parties went into this with their eyes wide open.

The Government talks about a six-year plan of €3.8 billion to try to resolve some of this problem, although it will only house a third of those who are currently on the waiting list. I recall one of the first decisions the Government made when it entered office. It was made on 31 March 2011 - the Government did not need a six-year plan then. It was on just one day that it handed over €3.1 billion to the bondholders of Anglo Irish Bank, to the poor craters who invested in the broken bank and got paid 100% by the Government. Yet, the Government cannot scrounge up enough money to deal with the crisis that has been happening on its watch for the past number of years and prior to its entry into office. The fact is that the Government has been tolerating homelessness.

There are things that the Government can do. As finance spokesperson, I see it all the time in terms of how the Government has bowed down to the banks, how it has allowed the banks to evict people from their houses time and again and how it has weakened the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. In recent weeks the Supreme Court ruled that it need only take one part of that code of conduct into account when dealing with repossessions, that is, the fact that there cannot be repossessions within the moratorium period. When I brought forward legislation in this House to put the code of conduct on a statutory basis, however, the Government said it was not needed because the code was sufficiently robust. Again, Sinn Féin has been proven correct.

The homelessness crisis and the housing crisis can be ended. However, politics is all about choices. In the last budget the Government decided to put more money into the pockets of the wealthiest people. At the same time, some Government Deputies, when they come to Dublin, spend the night in hotels where families are now being accommodated. They are aware of the pain and the suffering this is causing those families, and some Members have told very humane stories about how it affects children and will affect children well past the time when all of us have left this Chamber in years to come. It is scandalous that they cannot find within themselves the means to declare this a national emergency. When it is declared a national emergency, we can do different things. We can make sure the funding is found; we can make sure that the NAMA properties are used.

This is the despicable thing. The State owns thousands of houses right across the country but, as the Taoiseach has said, NAMA is there to make a profit. Of course NAMA is there to make a profit; that is why it was set up. However, we can change the law under which NAMA is governed if we so wish and if we desire to end this crisis. Instead of selling those houses to speculators, we can decide to take them into our ownership and provide them for social housing and the needs of the homeless.

One hundred and thirty thousand citizens across this State are in need of a home, representing an alarming increase of 40,000 from four years ago. That is the Government record. It is estimated there are now 5,000 people, including over 1,000 children, homeless and living in emergency accommodation in this country. Focus Ireland is reporting that homelessness in Ireland has increased by a staggering 76% since January. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Dublin Simon Community recently referred to this horrendous situation as a "humanitarian crisis".

This is not an issue that is exclusive to Dublin, however; it is a national emergency. My constituency office is visited every day by people who are at their wits' end waiting to be housed. Some of these people have been on housing waiting lists for years and they are clearly at breaking point. It was recently revealed that there are 28 vacant council houses available in my home county of Monaghan. It beggars belief and defies logic that these houses are lying idle when there are over 1,300 applicants - individuals and families - on housing waiting lists across the county. In the neighbouring county at the other end of the constituency, County Cavan, there are 68 vacant council houses and approximately 1,146 applicants on the waiting list for social housing.

In that county, there has been a decrease of €148,467 in the provision for refurbishment funding from 2014 to the current year, 2015. People are on their knees, but it is clear the Government is blind to the reality facing so many vulnerable individuals and families. All we hear time and again is talk of the so-called “recovery” and “stability”, but the reality is that many of Ireland’s families are not feeling any recovery.

The Government's housing policy thus far has been nothing short of abysmal. Social housing provision has been grossly neglected, with years of little or no investment. A vigorous social housing construction programme must be a priority. Spiralling rent costs must also be tackled. For families on rent allowance or those on low incomes, it is simply not possible to meet the demand of increasing rents. Therefore, we are calling for an immediate increase in rent supplement and the housing assistance payment. Similarly, legislation is also needed to protect tenants in the private rental sector to ensure they have greater rent certainty and increased security of tenure.

People are on their knees and it is imperative that this crisis is dealt with effectively and as speedily as possible. Urgent and adequate action is needed to address the issue to ensure there is housing for all who need it. People have a right to housing, to somewhere they can call "home". Sinn Féin has outlined a number of additional measures geared towards tackling this national emergency which would be more properly referred to as a national disgrace. In the interests of all those currently homeless or in danger of losing their homes, we hope all parties in the Dáil will support our motion. Accordingly, I ask the Minister of State to consider withdrawing the Government amendment.

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Ellis a chur an rún seo os comhair na Dála ar an ócáid seo. Tá sé rí-thábhachtach go bhfuil muid ag plé an rúin seo, ach is trua go gcaithimid é a phlé.

We are discussing a motion we should not be discussing. The Government is in place four and a half years, yet we have not seen any action taken that has had an effect on housing waiting lists or on homelessness in this and other cities. The opposite has happened. Any effect the Government has had since coming to power has been negative and now we have a greater housing list than ever before. We have an increased number of rough sleepers, in Dublin in particular. I know about Dublin, but other Deputies could speak for their cities.

Men and women do not choose to sleep on the street in winter or summer for the fun of it. Sleeping on the street is a cry for help because they have no alternative. If nothing else, I wish that this message got through the thick skulls of Government Members sitting here day in day out without taking action. I have heard statements from the Government saying it will look into the matter. They have been looking far too long at this issue. I heard the claptrap from Deputy Patrick O'Donovan when he spoke about a long-term plan. The problem with the Government is that it has long fingered every plan and action that should have been taken from day one. Some of the plans and actions that should have been taken were cost neutral. Simple steps that could have been taken were not taken, although they might have helped.

The Government could have taken simple steps, such as ensuring local authorities had a quicker turnaround in terms of their voids. It could also have taken steps like the proposals mentioned in our motion. The current and previous Governments have not taken simple decisions. This has meant that the regeneration of parts of my and other areas have never gone ahead. This is not just about sites that are shovel ready, as Deputy O'Donovan proposed. There are a number of sites in places like Ballyfermot where planning permission was given previously, but these sites are sitting idle. There has been no movement on them since the current Government came to power and since the previous Government made a hames of the economy.

Look, for example, at St. Michael's Estate, Cherry Orchard and the likes of Cornamona, where there was a senior citizens' development but it has been knocked down. It is a serviced site and a developer could begin on that site in the morning. Look at a site under the control of the Government - it is an OPW site - in Inchicore. Planning permission was granted for 200 houses on that site, but the builder's business collapsed. That should not stop the State stepping in and going ahead with those buildings. Another site in the locality was earmarked for housing and the owners applied for planning permission, but the HSE bought the site and intends to use it as a builders' depot for the children's hospital, a laudable project.

In my area and other areas of our cities there are sites, houses, homes and buildings which could be easily converted at cost and made available for those on the housing lists. If we walk around this neighbourhood day or night, but particularly at night, we will see people sleeping in doorways. Sleeping rough is now at a level I have never seen before. This is a national crisis. The Government should recognise this, because when it came into power, it produced emergency measures to deal with banking and other issues. However, it never addressed the human or humanitarian crisis. It never produced emergency legislation to deal with a rent cap on private rented accommodation or to purchase compulsorily or acquire property suitable to address homelessness.

This is madness. It is long past the time for words. We need action and if the Government is not willing to take action, its members should get out of their seats and let somebody else take the action that is required.

Nothing means more to any parent than the welfare of his or her children. We all want to do the best for them, to care for them and give them the stability they need from the moment they are born. We want to give them the start in life they deserve. That cocoon of comfort, care and stability is not a reality for all children. Homeless children are traumatised on a daily basis at a time when they are at their most vulnerable. Their formative years are being lost to this man-made crisis.

It has been nothing less than harrowing to listen to this debate, knowing that real people lie behind the stories and statistics. Homelessness touches not just those without a roof over their heads, but those who come into contact with them and none more so than those at the front line of the homelessness crisis, the people who face this reality on a daily basis. Let me tell the Minister of State of the experiences of a primary school teacher in my constituency and about how the plight of Dublin's homeless children has impacted on her, on her school and on the young children attending that school. I cannot overstate the great sense of frustration she feels knowing that nothing is being done for these children or for what seems to her as the hopelessness of her position and these children while she and her fellow teachers try to cope with what seems at times like a tidal wave of despair.

In her school of 345 pupils, 5% of the children are homeless, 17 primary school children in one Dublin school. These young citizens in their formative years should have stability in their young lives, be doing their homework in a secure environment, be playing and developing friendships. Instead, these children face problems that any adult would have difficulty coping with. These homeless children live in hotels, guest houses and B&Bs. The really unlucky ones have been known to sleep in parks in our city and in cars. Like with the old tenements, many families occupy a single room. The children have nowhere to play, they cannot call for their friends and there is no space for toys. Most toys had to be dumped when families lost their homes.

There may be no room for toys because the family's whole life, its worldly possessions, are contained in the bags it carries with it day to day. The homeless child cannot do the normal childish things, like running around and playing or messing, because if he or she does, the hotel might decide he or she cannot stay. Teachers tell me stories of mothers trying to wash the school jumpers in the hotel bath and drying them in the room, as a consequence making everything damp. There are no washing facilities. There are no cooking facilities in the hotel or bed and breakfast either. The possession of a toaster or microwave could lead to the family being thrown out of its accommodation. Families live on cheap takeaways because they cannot cook for themselves.

All the while, the children worry because they know how precarious their position is. They are tired when they get to school because it is very hard to get a decent night's sleep sharing a room with one's whole family. Their schooling is disrupted. They often arrive late for school because their hotel or bed and breakfast is so far away. They are perpetually insecure and many of them are perpetually on the move.

All of us know how important school is for any child. For the homeless child, it is often the one constant in his or her very disrupted life. We know it is getting harder to find accommodation for families. We know that hotels do not want any more homeless people staying in them and that the idea of "self accommodating" is just not working.

Picture this - parents making the rounds of hotels, begging for a room at the inn for themselves and their family. How degrading and utterly humiliating for any parent and how deeply shameful that any child would witness this. The children are worried and anxious and they feel hopeless. They cannot do anything to help. They see the stress and pressure on their parents and see their desperation. They are experiencing a life no child in Ireland, in any civilised country or modern European economy should ever have to experience.

This is not a crisis; it is a catastrophe. The plight of homeless children in modern Ireland is a tragedy. Is it going to take a greater tragedy for the Government to act? It will not acknowledge this. May I ask the Minister of State, what is his benchmark for a "crisis"? What greater crisis could any country have than to have its young children sleeping on the streets?

I for one am fed up of the Government's finger-pointing and bleating. It is no good to these children. We need a plan and immediate action. I note that none of the Minister of State's colleagues from Fine Gael or the Labour Party are here. What a terrible pity. They need to engage with this issue and do the right thing by these homeless children.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the catastrophe which Deputy McDonald has just outlined. A number of times earlier this year, the Government made a big play of addressing the housing issue. I received its capital investment plan but there is nothing new in it on housing and dealing with this important issue. The figures we have seen will only deal with a tiny percentage of those who are on the waiting list and would benefit from the new houses that are coming on-stream. While all new houses are welcome, not enough is being done.

If it was in Government, Sinn Féin would increase the availability of funding for the local authorities to ensure that long-term solutions are put in place for social housing. The legislation that went through the House before the summer break, which reduced the social housing contribution under Part V in private housing developments, baffled me. I was chair of a housing strategic policy committee, SPC, when that was in operation. Although it was not a silver bullet, it was certainly part of the solution. In the case of County Laois, we were getting 18% of all new builds. They were being bought by the council, not given to them. There was a level of success there. It could have been improved on and not everything was done right, yet I would say it was 80% or 90% successful, which is better than 0%.

In respect of vacant sites, I proposed a Bill earlier in the year and outlined the need for derelict sights to be utilised and for developers and those who are sitting on sites to either use them or lose them. There are 123 such sites in the county.

In the short time I have available, I want to outline a few figures for the Minister of State. NAMA has made 6,500 residential properties available for social housing, according to my information and has made that known to the Minister of State's Department and to the councils. However, it has only confirmed demand for 2,500. There are only 1,500 already tenanted. There is obviously a logjam and I would like to know what is happening. This is an issue I have banged on about in the past and will again.

The Minister of State is holding up voids as being the solution. They are a solution. Looking at the list of voids, County Roscommon, with a small council, has 113 houses empty. County Mayo has 145 while in the case of County Laois, there are only four voids out of over 2,000 properties. There would be four houses empty any week, anywhere. The private sector would not have as good a record as that. The voids are not being left empty in County Laois. In the case of County Kildare, there are 39 out of a bigger housing stock, which is not massive. Work is being done filling the voids. We do not want to blame the local authorities for all of this either.

There are in the region of 7,000 households on the waiting list in County Kildare. In the case of County Laois, a much smaller county, there are 1,773 on the waiting list. Going by areas, there are 367 seeking housing in Mountmellick; 419 in Portarlington; and 1,150 in Portlaoise. In the town of Monasterevin in south Kildare, there are 536 households seeking housing and not a social house has been built in that area for over 20 years. The figures are astronomical.

Focusing on solutions, the Government always asks what the Opposition has put forward. We put forward 22 separate measures to solve the problems. I will not read them all out but there are a few which I will highlight. They include: increasing funding to local authorities; reversing the prioritisation of State-subsidised private rented accommodation, its effective privatisation, through the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS and social leasing; bringing this to the attention of the European Commission and have it declared a national emergency; and capping. This needs to be done and I know the Minister, Deputy Kelly, keeps talking about it. For God's sake, he should go and do it. The issue of NAMA needs to be addressed and the Government needs to set up municipal trusts so that money can be borrowed by local authorities off balance sheet to fund houses. The Minister should restore Part V to 20% and bring the legislation to the House in order to do that. We should also examine the feasibility of a rural resettlement scheme.

It is good to see the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has joined us - "Angry Alan".

He is angry at people who say they are not going to pay for their water. He is angry at local authorities because they will not get their act together and sort out his housing crisis for him.

The Deputy is obviously recording this, is he?

He is angry at moaners and whingers who just do not get his gift to the Irish people of being in office.

Is it for Facebook?

What makes me angry is being told by people who have lived in this city all of their lives that when they walk around the city centre and see all the shop fronts full of people sleeping, in the pouring rain and freezing cold, that it is the worst they have ever seen - the worst in their lives. What makes me angry is that we paid huge amounts of money to developers for turn-key housing at the top of the market, and although the Minister's Government inherited an opportunity to get a very good deal for the taxpayer by purchasing blocks of housing at the bottom of the market, it sat on its hands and let the opportunity pass.

What makes me angry is the fact that there are people working in this city earning a decent wage who cannot afford to pay their rent because rents are going through the roof. It makes me angry that the Minister, who is deputy leader of the Labour Party and sitting in a Chamber with a statue of James Connolly, cannot find it in his heart to take on the vested interests who put up rents in the city and all across the State. I am angry that he cannot confront greed and defend young people and young families who need to put a roof over their heads. I cannot understand how this crisis continues year after year. I have come to the view that it is now a policy, a decision of the Government to leave the market to itself while talking about capital plans and five-year investments. In reality, there is very little more on the table than would have been on it in the first place.

What is the Minister going to do about it? What is his strategy? What is the Government to do for my county, where almost 200 council houses and a very significant number of private sector houses are empty? There are almost 3,000 on the housing list. They are ordinary people. Sometimes the best wisdom is derived from speaking to everyday people. They ask me how there can be so many empty houses across County Donegal. They ask why the Government does not pull the banks and NAMA together and why there is no strategy to ensure the houses are accessed and that people will have a chance to have a roof over their heads. Why can the Government not ensure that people pay a reasonable rent reflecting what they earn in this city and across the State? How come the Government allocates the housing assistance payment or rent supplement at a level that means people have to find hundreds of extra euro to pay their rent? One will never get a house for the amount of money the Government allocates to people. It tells people it has given them housing assistance and rent supplement and is doing all of that but the reality, which the Minister knows, is that in any town or city across the State, the amount of money allocated does not reflect the rental values. If one goes to the local estate agent to find a property, one will need to pay hundreds of euro more than one is receiving if one is to rent it.

I say to "Angry Alan" that it is time to really find the right people to get angry with. It is time to have a strategy. It is time to go back to what his party is supposed to be about. He has only got a few months to save his bacon. I wish him all the best.

I thank the Deputy. I appreciate that.

I thank all Members who made a contribution to this debate. There were some very constructive contributions and others that were not so constructive. There is no doubt that this issue extends beyond party politics. We all need to work towards solutions and that is what our people expect and need.

I assure all the Members that the Minister and I are absolutely committed to dealing with housing. Only today, we met all local authority chief executives and directors of housing from all around the country to discuss their plans and ensure solid progress will be made on the implementation of the social housing strategy. We must remember that the local government sector comprises the housing authorities, and they have assured us that they are absolutely committed to delivering on the targets they have been set. These targets concern the projects they themselves submitted to us for approval. These projects have been approved. They are shovel ready in every local authority area in the country.

In the relatively short period I have to conclude the Government's contribution to this debate, I will try to focus on the key issues that arose during the Members' contributions over the past two evenings. With regard to homelessness, in the short term while housing supply is being ramped up and while the modular housing and other proposals are being developed further, a range of measures is being implemented to address the current homelessness issue and prevent further cases from arising.

With regard to tenancy protection, the tenancy sustainment protocol, operating in conjunction with Threshold in the Dublin and Cork city areas, continues to provide supports to persons in urban areas where supply problems are most acute. Over 1,200 of the 4,000 cases dealt with were supported with increased rent supplement limits on a case-by-case basis. Plans are actively under way to extend this protocol to Galway city, and officials from the Department of Social Protection are engaging on this with the council in Galway and Threshold.

With regard to the allocation of local authority tenancies, the ministerial direction issued by the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, which requires local authorities to prioritise the homeless and vulnerable householders in the allocation of tenancies under their control, has been extended and will apply until 31 January 2016. A high-level task force on social housing and homelessness, chaired by the Secretary General of the Department, meets weekly to oversee the identification and delivery of properties to accommodate homeless families in the Dublin region. This process has overseen the delivery of a NAMA property recently, an apartment block in south Dublin that is now operating as a 65-unit homelessness facility with a single assessment centre for the homeless families. The acquisition of approximately 100 units, which will be ring-fenced for homeless households, is currently in progress.

With regard to the local authority housing programme, I have already said and repeated today to the chief executives that the funding has been allocated. The project proposals submitted by the local authorities in all areas have been approved, but now we need to see them delivered.

I agree with speakers on boarded-up units in local authority ownership. It is not acceptable that they lie vacant when funding is being made available for them. I acknowledge that in the past, local authorities did not have the funding to do up the vacant units and bring them back into beneficial use. The required funding is now being provided and the chief executive officers of the local authorities are now committed to eradicating the voids in their jurisdictions, which voids have been referred to by many Deputies.

A significant programme of returning void local authority units to productive use is now in operation nationally and specifically in the Dublin City Council area, where approximately 500 units have been brought back into use to date this year. A further 180 projects are in progress and another 257 are planned. Over 2,300 void units were brought back into use last year. Funding for approximately 2,500 units is in place for 2015. Therefore, it is not fair to say there is no action on voids. The record speaks for itself.

Deputies might want to double-check their figures on voids because the picture painted today by the chief executives of the authorities offers a completely different perspective from theirs. There is a challenge for all of us. Local authorities are being funded. We said to them specifically today that if they have more voids that need funding, they will get it. I encourage Deputies to ask the chief executive officers and their local authorities to make their submissions. We are considering how we can streamline and shorten the local authority project delivery process.

Regarding what NAMA can deliver, 1,400 houses and apartments were delivered to local authorities and approved housing bodies for social housing use, and they are on track to deliver 4,500 new residential units in the greater Dublin area by the end of 2016.

There is much more I would like to say but I am constrained by the time limits. The Government is determined to deal with this crisis. As with everybody else, we understand the challenges that families face. We are representative of the very same families as the Deputies opposite. It behoves all of us, including the Opposition, Government, local authorities, councillors and society in general, to respond to this crisis in a proactive way because the people who need the houses are depending on us to deliver them. We will do all in our power to provide the funding but we need local authorities, approved housing bodies and everybody to get behind the effort to ensure we deliver the houses the people so badly need.

To be honest, what the Minister of State just said does not reflect the reality on the ground. My colleague Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn described the Minister as "Angry Alan". In my opinion, it is "Arrogant Alan".

Raise that as a solution.

All the platitudes; that will go down well.

Let me finish. One of the leading social justice campaigners, and probably one of the most noteworthy in the history of this State, Fr. Peter McVerry, pointed out to the Minister last February that what he, the Minister, announced last December following the death of a man not too far from this Chamber was not going to work. Fr. McVerry said it was actually going to fail and increase the number of people who are homeless. Does the Minister recall his response to Fr. Peter McVerry?

This is what he said about him.

The Deputy characterised it falsely.

Let me finish, Minister.

Deputy O'Brien has the floor.

This is the second time in a week that the Deputy has mischaracterised everything I have said.

I will quote the Minister.

It is arrogance.

He is mischaracterising what I said.

That is the Minister's problem. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and we might actually get-----

You will not tell me to keep my mouth shut.

How dare you.

No. How dare you, Minister. You come in here week after week-----

(Interruptions).

Through the Chair, Deputy.

I have the floor, so you might tell the Minister to dún do bhéal.

Remarks through the Chair, please, Deputy.

Petty party politics, that is what they want to do.

Do not talk to me about petty party politics. This is what the Minister said about the leading social justice campaigner, probably in the history of this State: "I'm used to those comments from him. I haven't heard him say one positive thing yet in relation to anything. I'd rather people were more constructive". What a load of rubbish.

I will now give the Minister another reality check. He talks about local authorities not stepping up to the mark, and says that he is providing the funding. He seems to forget that Fine Gael and Labour control the majority of those local authorities, so he should go and speak to his own members.

Well, in Cork he does not because he does not have any Labour councillors. That is his legacy in Cork.

What are you doing about it?

He controls nothing in Cork and after the next general election he will not have any Deputies either.

We will see about that.

To be honest, he will not even be here, only it is no difference to him.

We will see about that.

Is that all the Deputy can offer to the debate? Petty party politics.

Do not talk to me about debates. I know very well the effects of homelessness and the Minister knows the reasons why. It affects my family directly and I have spoken about that in the past. The responses I got from some of the Minister's own party colleagues go to show that it is not just he who is arrogant. The whole Labour Party is arrogant when it comes to homelessness.

In the time left, I want to talk briefly about some of the solutions. There are solutions which the Minister could implement immediately. I have a particular interest in drug addiction when it comes to homelessness. One of the biggest issues for recovering addicts is that when they come out of rehab they do not have step-down facilities. They are being forced back into homeless hostels where drug use is rampant in many cases. That is not the environment into which we should put people who are trying to beat addiction.

In addition, some people on the methadone programme may be getting their methadone administered through a homeless hostel. Last week, I met one young girl in an accident and emergency department who, for whatever reason, had a falling out with a particular hostel. It should be remembered that we are dealing with people who have chronic addiction and mental health issues. As she was asked to leave the hostel, she slept that night in a multi-storey car park and missed her methadone that day.

The following day she went to the accident and emergency department in Cork to try to get some methadone. However, due to the delays in our health service and because they would not administer methadone until she had a psychological evaluation and had spoken to a psychiatrist, she missed her methadone for a second day. Anyone who knows anything about addiction will know that if someone does not take their methadone for 48 hours they have to go back to a 20 millilitre dose. This young girl was on 70 millilitres at the time. However, because of a policy failure which forced this girl back on to the streets, she could not access methadone and had to start again at 20 millilitres, which was insufficient. Her only solution, rightly or wrongly, was to go back out and start using heroin again. That is the reality.

Over 50% of people on our housing lists are single persons. They have no hope of being housed under the Minister's social housing building programme. He is talking about houses for families, which is all well and good, but not every homeless person is part of a family. There are individuals with mental health issues, drug addiction and other social issues that prevent them from independent living.

The Minister has been talking recently about how we are going to solve the crisis by building 150 modular houses. That is great. The 150 houses will cater for those who will become homeless this month and next month, but no one else will benefit. The Minister says it is an interim measure but unfortunately I do not believe that. Direct provision was supposed to be an interim measure, as was housing people in hostels and hotels, yet they are now becoming permanent measures.

The Minister talks about the RAS and HAP schemes as solutions. I do not know what it is like in the Minister's county council in Tipperary, but I know what is happening in Cork City Council. People come to my constituency office asking to get out of RAS because it is not working for them. They are in sub-standard accommodation. That is the reality.

I do not want to eat into Deputy Ellis's time because I know he wants to conclude the debate. I will therefore finish on this point. The Minister is right to say that we all have to work together, but we can only do so if the Minister is willing to sit down and listen to people like us and Fr. Peter McVerry, and not criticise us. The Minister should not say he has all the solutions while we do not have any. We have solutions and we need to implement them. The first thing the Minister should do is declare a national emergency.

I thank everyone for their contributions to the debate. I commend all those who help and support the homeless. Volunteers who deliver meals, hot drinks, clothes and other supports have bailed out this Government, as well as the previous one, by their duty.

It is clear from the Minister's amendment and his response to our Private Member's Bill that he and his Government colleagues are failing to recognise the extent and depth of this crisis. He talks about this crisis using the language of the business world, with an emphasis on Ireland's competitiveness. A more humane approach in his analysis is needed, however, given the extent to which homelessness affects the lives of so many people - men, women and particularly children.

The Minister has conceded that this crisis is a humanitarian one, yet there was little of that sentiment in his response to the opening debate on this motion yesterday evening. He has listened as speaker after speaker called on him to take action in elevating the status of this situation to what is fundamentally needed, which is the declaration of an emergency. In the Minister's speech on this debate yesterday evening there was a complete absence of any reference to our proposal to liaise with the European Commission in declaring an emergency. Over three years ago, the Government announced that it would end homelessness by 2016 but the Minister has failed in this and the Government has repeatedly failed to tackle the crisis.

When Jonathan Corrie died last Christmas, the Minister pulled together housing bodies, local authority CEOs, charity groups and politicians for an emergency meeting from which he emerged claiming to have worked out an effective response to the crisis. In this he has failed miserably, however. It is also true that far from ending the crisis, the number of people sleeping rough on the streets nightly has doubled to 130 since Jonathan Corrie's death - a stark reality compounded by the death of another homeless person near Leinster House last week.

I wish to point to the Minister's current allocation of €493 million so far this year to local authorities and housing bodies to construct just 2,900 units. This level of provision is totally inadequate and is far from ambitious. It is clear that given only an average of 400 social housing units have been delivered annually for the last three years, the Minister's entire strategy hinges on the private sector delivering further rental and leasing agreements, with a transition to HAP.

The voluntary housing bodies are delivering more due to their ability to borrow from the Housing Finance Agency in addition to other financial institutions. This tells us that the plan the Minister announced a year ago for a six-year programme with investment of €3.8 billion in total - €2.5 billion for the first three years and €1.3 billion for the remaining three - is not delivering. The first year of the programme is already over and there is little evidence to support claims of any great success in social housing provision. Our Bill proposes the renewal of the financial contribution scheme for senior citizens, which would provide a significant contribution to be retained and ring-fenced for future social housing. I call on the Minister to reinstate this scheme.

We acknowledge benefits around elements of the Urban Regeneration Bill introduced earlier this year, particularly around ending get-out clauses for developers. However, we call on the Government to restore the original 20% for social and affordable housing under Part V in order to bring the position here into line with other European countries. We see this as an appeasement of the Minister's Fine Gael colleagues and developers in general. Local authority senior management seems have limited its remit to the operation of social housing lists and in general terms, moving away from the issue of social housing delivery itself. Does the Minister believe that the ideological persuasions of some chief executives and senior management could have an influence on this shift of focus? Does he see them as a block or hindrance to the delivery of social housing? If so, what will he do?

Regarding the role of NAMA, we welcome the conversion of office, retail and former residential property space into accommodation but this process needs to be accelerated. We call on the Government to introduce emergency legislation to change the function of NAMA to maximise social gain through the transfer of NAMA properties to local authorities. This would take the function of NAMA beyond the provision of a social dividend and solidify its role in the State's development of social housing, which will benefit the taxpayer in the long term.

There are several factors feeding into this crisis, as the Minister stated yesterday evening. The staggering increase in homelessness is a result of uncontrolled rent levels, predominantly in large urban centres. Not only are those people on rent supplement and RAS at severe risk of homelessness but those with jobs are absolutely squeezed and forced to live in substandard conditions as they cannot afford ever increasing rents. I welcome any acknowledgement on the Minister's part that rents must be regulated. However, given that the country has slipped into a state of emergency, I call on him to take immediate action to introduce rent control and security of tenure, as this Bill proposes.

The mortgage to rent scheme has delivered just over 100 units throughout the country, an appalling return on a scheme that has the potential to be maximised, ensuring people remain in their homes. In addition, considering the current rates of mortgage arrears, mortgage to rent, in conjunction with an urgent cap on mortgage interest rates, could be implemented by the Government to help address the difficult situation facing people in mortgage distress.

We believe that every citizen of this country has a right to adequate provision of housing to ensure a quality of life for all our people. We call on the Government to support our solutions to this crisis and to recognise the degree to which this crisis has pervaded our society. With that in mind, we call on the Minister and all Deputies in this House to support our Private Members' motion. We reject any attempts to water down or amend what is a very important Private Members' motion with massive repercussions for our people and their rights.

Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 69; Níl, 39.

  • Bannon, James.
  • Barry, Tom.
  • Breen, Pat.
  • Butler, Ray.
  • Buttimer, Jerry.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Cannon, Ciarán.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Coffey, Paudie.
  • Collins, Áine.
  • Conaghan, Michael.
  • Conlan, Seán.
  • Conway, Ciara.
  • Coonan, Noel.
  • Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
  • Costello, Joe.
  • Creed, Michael.
  • Daly, Jim.
  • Deasy, John.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • Deering, Pat.
  • Doherty, Regina.
  • Donohoe, Paschal.
  • Dowds, Robert.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • Farrell, Alan.
  • Feighan, Frank.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Hannigan, Dominic.
  • Harrington, Noel.
  • Harris, Simon.
  • Hayes, Tom.
  • Heydon, Martin.
  • Humphreys, Kevin.
  • Keating, Derek.
  • Kelly, Alan.
  • Kyne, Seán.
  • Lawlor, Anthony.
  • Lynch, Ciarán.
  • Lynch, Kathleen.
  • Lyons, John.
  • McCarthy, Michael.
  • McEntee, Helen.
  • McFadden, Gabrielle.
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • McLoughlin, Tony.
  • McNamara, Michael.
  • Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
  • Mulherin, Michelle.
  • Murphy, Dara.
  • Neville, Dan.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Donnell, Kieran.
  • O'Donovan, Patrick.
  • O'Dowd, Fergus.
  • O'Mahony, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Jan.
  • Perry, John.
  • Phelan, John Paul.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Ryan, Brendan.
  • Shatter, Alan.
  • Spring, Arthur.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Tuffy, Joanna.
  • Wall, Jack.
  • White, Alex.

Níl

  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Collins, Joan.
  • Collins, Niall.
  • Colreavy, Michael.
  • Coppinger, Ruth.
  • Cowen, Barry.
  • Crowe, Seán.
  • Daly, Clare.
  • Doherty, Pearse.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Ellis, Dessie.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Fitzmaurice, Michael.
  • Fleming, Sean.
  • Grealish, Noel.
  • Halligan, John.
  • Healy, Seamus.
  • Higgins, Joe.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • McDonald, Mary Lou.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McLellan, Sandra.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Murphy, Catherine.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • O'Brien, Jonathan.
  • O'Sullivan, Maureen.
  • Pringle, Thomas.
  • Shortall, Róisín.
  • Smith, Brendan.
  • Stanley, Brian.
  • Troy, Robert.
  • Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Joe Carey and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Dessie Ellis and Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
Amendment declared carried.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to."
The Dáil divided by electronic means.

As a teller, under Standing Order 69 I propose that the vote be taken by other than electronic means.

As Deputy Ellis is a Whip, under Standing Order 69 he is entitled to call a vote through the lobby.

Question again put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 68; Níl, 40.

  • Bannon, James.
  • Barry, Tom.
  • Breen, Pat.
  • Butler, Ray.
  • Buttimer, Jerry.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Cannon, Ciarán.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Coffey, Paudie.
  • Collins, Áine.
  • Conaghan, Michael.
  • Conlan, Seán.
  • Conway, Ciara.
  • Coonan, Noel.
  • Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
  • Costello, Joe.
  • Creed, Michael.
  • Daly, Jim.
  • Deasy, John.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • Deering, Pat.
  • Doherty, Regina.
  • Donohoe, Paschal.
  • Dowds, Robert.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • Farrell, Alan.
  • Feighan, Frank.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Hannigan, Dominic.
  • Harrington, Noel.
  • Harris, Simon.
  • Hayes, Tom.
  • Heydon, Martin.
  • Humphreys, Kevin.
  • Keating, Derek.
  • Kelly, Alan.
  • Kyne, Seán.
  • Lawlor, Anthony.
  • Lynch, Ciarán.
  • Lynch, Kathleen.
  • Lyons, John.
  • McCarthy, Michael.
  • McEntee, Helen.
  • McFadden, Gabrielle.
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • McLoughlin, Tony.
  • McNamara, Michael.
  • Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
  • Mulherin, Michelle.
  • Murphy, Dara.
  • Neville, Dan.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Donnell, Kieran.
  • O'Donovan, Patrick.
  • O'Dowd, Fergus.
  • O'Mahony, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Jan.
  • Perry, John.
  • Phelan, John Paul.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Ryan, Brendan.
  • Shatter, Alan.
  • Spring, Arthur.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Wall, Jack.
  • White, Alex.

Níl

  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Collins, Joan.
  • Collins, Niall.
  • Colreavy, Michael.
  • Coppinger, Ruth.
  • Cowen, Barry.
  • Crowe, Seán.
  • Daly, Clare.
  • Doherty, Pearse.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Ellis, Dessie.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Fitzmaurice, Michael.
  • Fleming, Sean.
  • Fleming, Tom.
  • Halligan, John.
  • Healy, Seamus.
  • Higgins, Joe.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
  • McDonald, Mary Lou.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McLellan, Sandra.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Murphy, Catherine.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • O'Brien, Jonathan.
  • O'Sullivan, Maureen.
  • Pringle, Thomas.
  • Shortall, Róisín.
  • Smith, Brendan.
  • Stanley, Brian.
  • Troy, Robert.
  • Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Joe Carey and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Dessie Ellis and Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
Question declared carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.40 p.m. until 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1 October 2015.
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