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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 6 Jul 2022

Vol. 1025 No. 1

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí (Atógáil) - Leaders' Questions (Resumed)

Families are being desperately squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis, especially the back-to-school costs that so many are facing. We saw a credit union survey this morning showing the cost per child being between €1,100 and €1,500. I spoke with a mother this morning who is budgeting for the school term ahead. She tells me that the cost of sending her two children to school this September has risen by €1,500 compared with this time last year. This is an enormous increase for any family. Amid rising costs of food, fuel, transport, childcare and housing, this price increase will have serious implications and ramifications for her household budget and the budgets of many households across the country. The credit unions told us that about one third of families go into debt to pay the cost of being back to school. The mother I spoke with joked that between the cost of returning to school and other rising costs, her credit union's loans department will be on speed dial for the rest of this year.

There were welcome concessions from the Government on back-to-school costs last night but they are simply not enough. There was no radical move to introduce the free school books scheme that my colleague, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, proposed. It would cost €40 million but would make a significant difference to many families. There was no move to increase eligibility for the back-to-school allowance, which could be done with the stroke of a pen and would make a real difference. There was no move for real reform of the outdated school transport system either. We need a bigger vision with more substantive change. We have called for a real cost-of-living budget, not one which will introduce mere piecemeal reform. We welcome the date being brought forward, but as my colleague, Deputy Nash, said, it is really a token exercise, because it has only been brought forward by two weeks. We have called for more targeted measures to be introduced now to ensure that families and households have excellent supports as they go through that critical time when children go back to school. Instead, we see suggestions that the Government will introduce vote-winning tax cuts at the expense of real cost-of-living measures to support hard-pressed families and households.

Will the Minister avoid skirting round the edges and make real, substantive changes in the budget, based on a practical way of improving conditions for many families and households? We know the cost-of-living crisis is not an abstract concept. It is felt by households across the country, including households which had incomes which, this time last year, were sufficient and adequate to meet their household expenses and bills, yet they are now facing a desperate situation where they simply cannot afford and are dreading going back to school.

I would make the case that providing a free hot meal to a child in a DEIS school is real change. This Government has expanded the DEIS programme by the single largest amount ever, to include more than 300 schools. It is the right thing to do. Deputies have all issued press releases with the details of what schools in their constituencies were given DEIS band 1 and band 2 status in recent months, because they know the value of it and the benefits afforded to schools by being given DEIS status. They are given DEIS status because it is warranted. They accommodate children from communities which, in many instances, are disadvantaged, suffer from social deprivation and need extra help. This Government expanded the number of pupils in our school system who will get a free hot meal every day by 60,000. It is an important intervention that represents real change and makes a real difference to the lives of children and parents. We make the case that that is a radical intervention by the Government.

Similarly, school transport is provided for free to those who qualify. All ticket holders availing of the school transport scheme will not face any charge for the 2022-23 school year. In rural Ireland in particular, in the absence of a school transport scheme, parents could face a long commute when fuel costs are high to get their children to and from school. This measure will make a real difference for many families, providing up to €500. It can be spread between two payments, in July and November, but many parents try to pay it in July to get it done. They will not have to do so now.

We are changing the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. We acknowledge that it will not go far enough for many, but it is a genuine effort by the Government to help and to make a difference. It comes on the back of all the other initiatives that we have taken since the last budget to address the cost-of-living crisis, which is not a crisis for everyone, but for many. We have been advised time and again that when we make interventions, they should be targeted at those who need it the most. I do not think anyone can argue that those who qualify for the back-to-school allowance are not those who need it the most. We are giving them extra help. In the budget, we expanded the eligibility criteria, especially for single parents, who will now have the same income test as a couple who are applying for the back-to-school allowance.

We welcome any targeted interventions that will improve conditions and the situation for struggling families and households but it is simply not enough. There are families and households that had sufficient income last year who now require better, more urgent State intervention to support. As we see in Northern Ireland, the free school books scheme could make a real difference, as could reforms to the school transport system, which has many discrepancies.

We in the Labour Party have been standing in solidarity with the most hard-pressed, including section 39 workers and members of the Irish Wheelchair Association and its staff, who have not seen a pay rise in 14 years. This group needs additional supports to deal with the cost-of-living crisis and they need a pay rise. Ireland needs a pay rise generally. People need more money in their pockets at the end of the week in order that they can meet rising costs for many basic commodities, including housing. Will the Minister engage with section 39 organisations to ensure that their staff get a pay rise?

Many of them have been doing much front-line work through the pandemic and continue to do so now but yet, they simply are not earning enough to meet the rising costs we are seeing as we come into the back-to-school season.

For any family looking at costs it feels it cannot meet and that currently is above the income eligibility criteria for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance, it should reach out for help to the Department of Social Protection. There is an additional needs payment available there and the cost of returning the child back to school is a qualifying cost. As the Deputy is aware, we have made changes to the eligibility criteria for that additional needs payment. People who are working full time can now qualify. Of course the Department will examine every individual case and this is what we would expect the Department to do. The Department has received a clear signal from the Government that these cases are to be looked at sympathetically, recognising the fact that people are facing extra costs at this time.

The Deputy also raised the issue of the industrial relations dispute. The workers concerned are not directly employed as public service employees, which I believe the Deputy understands and acknowledges. The State provides funding to the Irish Wheelchair Association, and many other section 39 organisations. It is for the employer and the workers to engage and use the industrial relations machinery that is there at the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to come to an acceptable agreement on pay. There have been increases in funding from the State to all of these bodies in recent years. It is a matter for the bodies themselves to manage that budget and to make pay arrangements with the workers concerned.

There are too many aspects to count in this Government's failure to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. Possibly, the worst of them all is the really catastrophic failure of the Government to deal with the housing crisis that is gripping this country. It is a housing "disaster", as Fr. Peter McVerry rightly put it. That failure means that we now have more than 10,300 families, including more than 3,000 children, who are homeless. There are 120,000 families and households waiting on various housing lists. We also have the vast majority of young and middle-aged working people who simply cannot afford the housing costs they face.

Today we have had further evidence, in a report produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, that this housing crisis is inflicting incredible hardship on people now, being unable to pay the rents being charged and being unable to purchase homes. Moreover, the ESRI is now warning that the current generation of young workers and middle-aged workers are going to be put in a far worse position when they reach pension age than the generations before them. Even though the Government says it is in favour of home ownership, such are the house prices now that huge numbers of people will never ever be able to own their own home. The Government's own housing needs assessment for my area suggests that of the new households to be formed from now on, nobody in my area will be able to afford the house prices. Nobody. This means people will be prey to and trapped in a rental market when they become pensioners. When their income drops, they will be prey to the insecure possibility, even as pensioners, that they could be evicted.

This all comes on top of another ESRI report from just one month ago that stated the number of households in need of support from the Government to provide them with accommodation has increased massively, while the actual level of support has dropped. Whereas 47% of people used to get social housing eligibility or support, this has dropped to 33%, which is a massive stealth cut in housing support made available by the Government. Since last December the Government has sat on a report about raising the income threshold and has refused, despite promises, to give us the outcome of that report. What is the Government going to do in response to the ESRI reports? The ESRI is a Government-funded body. Will the Government listen to it? Will the Government immediately raise income thresholds for social housing support?

The Deputy's time is up.

Will the Government finally bring in some rent controls to control rents so they are affordable? Will the Government start to deliver the social and affordable housing that means people who are working and struggling can afford a secure and affordable roof over their head?

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett. As a Government, we do fund the ESRI, which does outstanding work. It is important that we have bodies such as the ESRI providing an independent analysis of what the Government is doing about the challenges we face as a country, and we take the output from the ESRI very seriously. The report's key conclusion is that interventions, including increased supply, increased direct provision of social housing, and measures that develop alternative non-market rental cohorts, such as cost rental, will be critical to lowering housing costs for future cohorts. I make the case that we as a Government are pursuing aggressively all of those avenues through the Housing For All plan. We are the Government that is prioritising home ownership. We are introducing new affordable housing initiatives. We will have the launch of the new shared equity first home scheme imminently by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. This will provide an opportunity for a lot of people to bridge the gap between what they can currently afford to borrow under market prudential rules and the amount they must pay for a home at this time. It seems to be only the Deputies on this side of the House who see this as an issue and want to help individuals and couples in that situation. In addition, the Land Development Agency, LDA, through its Project Tosaigh is identifying opportunities for development of social housing, cost rental housing, and affordable housing. They are moving on site across the country across a range of different schemes.

We also recognise the importance of the fresh start principle, that there are many people who have gone through a divorce or legal separation or who have perhaps lost their home because of bankruptcy or an insolvency procedure. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has adopted this principle so that all of the affordable housing initiatives the Government is rolling out, and the local authority loan scheme that has been approved, are to be made available to people who need that second chance to purchase a home as well.

We are in the middle of the largest public housing programme in the history of the State. This is what the Government is doing. We have committed €4 billion of capital every single year for the next number of years to make sure that we increase the supply of all types of homes, but especially public housing and social housing, whether it is delivered by local authorities or by approved housing bodies. For the first time ever, cost rental housing is now coming on stream in Ireland. For the first time ever, affordable housing is now directly enshrined in stand-alone legislation, which only the Government parties in this House supported. We want to get away from the short-term rental supports. I agree with the Deputy on that point. When I look at what we are paying in housing assistance payments, HAP, which is a €585 million in the budget this year, with the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, costing €133 million and rent supplement costing €80 million, the best way to get away from that is to build homes for our people and that is what this Government is focused on doing.

Why has the Government not announced the details of the review on the income eligibility thresholds for social housing and social housing support, despite a promise that this would be done before the summer recess? I will tell the House why. It is because the Government is terrified of what it will show about social housing need in this country and the cost to the State. The LDA has been in existence for four years with not one single social or affordable house delivered. I repeat, it is not one single house from the LDA. The first one that will be delivered in my area is not due until 2024. Average house prices in Dublin are €509,000. One would need a salary of €150,000 per year in order to get a mortgage on a property like that. The Government's affordable housing schemes are linked to a discount on that absolutely obscene price. In my area, average house prices are €700,000. A whole future generation of young people and working people will never be able to own their own home and will be prey to obscene rents that are being charged of €2,000 and €2,200 per month.

Please, the Deputy's time is up.

They will never be able to save and they will never be able to aspire to owning their own home. The Government has failed them completely and it will not even give these people eligibility for social housing support. It is obscene.

All of the Government’s interventions help people to buy a home. The Deputy has opposed and stood against all of the policy decisions and legislation that the Government has brought forward to support people to buy a home, whether it be the help to buy scheme, the setting up of the Land Development Agency, which had to be put on a statutory footing-----

Which has not delivered one house in four years - not one.

It is now on a statutory footing and Government has approved Shanganagh, for example, which will provide almost 600 homes.

The first house, six years later.

The Deputy has opposed all of the affordable housing initiatives, including the shared-equity first home scheme. He is great at the rhetoric. He comes in here and talks about helping people to buy a home.

How much will the affordable homes cost in Shanganagh?

Deputy, please do not interrupt.

Every time the Government makes an intervention to assist people to buy a home, the Deputy stands against it. That is the reality. This is the only way of addressing this massive challenge that we face as a country. We acknowledge that for many people, home ownership now seems to be out of reach. We have to address that and bridge that gap. We do that through a massive public capital investment programme led by the State. The State is now leading on the housing market. This Government will stand behind that and make sure it is fully funded and delivered for the remainder of our term.

The number of renters being obliged to leave their homes is staggering. Last year, 3,038 households renting were served a notice to quit, mainly because the landlord was selling. This is the highest number of tenant evictions to take place in a single year since the foundation of the State. The number of families facing eviction has continued unabated into this year.

Renters are living in fear and insecurity. They are terrified of losing their home and facing the impossible task of finding somewhere else to rent. A quarter of all children are growing up in an insecure private rental sector. That is 281,000 children. For a child, stability and security are fundamental to enable them to develop and grow.

I have two examples of families who came to my constituency office last week. There was a young couple with one young child who got the go-ahead to self-accommodate. The woman was on the phone ringing the hotels around Dublin city. Councillor Pat Dunne was on the phone to the family support unit. She eventually got a room that was available and the family support officer agreed. However, the hotel priced the room at €460 a night, without even breakfast. The officer refused to pay that amount of money and said it was above the amount they could afford.

Another woman with two teenagers will be homeless this week. Councillor Pat Dunne contacted the family support unit, which replied that the person had notified the unit last month. They were eligible for homeless HAP and the family support unit continued to say that she stated the need for two bedrooms. It advised that in emergency accommodation only one bedroom would be provided, if even one was available on the day, as its service was currently at capacity. There was no availability in the hubs. It had three other families on top of these cases, who were resorting to sofa surfing and outstaying their welcome. Families are splitting up children among friends or family. The numbers presenting are greater than the numbers leaving the system at the moment.

Given the prices and unavailability in hotels, bed and breakfasts and hubs, my fear is we will have families back sleeping in cars or going to Garda stations. We advise people who come into us before they actually leave to overhold if they have nowhere to go, and that is stressful in itself for families. On the radio, one man said he was advised to go to a Garda station.

The housing crisis is scarring a generation of children. Hundreds of thousands of children are growing up in this country not knowing what is like to live in a stable, secure and safe home. In May of last year, official figures showed 928 families and their 2,148 children were homeless. In March of this year, that number rose to 2,811 children, which is a 37% increase in homeless children.

It beyond time for a real housing emergency response from the Government. One major response is the reinstatement of the eviction ban for two years and, at a minimum, to introduce a rent freeze. How does the Government propose to support these families and resolve the crisis, not in the future, but now?

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. She highlighted a number of individual cases that underline a real crisis for those individuals and families. If she wants to provide the details of those individual cases to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, I have no doubt that he will follow up. While the emergency accommodation system is undoubtedly under strain, emergency accommodation will be found for people who really need it.

The real answer for us as a country is to build more public housing. That is what we are back to doing now at scale as a country. There will be about 9,000 direct build social houses this year by our councils and approved housing bodies. That is what will help to provide permanent homes for people who are currently on the housing list and in some cases, unfortunately, are in emergency accommodation because they are effectively homeless. It is an absolute priority for the Government to address that issue. The availability of hotel accommodation at this time, as we all know, is under strain due to various reasons, including the fact that we have accommodated a very large number of refugees who have come to our country fleeing war, which is the right thing to do, and we have obligations to them as well. However, it has placed the system under pressure. There can be no question about that. We are working very closely with a whole range of service providers in this sector. We are providing much funding to different service providers to ensure that people who are in real need are afforded accommodation into the future.

The key thing is to make progress on the supply of new homes across all of the different types, because that is ultimately the best way to relieve some pressure in the system. If we are building more homes and we have a flow of people going from one type of tenure to another, for example, if people on the list are receiving a council home, which are being built now at record numbers, that frees up capacity within the current emergency accommodation system for people who currently do not have accommodation.

We fully understand the scale of this challenge, which for so many people – the more than 10,000 in emergency accommodation - has reached a real crisis point. It is our priority to address that by increasing supply and providing the support from the Exchequer to all of the service providers, local authorities, approved housing bodies and the LDA to provide more cost rental, affordable purchase and social homes. We are making progress on that front. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, will be laying out again in the days ahead further steps on affordable housing initiatives.

These families are facing this crisis now. People are walking into our constituency office, and I am sure every other Deputy is seeing that in his or her constituency office, with notices to quit and all sorts of housing problems. They have been told by the family support and emergency accommodation units that they are at capacity - they do not have anywhere to put them.

Either the Government gives a direction to the family support unit to pay whatever the hotels want or demand for accommodation or it suddenly gets vacant housing on board tomorrow. This situation is here and now. It cannot wait until houses are built in two or three years’ time.

In our area we are waiting for housing to be built in St. Michael’s Estate. That was raised in 2019 and we are still waiting for bricks to be put down on the ground. When the Minister talks about future housing, he is talking about in the future. There is a crisis now in emergency accommodation. The Government needs to address it before it gets worse.

It will be addressed. We acknowledge the strain that is there in relation to the provision of emergency accommodation at this time. I attend all of the housing Cabinet committee meetings where we go into detail on all of the strands of this. The Government is working collectively, using every resource available to us to make sure that accommodation generally is made available to meet all of the needs that are there. If people need emergency accommodation, they will get the support they need.

As I said, we are providing a huge amount of support through short-term rent supports. We want to move away from that because we want people to have security of tenure and we want the State to be getting better value than paying hundreds of millions of euro in short-term rental supports.

We have to acknowledge that the dearth of rental accommodation is in part because of the number of landlords who have been leaving the system. We have to ask ourselves collectively why it is the case that thousands of landlords are making the decision at a time of high rents-----

-----to get out of the market. Those are questions that need to be answered as well because we need an adequate supply of rental accommodation, which currently is falling. It falls to us in this House to make decisions that ensure that is a continued adequate supply of rental accommodation in the private sector. It is an important part of the overall system.

Let us have the debate before the summer recess.

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