The next item of business is statements on the action plan for housing.
Action Plan for Housing: Statements
The schedule I have indicates that they are to be taken at 2.30 p.m.
Do not mind the schedule; what counts is what is agreed to on the Order of Business. It was agreed on the Order of Business that statements on the action plan for housing would be taken at the conclusion of No. 1, with the time allocated for the debate not to exceed two hours. I invite the Minister to speak.
How much time do I have?
It is a two-hour debate and there is no restriction on the Minister, but I have no doubt that he will be reasonable.
It is good to see the new Members of the House. I ask Senator Billy Lawless to pass on my good wishes to Billy Jnr. when he sees him.
I will.
I am particularly pleased to speak in the Seanad on Rebuilding Ireland which we launched yesterday. It is the Government's new action plan for housing and homelessness. It is a very significant effort by the Government to start a process by which, in time, it will fix a broken property market and respond more effectively to the needs of very vulnerable people who find themselves homeless and to the complexity of those needs. We will start to deliver a dramatic increase in the building of social housing and make a big impact on the private sector in terms of getting enough houses of the right quality and at affordable prices built in the right places. This will create some normality in the property and housing market in Ireland.
There is no need to tell people that there is both a broken rental market and a broken housing market. Last year, approximately 12,600 houses were built. A total of 6,000 of those were one-off houses across the countryside. Of the other 6,000, a large portion were from finishing out unfinished housing estates or unfinished apartment complexes. A relatively small percentage of the total were new builds that started in the last couple of years. The extent of the challenge we face is significant in terms of getting to a point where we are building approximately 30,000 housing units per year, which is what Ireland needs. We must increase, quite dramatically, the percentage of social housing built as part of those 30,000 housing units. We have committed €5.5 billion of public money from now to the end of 2021. A sum of €200 million from that will be in an infrastructure fund which will enable us to open up sites that are currently not moving to construction because of added infrastructure costs and so forth, which developers must shoulder and therefore cannot make the margin they believe they need to be able to progress with the project. However, €5.35 billion is for directly providing 47,000 social housing units.
From my perspective, that is the heart of this plan. Ireland's overall housing mix has 7% to 8% social housing, which is a long way behind the rest of Europe where the average is approximately 17%. There has been an over-emphasis on reliance on the private sector to deliver for social housing need in Ireland through rent supplement, the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS. When the rental market gets really squeezed as it is, where we simply do not have enough housing units in that market and rents are being driven up, it causes huge pressures on vulnerable low-income families and drives them out of rental accommodation. It is also causing a steady increase in homelessness each week, be it individual rough sleepers or families who are homeless. The State requires a more co-ordinated and determined response to it, with a sense of urgency, which I intend to provide, and the financial backing on which the Government has signed off. I believe the outcomes over time will dramatically improve the outcomes for the many families who find themselves in pressurised situations.
The plan we have put together has five pillars.
While it is not the perfect solution and does not provide all the answers, it is a significant step in the right direction. Other measures will be added to the plan as we move forward. At budget time, for example, a tax package will be introduced specifically to support first-time buyers who are seeking to buy new homes. This will provide an incentive for developers to build more new homes for first-time buyers. This type of home is not being built in the quantities or at the price needed because many developers have concluded that first-timer buyers cannot afford to buy homes at the price builders can afford to build them. I will return to the issue of first-time buyers.
We are starting this overall plan with five pillars and it is not an accident that homelessness is the first chapter or pillar. I will not stand over the current circumstances in which hundreds of families are living for long periods in hotel and bed and breakfast emergency accommodation. This is not acceptable in a decent society and we will change it. For this reason, I have stated that within 12 months, we will no longer use hotel accommodation other than in exceptional circumstances and for small numbers of people. We must provide more sustainable homes, even if these are provided on a temporary basis. Children are growing up in hotel rooms without a kitchen or play room and with insufficient space. They are sleeping every night in the same bed as their parents who have to take them outside to walk around the city for exercise or to try to find a playground and bring them to and from school. This is not how a state should look after its children and, as I stated, we will change this. While this will take some time, I am determined to change the position and hope many others will help me do so.
In my political lifetime, family homelessness has never been the significant issue it is today, although we have often dealt with and discussed homelessness among individuals who were sleeping rough and so on. The solution to family homelessness is simple, namely, we must find housing units for most of the affected families. While some have challenges caused by family breakdown or mental health issues and require additional supports, the majority of the families concerned simply need a house or housing unit. We need to address this issue by expanding the rapid building house programme. The programme will be trebled in terms of ambition from building 500 units to building 1,500 units. We will force this issue and achieve this target.
We are also allocating €70 million to the Housing Agency to start a purchase programme for vacant properties. Homeless families will be prioritised in using some of these acquisitions and, over time, the agency will be geared up to purchase approximately 1,600 houses.
We are also examining the provision of additional supports for homeless families. I have been working with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katherine Zappone, a former Senator, to produce more targeted and effective support programmes. We have, for example, signed off on free use of the public transport system for homeless families. We will also introduce nutrition and health programmes, ensure children attend school and receive the education they need and provide the supports children and families living in emergency accommodation require.
This is not aspirational. We have agreed to provide the Health Service Executive with a significant increase in its funding for homeless persons. This year the HSE has a €2 million fund for providing supports to homeless persons. This figure will treble to €6 million next year. We also have an agreement with the HSE to work with a service provider which is seeking planning permission for a large addiction detoxification facility in the inner city. We have agreed that the HSE will staff the facility once it has been built at a cost of approximately €2.25 million per annum. The HSE contribution for homeless services could, therefore, increase from €2 million this year to €8.25 million within a few years. This will ensure we are not simply focused on trying to find housing units for people but also trying to rebuild their lives in terms of helping them to take on the challenges they face, whether they are medical, mental health or addiction problems or a combination thereof. This is the least vulnerable people, many of whom are fighting for their very survival, can expect from their Government.
We are also trying to build on what works. It is planned to provide 100 housing units in Dublin under the successful Housing First model. I understand 54 of these 100 units have been provided so far this year and we intend to treble the target to 300 next year because we know this model works. In simple terms, this means providing a person who is experiencing troubles or difficulties with a house first and subsequently developing infrastructure and a support system around the person and making these supports work in helping him or her to rebuild his or her life. Having the stability afforded by a home dramatically increases the likelihood of success and while this approach gives rise to social challenges, for example, objections from communities that do not like it, this is what we are endeavouring to do.
In terms of the response to homelessness, we want to end our reliance on hotels for homeless families within 12 months. We also want to increase the support services provided by the Health Service Executive in the areas of primary health care, addiction and mental health and to respond to many other physical and medical challenges faced by rough sleepers who face uncertainty night after night. Some of them must make a telephone call at 10.30 p.m. to try to get into a hostel such as the Brú Aimsir facility. We must also ensure sufficient emergency accommodation is in place before winter.
Last night we released the figures for homelessness for June. While the increase in numbers has not been at the same pace as it was some months ago, the number off homeless persons continues to increase and the figures are stark when compared with last year.
There is a determination in the action plan to try to respond to, address and work with people who find themselves homeless to secure much better outcomes for themselves and their families. We also want to avoid people becoming homeless in the first instance by providing new supports for people in mortgage arrears and relaunching the mortgage-to-rent scheme, which has not worked for the numbers expected and must be rethought.
Social housing is the second pillar of the plan. Last year all of the local authorities combined built 72 social houses. While they acquired many more housing units and brought approximately 3,500 voids into use, which was a major success, we are in the ha'penny place in terms of where we need to be in building new units managed by local authorities. We will change this. We have already provided many more staff to enable local authorities to gear up for the new approach. We now need to deliver, which means working in partnership with local authorities, rather than having me beat them with a stick. Partnership must take the form of project management to ensure projects are completed and the streamlining of decision making processes. We have sufficient money to do this in a substantial way.
We have set a target of having 47,000 social houses built by the end of 2021 and €5.3 billion has been committed to achieving it. This is a significant portion of the resources available to the Government and a signal of intent that this issue is our No. 1 priority. We will also rely on and work with the National Treasury Management Agency to try to create off-balance sheet funding mechanisms to deliver significantly more social housing. Of the 47,000 social houses we want to build, approximately 5,000 will be delivered by a NTMA backed vehicle that will fund, in the main, approved housing bodies to build or purchase social housing. We could significantly increase the figure of 5,000 if this approach works and EUROSTAT and the European Commission confirm that the funding for it is considered off-balance sheet.
While the establishment of a housing delivery office sounds like a classic political solution to a problem, in this case, the position is different.
Some people have said we should set up a housing authority separate from the Department. I think we would spend the next 12 or 18 months trying to do that and trying to get it right. I am hand-picking and head-hunting the most talented people I can find. They will be put in a wing of the Custom House, where they will work as project managers. They will have autonomy in my Department. Some of them will be experts from local authorities who know how the system works and others will come from the private sector with expertise in project management. They will report to me every fortnight. Their simple role will be to make the rebuilding of Ireland happen in line with the timeframe we have set out. They will need to be able to pursue construction projects, some of which will be structured in a complex way, one after the other. For example, there may be public private partnerships on public land. There will also be some straight build programmes. In other cases, these officials will have to work with private developers to get the decisions they need in a timely manner from local authorities and from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government if it has a say in the process. We will see how it works. If it does not work, we will change it. I am not one of those people who say that the plan is the plan and that it will be the plan come hell or high water. If there are mistakes in the plan, we will change it. If we need to upgrade, add to or amend the plan, we will do so. My only agenda here is to solve the housing crisis. I need and want the help of Senators in that regard and will ask for it.
We had a debate in this Chamber the other evening on the important question of the housing needs of people with a disability, Travellers and elderly people. We need to ensure the social housing build programme caters for the different sectors of society that need social housing support. We had a good discussion on disability in this context last week. I am happy to say there is a pretty strong paragraph on disability in the new plan. We will develop that as we go. In the case of Traveller accommodation, the approach in recent years has been to accommodate the needs of Traveller families within the broader social housing mix. We are going to review it and assess whether more needs to be done separately from mainstream social housing provision. A similar approach is being taken in the case of accommodation for senior citizens and the elderly. I have just come from Dolphin House where we announced a €25 million urban regeneration project for a great community that has faced all sorts of challenges in recent decades. As part of the overall plan for that complex, a special redevelopment project involving the construction of houses for the elderly will be led by an approved housing body called Fold Ireland. I think that is exactly the kind of mix of tenure that we need to have within these bigger overall projects.
I ask Senators to believe me when I say we are serious about this. I know that some people assume that a Fine Gael Minister who talks the talk on social housing does not really believe it. I assume some people are thinking that as they look at me now. I would not have fought for the funding I have obtained if I did not believe in this. I hope people will see it as a signal of intent that the two biggest things I have done so far in this portfolio have been two urban regeneration projects. The project in the north inner city involves the provision of 74 new apartments at a cost of €29 million. The project in the south inner city which I announced today involves the provision of 100 new apartments at a cost of €25 million. We are going to invest heavily in this area. We also want to change the way we accommodate social housing as part of a broader mix. Most of the social housing in my own city of Cork was built in the 1970s and 1980s. The vast majority of houses were built on one side of the river and most private houses were built on the other side of the river. As a result of that, there was stigmatisation and unfair and inaccurate perceptions of what it means to be in a social house or a private house. We need to challenge that. By the way, that will not be a comfortable debate for people like me. I refer to what sometimes happens when perceptions are challenged. I think Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin spoke about this issue during last week's debate.
I would like to see public lands used strategically for genuine integration in social housing projects. We need to see local authorities working in partnership with private developers on developments that consist, in part, of normal private residential housing and in part of affordable housing, affordable rental and social housing. The various forms of housing will be mixed in clever designs in order that when people drive into these developments, they will not spot which houses are social houses and which are private houses and will not be able to distinguish who is living where. That is a huge change in the policy approach to social housing in Ireland. It will not be easily done. I will need the help of other political parties to get it done. I will not be helped by those who take a populist approach locally and those who do not like change. That is why the way to start the new approach to social housing involves the strategic use of State-owned landbanks. We need to bring private housing into that mix, rather than trying to force social housing into private housing estates before there is an acceptance of that. Of course, we are going to force that too. That is what Part V is all about. We are not going to allow what happened in the past, when developers bought out their social housing responsibilities, to happen again. The Part V rules that say 10% of private developments have to consist of social housing need to mean precisely that, as far as I am concerned. I hope we will go beyond it by adopting a mixed-tenure approach to development. That would be healthy for everybody because it would facilitate genuine integration within communities. If children should grow up looking over the hedge to their next-door neighbours without making a distinction between social and private housing, that creates the ambitions and the ability to dream big for everybody in terms of what they want to achieve in life. I hope that does not sound patronising. It is certainly not meant to be.
The second pillar is social housing and the third pillar is output, which involves getting more housing built. Some people say to me that private developers should not be allowed to build because they are making margins on the backs of others, etc. We cannot simply resolve a housing crisis by doing everything through public housing. Private housing needs to be a big part of the mix too. If we are going to build approximately 140,000 houses in the next six or seven years, the vast majority of them will have to be delivered by the private sector. There will have to be an increased percentage of social housing as part of that mix also. What are the blockages? As the planning system is a blockage, we are changing it. Any developer who intends to build more than 100 houses will engage in preplanning consultation at local authority level and will go directly to An Bord Pleanála for an application after that. As An Bord Pleanála has informed me that it will make decisions within 18 weeks, we will have a much quicker turnaround time. I am pretty confident that we will still get the right planning decisions. This is not about cutting corners - it is about streamlining decision-making while still getting the right decisions. The reality is that the vast majority, if not all, of large-scale developments end up with An Bord Pleanála for decision. We are trying to make those decisions much faster. We are aware that planning permission has been approved for the construction of almost 28,000 houses in Dublin. However, just 4,500 houses are being constructed in Dublin. That discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that the numbers do not add up for some developers because the infrastructure costs associated with opening up sites are too high for them. We have committed €200 million in the next two years to intervene in these circumstances by picking up part or all of the cost of providing infrastructure such as bridges, roads, gas or wastewater connections. We think that will make a big difference in getting many of these sites up and running.
There has been quite a bit of talk about what we intend to do for first-time buyers. We did not announce the detail yesterday. When there is ambiguity, there is lots of speculation. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, will announce a package for first-time buyers on budget day. I want to make it clear that this will not be about simply giving first-time buyers the capacity to spend more on houses, thereby overheating a market that is already overheated. This has to be about driving supply for first-time buyers also. Any package we introduce will be about incentivising the construction sector to build more houses for that market. This is not being done.
We need to increase capacity as we have a problem in that regard. The prices for which builders are building and selling houses are higher than what the vast majority of first-time buyers can afford. Therefore, builders are not building houses because they know they cannot sell them. First-time buyers are trying to but cannot get mortgages in order to be able to get on the housing ladder. We have got to close that gap by reducing the cost of building houses. We are doing that through the infrastructure fund, a better planning system, using public land strategically and a number of other initiatives. We will help first-time buyers in getting mortgages. Those who made criticisms do not appear to understand the main focus is on increasing supply, as well as improving demand. Otherwise, we will continue to have thousands and thousands of first-time buyers who want to buy houses but who simply cannot afford to do so because nobody is building houses they can afford. That is crazy. All those people then find themselves driven into the private rental market, which puts more and more pressure on the rental system. In turn, this drives those on lower incomes out of that system and into either homelessness or relying on the State, through housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, rental accommodation system, RAS, rent supplement or whatever. We have to stop that downward pressure which is creating increasing reliance on the State to provide housing outcomes.
The next pillar of the plan is around the private rental sector. I received some criticism on this issue from Fianna Fáil, in particular, and do not quite know why because its members knew exactly what was coming with this particular pillar. We have made it quite clear for some time that we are committed to a detailed review of the broader rental market between now and the end of the year. We were not going to announce a series of initiatives without going through a proper process. We have had a broken rental market for as long as I can remember. What I mean by that is that rents in Ireland seem to be always rapidly increasing or else collapsing, which is a little like the position with house prices. We have a boom and then a bust followed by another boom and bust, one after the other. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon when matters are going well, including the banking system and then the whole thing gets to a totally unsustainable level and it crashes. My fundamental job, as Minister with responsibility for housing, is to end that cycle and I am going to do it if I get the time to do it. What that means is creating a stable predictable housing market in terms of price, whether it be rent or purchase prices. We will look at international best practice in terms of how we can do that. We need to do it in a way that does not frighten off investment in the short term. That is why there needs to be proper stakeholder consultation before we finalise any decisions in those areas.
We have made two decisions in terms of early actions. One is what people in my Department refer to as the Tyrrelstown amendment. We want to ensure that when institutional investors sell an apartment complex to another institutional investor, a vulture fund or whomever, the tenants will not suffer as a result of that change of ownership. Tenancies will remain intact through that change of ownership which is not the case. When a sale occurs, a tenancy starts from scratch, which gives the new landlord an opportunity to hike up rents or evict people, but we are going to change this. Any complex comprising more than 20 units that are being sold together in the same development will have the protection of that new amendment, which is a good step forward. On the other side, we will strengthen the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, to ensure that if tenants are behaving in a totally irresponsible manner, there is a process by which the RTB can assess the position, make a judgment and get an outcome much quicker. That is also a fair measure. Everybody, from landlords to tenants has equal responsibility.
We are committed to having a broad assessment and making decisions on the back of it of the rental market before the end of the year. Some of the initiatives taken by the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, had a positive impact in terms of insisting on rent reviews only happening on a two-year basis, pushing out timelines to give people notice of change of tenancies and so on, but we need to do a little more in that area. We will have a good deal of stakeholder consultation to make sure we get it right. To rush it for the launch of the plan yesterday would have been silly. I found the criticism I received for not doing that strange.
I also received some criticism for not doing more on student accommodation. We are doing quite a bit on student accommodation in this plan on new funding models and so on. If we can get students out of private rental accommodation into student purpose built accommodation, we will free up considerable space and do much more of it. It is a no-brainer, as far as I am concerned. There are approximately between 20,000 and 25,000 students in private rented accommodation who could be in student accommodation, or certainly a proportion of them could. Even if 5,000 of them were to move into student accommodation, that would free up a great deal of space that families could occupy.
I will conclude by commenting on the final pillar. I have been speaking for a while.
For half an hour.
Very eloquently.
I know the Minister will want to hear everybody's contribution. I am not trying to speed him up.
Some Members seem to have been taken by surprise that we were starting so early and I was just giving them some time.
The final pillar of the plan relates to using vacant properties more effectively. There are approximately 200,000 vacant properties in Ireland. Most of them are in areas where there is not a great deal of demand for housing but some of them are in areas where there is a demand. There are certain counties I know where one in five houses is vacant. These are in areas where there is not huge housing pressure, but we still need to examine much more strategically how we can use that vacant housing stock and get it back into use. There are many initiatives and ideas as to how we will do that and these make sense. Members can read about them in the plan.
I suspect I will be in this House repeatedly talking about housing, whether it be to discuss social housing, private housing, student accommodation, homelessness or meeting the targets we are setting for ourselves. From my perspective, this is by far the most important job I have as a Minister. Issues around Irish Water are very tricky politically but in comparison to the housing crisis in terms of a tiering of importance, housing is ten times more important. We need to deliver on the commitment, the promise and the potential of the Rebuilding Ireland plan and to add to it as we progress it.
I hope I have shown a capacity to take on ideas from others and other parties in regard to this plan. In Appendix 2 or 3, we have looked at the key amendments, some 23 of them, from the all-party Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness. I deliberately asked that this be done. We outlined how each of those recommendations is being addressed or not addressed, per se, and why in this plan. That shows we are taking very seriously what other parties and the Oireachtas committee called for. I look forward to hearing comments from others on the plan to date. If Members want to correspond with me at a later stage about individual problems we are not addressing, I look forward to that also.
I thank the Minister for outlining the plan which is quite comprehensive. To be fair, he has listened to other parties and all those who made submissions. I know several bodies that met him and he gave them a fair hearing. I have a few suggestions he might take into consideration and they might be helpful with respect to the plan.
As the Minister knows, plans are easily devised but the hard part is their delivery. There is one serious flaw in the plan which relates to the fundamental problem of a lack of housing. Has the Minister tried to secure a builder to do any work recently? I have but with great difficulty. Builders are busier than ever. Skilled workmen are exceptionally hard to find. The Minister's plan is very ambitious, rightly so.
However, I have a bad feeling. It gives me no pleasure to say it, but, when the Minister gets to the top of the hill and looks back, his generals will be consoling him and cushioning him with advice. However, his foot soldiers will not be there. I have concerns about the availability of skilled workers.
I am also here to give answers. I am not like some Members who only like to voice negatives and have nothing positive to contribute. When she was here recently, I asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, about the apprenticeship scheme, which employs 8,000 people. I am uncertain as to how many are skilled builders, but it is less than half. In 2008, 30,000 people were in apprenticeship schemes. The costs involved are an impediment to joining schemes, as employers lose that manpower and are out of pocket because they pay for the training. Addressing this problem would increase builder numbers. Saying it gives me no pleasure, but it is a genuine concern.
It is an issue.
Since the downturn, self-employed persons have received no support and many have left the country for Canada, England and the four corners of the world. One of the greatest challenges facing the Minister is attracting back to Ireland people who have the necessary skills to manage manpower and get the job done.
I do not want to make this a political issue or to rehearse it, but the figure of new house builds mentioned in 2015 was 13,000. I credited Paudie with 75 houses, but 72-----
It is Senator Paudie Coffey.
Go raibh maith agat. I hope the Senator will forgive me. I credited him, Deputy Alan Kelly or the Government of the time with 75 houses, but the Minister stated it was 72. There is a disconnect. I do not want to misquote the Minister, but my understanding is we are discussing just under 50,000 houses within five years from next year onwards, or a little under 10,000 houses per year. We will mainly secure those through building. Is that correct? The Minister can revert to me. How will we move from a position of only building 10,000 private and public houses across the entire country to the number outlined? The Minister stated it would be demanding, but I do not know how we will secure 10,000 houses per annum.
I wish to make a couple of suggestions that might be helpful and are worth considering. We must urgently strengthen the apprenticeship programmes. What can we do to help employers in this regard? We must consider a scheme to encourage people to return to the building industry. I welcome the Minister's statement that he is dealing with county councils directly. We must make their housing officers and relevant directors responsible. Every county should have a certain output of units per capita and per annum in line with their waiting lists. Long gone are the days when no one would take responsibility for something and it would land on the Minister's desk. The Minister stated he would be active with the councils, that the numbers looked great and that he had testified to the numbers nationally, but there should be a breakdown per county and he should explain what he expects councils to do. Let their directors, housing officers and managers stand over their work. This would be a step forward.
In my time with councils, I was shocked by housing bodies and the money that some of them were hoarding. The balance sheets of some are incredible. Many sat on their hands in recent years while we were in the depths of a housing tsunami. I was involved with several on a number of projects during my time as a councillor. It was "Yes", "Maybe", "Might be" and going around in circles. It was all a great game, but nothing materialised. Not enough pressure is put on the bodies in question to cough up money and build housing lest they face repercussions. The Minister needs to use a stick with some of the housing agencies.
A couple of other issues are worth addressing again, for example, the factors that fed into this problem. Under the spatial strategy, 10% of lands were dezoned indiscriminately. It might be helpful to consider another issue. If one's planning permission ran out in recent years, one could renew it once for five years further. Many people renewed their permissions in 2008 and 2009.
We are addressing that issue.
Excellent, I commend the Minister for that practical thinking. Being able to renew a permission a second time would be a step forward.
As to the over-regulation of engineering, we all want houses built to a certain standard and our standards are high, but they incur a significant cost on building. Perhaps this issue might be re-examined.
The Minister touched on the question of deposits and first-time buyers. We will await the budget in that regard. The Minister also mentioned that one in every five houses was unoccupied in some counties. I believe that, as I do not live far from some of them. It might be worth considering a grant scheme to repopulate country areas where houses have been built but are not occupied. Some people living in other peripheral places would be delighted to move to another county.
I welcome the Minister for this important debate on housing and how to address the major challenge facing us. I acknowledge the priority that the Government is giving this issue, as well as the Minister's personal commitment to it.
The Minister has outlined the various actions under the action plan's five pillars. The first pillar is addressing homelessness. Every Member agrees that seeing young families in emergency accommodation is unacceptable. We acknowledge that there are complex issues in the case of some homeless persons, for example, they may have medical needs or addiction issues. It is welcome that the HSE is now engaging in a positive way with Departments to address some of these homelessness issues. Having served in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, I know that it and the Minister cannot tackle homelessness alone. It is a complex and personal issue for many of the unfortunate people in question. They require ongoing support if they are to address their homelessness. I welcome the Department of Health's engagement in that regard.
The second pillar is accelerating social housing. That is welcome. An ambitious programme of social housing has been approved for various local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, around the country. I will refer to this in greater detail shortly.
The third pillar is building more homes. Critical to this is addressing the issue of supply in the public sector which provides social housing and also in the private sector. The Minister knows that we must build the right type of house in the right places. There is a strong role for the Housing Agency in identifying these requirements and utilising that information to allocate and prioritise funding where it is needed.
The fourth pillar is improving the rental sector which is under significant pressure, be it in the private sector, student accommodation or so on. As the economy grows further, that pressure will increase. This matter requires constant attention, evaluation and review. Expanding on the work of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, which is the Minister's intention will help to improve capacity in that regard.
The fifth pillar involves the utilisation of existing housing. This is critical. It is a no-brainer that we sweat the assets we already have, be they private or public. Much progress has been made in the public sector, where, under the previous social housing strategy, thousands of void houses have been turned around, especially in the Dublin area but also throughout the country. This is welcome progress on which we need to continue to expand. Given the extent of housing lists, it is unacceptable that there are vacant, boarded-up council houses around the country. This will require continuous attention and evaluation.
When I was in the Department, I proposed an asset management system for the social housing stock. The Minister may have already taken this on board. Unless the voids that have been turned around, even in the past year, are managed as assets, properly maintained and kept up to date, we will have to work on them again down the road. It involves a huge capital investment on behalf of the taxpayer. A maintenance and asset management plan, similar to that introduced for Irish Water, is long overdue. Unless we have such a plan, we will not put a value on the assets. If that asset management plan and system had been in place ten or 20 years ago, boarded-up units would not have been allowed to reach their current state of degradation. In addition, local authorities would have been benchmarked and measured in accordance with their asset management plans. It is essential that, as we turn local authority voids around, we benchmark the investment and introduce an asset management system that holds local authorities accountable in respect of the cost of the upkeep and maintenance of stock and also regarding how long it takes to turn a house around once it becomes vacant. Any public representative will tell us that if a local authority house that becomes vacant is not upgraded and re-let in the short term, it can become derelict, thus costing more to the local authority and, in turn, the taxpayer. I ask the Minister to focus on an asset management system within the Department and local authorities.
I note that the Minister has allocated €70 million to the Housing Agency to acquire further housing units throughout the country. The agency will determine the right types and locations of houses. That is on top of what has been approved under the previous social housing strategy for acquisitions for the approved housing bodies and local authorities. A problem persisted in respect of the latter in that some local authorities were competing with approved housing bodies to purchase the same properties. Therefore, what the Minister has done here represents the correct approach. He has brought in the Housing Agency which is independent and will buy the right properties at the right price in the right locations. This is a welcome development under the new housing action plan.
With regard to Part V, some progress has been made in removing the cash-in-lieu provision. The Minister referred to this in previous debates in this House. I ask him to raise this issue with all the local authorities that may have Part V funding still on their books. This is important funding that could be put towards the provision of housing.
Eight minutes is not enough time to address all of the issues concerning housing. I wish the Minister well with his ambitious plan. It requires serious engagement on the part of all stakeholders, including policymakers, irrespective of political persuasion, and the public and private sectors, including the construction sector, to which Senator Aidan Davitt alluded.
Challenges arise over apprenticeships and skill sets. It behoves the Government to ensure a cross-departmental response to address them. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O’Connor, will assist with the apprenticeship schemes.
The Minister has endeavoured to streamline the process. As a former Minister of State with responsibility for housing and planning, one of the first steps I took along with the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, was to provide the funding and resources for local authorities and approved housing bodies. The big problem we encountered concerned delivery. Once we approved projects, we found there were many barriers and stoppages along the way. We need to drill into the problems and streamline the process from concept and design to planning and construction in order that we can fast-track, in both the public and private sectors, as many housing units as are required as soon as possible. I seek to engage continually with the Minister and his officials on finding housing solutions. That is a responsibility of all of us.
Access to credit for small builders is critical to providing buildings, including housing units, around the country. From what I am hearing, they are still finding gaining access to credit from banking institutions seriously problematic. I acknowledge Dublin is the crunch point in terms of housing, but there are housing lists in every local authority. Unless we address the issue of access to credit, there will be less private building among young couples and greater pressure on the private rental and social housing sectors.
The housing assistance payment is a very positive step in which I was involved. It removes the poverty trap associated with rent supplement which was essentially meant to be a short-term measure. More local authorities need to roll out the housing assistance payment. We need to see more engagement in this regard right around the country.
I look forward to engaging with the Minister again. As stated, eight minutes is not enough. Many more Senators will have ideas. If we all approach this crisis in the spirit of trying to find solutions, we will achieve the progress we really need.
Fáiltím go mór roimh an díospóireacht agus an tuairisc. Ba mhaith liom tréaslú leis an Aire as ucht í a thabhairt chun cinn go luath. Ba mhaith liom tréaslú leis an gCoiste um Thithíocht agus Easpa Dídine as ucht an obair a rinne sé. I welcome the report and the fact that the Minister has introduced it sooner than expected. I congratulate the members of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness on their work. For a committee that was set up and went about its work during the hiatus after the election, it has achieved an awful lot. It also shows that, when there is the political, normal parliamentary constraints can be set aside and proper work to address key problems can be undertaken. The report is better than what has come from Governments previously, but we believe it needs to include more. I am glad the Minister is willing to take on board the suggestions we have to make.
The first point with which we take issue is the fact that it was reported in the Government’s own media spin on the statement that there was to be a €2.2 billion increase over six years, whereas the reality is that it is an increase of €1.1 billion on the Kelly plan figure. My colleague Deputy Eoin Ó Broin pointed this out in the Dáil yesterday.
I am concerned that not all the key or priority recommendations of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness were taken on board. Only seven out of 23 were referenced in Appendix 2 of the report. These are only the priority recommendations. There are 84 other recommendations of the committee that need to be addressed also.
I am worried about the lack of movement to help those in mortgage difficulties who may face losing their homes. The commitment in the programme for Government to set up a special court to deal with these cases seems to have disappeared. Instead, the Minister for Justice and Equality will ask the courts to hold these cases at certain times and places. The commitment to hold these cases in private has been put in doubt also, with the housing action plan raising concern about the constitutionality of this move. Gone also is the programme for Government commitment to amend the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. My colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, pointed out the backsliding of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, on this issue when he told him the commitment referred only to non-bank lenders such as vulture funds. It is clear that even that commitment has been reduced to an assessment of existing sustainable solutions. Likewise, the commitment to raise the thresholds for accessing the personal insolvency system has been downgraded. There is now only a possibility of raising them, where appropriate, instead of a commitment.
There is welcome detail on the new advice service and the powers available to it. However, we have seen many schemes like this before that were promised but never delivered. As we have seen, there is a long way between what the Government promises and what is actually delivered. It is eight years since the banking crash, yet it is as if Fine Gael is only now waking up to the mortgage crisis. The 85,989 families in arrears cannot afford any more slippage on what were, in the first instance, modest steps right direction.
I recently attended the District Court in Galway. One hundred and twenty families were before the registrar due to mortgage difficulties. This startling figure should be a wake-up call to the Government that this remains a key problem facing families. I have noted in the House previously that there may be a public perception that most of the people in the courts over mortgage arrears are not really making any effort whatsoever to repay.
I found, from sitting there for a day, that it was the opposite. The vast majority of the people concerned had paid huge portions of their mortgages, had made huge efforts to keep up payments and were making all efforts necessary to try to repay their mortgages or outstanding arrears. In some cases, however, the financial institutions, in particular, the banks and the vulture funds, were relentless in going after them, even if only small amounts remained to be paid. This issue must be addressed.
The report contains next to nothing on rent certainty. We in Sinn Féin believe rent certainty is essential to put a stop to the phenomenon of hidden homelessness, that is, those who must stay with relatives or couch-surf. I believe this section of people rightly feel let down and ignored by the report. The issue of rent certainly appears to have been put on the long finger, not because of the complexity of getting to grips with it but through sheer lack of political will to deal with a broken private rental sector to which even the Minister alluded. Sinn Féin has never shied away from asserting this lack of political will directly correlates with the number of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Deputies who have a direct interest in the private rental sector. Sinn Féin produced a Bill on rent certainty in the Dáil which we had hoped would pass in this era of new politics in which we are meant to be living. Unfortunately, despite referencing rent certainty in the lead-up to the election, Fianna Fáil decided it could not support the Bill and prevented rent certainty from being law. What changed so much in the space of a few months? It was hardly the fact Fianna Fáil is now a de facto Government partner with Fine Gael. Rent certainty has been kicked down the road to be considered at a future date. This is a recurring theme of the cosy deal into which the Government entered, as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have knocked other things on the head for 12 months, including pay-by-weight bin charges, water charges and banded-hour contracts. This type of delayed promise is wholly unacceptable, as the most recent homelessness figures prove. There are 4,152 adults in emergency accommodation, an increase of 160 since the previous count, while 2,206 children will sleep in emergency accommodation tonight, an increase of 29 since the previous count. It is also unacceptable for all those who are sofa-surfing or living in overcrowded accommodation, those at risk of homelessness due to repossessions or excessive rents, the 130,000 or more households languishing on local authority housing lists for up to ten years, as well as those priced out of the first-time buyer's market.
There is a sense of ambition in the report, but it falls short of the Oireachtas committee targets that were put forward. I also listened to a representative of Focus Ireland this morning who welcomed the report but stated the organisation had concerns that as certain elements of the report called for the drawing up of further reports, there would be a lack of immediate action on certain issues. I welcome the Minister's comments on student accommodation, the elderly, disability, etc. All Members agree there are issues in these areas.
One cannot do everything in 70 days.
Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh to continue, without interruption. He is about to conclude.
The Minister has asked for Members' comments and I am sharing mine with him. In fairness, Members have shared these comments many times in these Houses in the past five years.
The issue of Traveller-specific accommodation must be tackled as it is not simply an issue of trying to settle Travellers into social housing. There must be an approach that is cognisant of the specific needs of the Traveller community. This morning, I attended the launch of a report on people in direct provision accommodation and how they are trying to transition into social housing. They also have highly specific difficulties that must be addressed. I have concerns that there appears to be a huge emphasis on the private sector supporting many of the initiatives that have been put forward. Members of Sinn Féin obviously always put forward our views that the State should have more of a role. The Minister mentioned that only 72 houses were built last year by local authorities whereas in previous decades, ambitious State building programmes were undertaken. Sinn Féin seeks much more of an emphasis on that type of programme which appears to be lacking. I am concerned there is an over-emphasis on the private market doing the building and so on. Some such concerns have in fairness been raised by Senator Aidan Davitt about the availability of people for the workforce but the way the private sector has approached the building sector in recent years also leaves a lot to be desired.
I will conclude on a point that was raised with me yesterday, how there certainly will be pressure on local authorities to row in behind the scheme. I attended an Oireachtas Members briefing with Galway County Council yesterday at which we were told the council is already under pressure owing to the lack of staffing and has a €2 million shortfall for next year. I also find that between Galway city and county councils, an amount of between €1 million and €1.5 million has been lost because of the global valuation of rates. The councils are under huge pressure and do not have staff in-house to do this. The Minister might address the issue of how local authorities with their existing staffing complements will be able to support the ambitious programme he has put forward. I look forward to further debates with the Minister in the coming months, of which I am sure we will have many.
I wish to share time with Senator John Dolan.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
While I will focus mainly on student accommodation, having listened to the Minister's opening statement I will pick up on two points. As for Dolphin House and the regeneration, it is an area - around the canal communities - in which I have worked for a long time. I wish to recommend reading a book by a man named John Bissett on the failures of the public private partnerships, PPPs, in St. Michael's Estate, on the negative experience the community there had with the PPPs, on how many times they withdrew and on how that community was completely torn apart and obliged to move away. I note that only a small number of the people in question remain there. The book outlines that experience and the Minister should ensure this does not happen again in either the areas about to undergo regeneration or those areas that were promised it such as O'Devaney Gardens and St. Teresa's Gardens.
While I also welcome the Minister's comments on not being able to tell the difference between public and private housing, that is, between social and private housing, as someone who has lived in social housing, I note that family make-up can determine where one lives and as a single mother of two children, it is a very negative experience. Given the make up of my family, I am expected to live in small accommodation on top of a family home, but because another family does not have children of the same sex, it gets a bigger house with two floors, separate bedrooms for their children and a back garden. It is not good for the emotional and psychological well-being of the children in the family with same-sex children that they do not get to experience a garden or their own bedroom. When social housing construction is under way, housing for life should be considered and it should allow families to expand if they so wish, instead of being forced to live in small accommodation.
As a student, I welcome the recognition of the large and rapidly expanding student population. It appears as though the Minister agrees that housing students is not simply an issue for higher level institutions and the construction industry, but with regard to accommodation and city planning, it is an issue that affects us all. As noted in the plan, a report drawn up by the Department of Education and Skills last year projected an increase in student numbers from 168,000 in 2014 to 193,000 in 2024. A large portion of these students will congregate in the cities and large towns in already strained housing markets. Students and their families will once again struggle to cope with shortages of available beds, as well as uncontrollable rents and the uncertainties of an unregulated rent-a-room relief scheme. I call for a review of the rent-a-room scheme to provide more security for both tenant and landlord. During my time as a student union president in Trinity College Dublin, I saw at first hand the impact of the housing crisis on student welfare. It means skipping meals and classes to meet soaring rent costs and sometimes also means dropping out of university owing to a complete lack of suitable accommodation. One way in which the provision of such accommodation can be achieved is by partnering with those being affected by the shortfall. The report recommends that the Government work with students through the Union of Students in Ireland, USI. It is worth acknowledging this mature approach which I believe will lead to a more sustainable solution that I hope can prevent the current problem from recurring.
I have already mentioned that this is not merely a student issue. Owing to the nature of taking on a degree, most students are prevented from taking on full-time work. This puts them in the same approximate budgetary range as those receiving rent allowance, which means that in our competitive housing market, people are being pitted against one another for a dwindling pool of available accommodation. In addition, one must remember that in many cases where the cost of education is being supplemented by the family, the burden of unpredictable rents is being borne at home. This is a city planning and family issue and by providing purpose-built student accommodation, one takes students out of the rental market and opens up the rental sector for lower-income families, as well as those in emergency accommodation who need long-term solutions. While the report mentions the commitment of higher education institutions to provide several thousand units of purpose-built accommodation in the coming years, this will not match the projected increases in demand of more than 25,000 students by 2024. Some of this will be accounted for by developments through the private sector, but one cannot be sure this will cover the demand or produce affordable accommodation. Some of the private accommodation providers that will be in place for the new academic term - in just over a month - will charge rates of almost €850 per month for a single bedroom.
The action plan commits to producing a student housing strategy in 2017. I welcome the intent to collaborate with the Department of Education and Skills and draw attention to the point made in the plan that this must be done in conjunction with students and the city and county council. While a forward-thinking strategy would be a positive development, short-term action must also be taken. CAO results are only weeks away and it should be a serious concern for the Members of this House that students and their families will once again be taken advantage of while they are in a panic.
I will conclude because I am encroaching on Senator John Dolan's time, but I have a couple of other points about NAMA and student accommodation which I will send on to the Minister.
We are into injury time. I welcome wholeheartedly the hope and solutions offered in this plan for so many, including young people and families. However, I must regretfully reject it because it is not worthy of an Ireland that has resolved to also resolve the housing issues for people with disabilities. The Minister mentioned page 55, the section on disability. There are no statistics in the plan on the current unmet need that could drive the rationale for strong action. There is no ambition in that regard and there are no targets. There is language about structures, processes, strategies and implementation frameworks, but there is no real meat in that section. That is a real issue.
Last week we had a very good debate in the House when the Minister mentioned Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the Government's commitment to ratify it. It addresses the opportunity for people with disabilities to choose where and with whom they reside at a particular time. The key aspect to it is that this should be "on an equal basis with others". I have serious difficulty with the approach taken in the plan to deal with this. It does not provide equal space for the housing needs of people with disabilities. No civil or public servant is going to see the level of unmet need that actually spurs action and targets to deal with the issues. I cannot see councillors finding any solace in this in dealing with the housing needs of people with disabilities, including adaptation and so on.
We will ratify the UN Convention. I am clear about that and the commitments that have been made. The plan, in whatever way it develops - I hope it will develop - will be before the relevant committee as part of setting out the case as to how Ireland is dealing with Article 19. I am asking the Minister to guarantee that the action plan will ensure people with disabilities will be included in the outcomes in a way that is easy to see. I was delighted to hear the Minister say last night and this morning - I keep hearing him say it, rightly so - that there will not be a difference between someone in a social house and someone in a purchased house. I am concerned that in this context we will not know there are also people with disabilities who should be able to live easily in those houses or to have them adapted as they need them. Please recognise the outstanding need. Acknowledge and act on it in respect of the equal disability housing crisis.
My final point relates to the fact that the attitude and culture of the old politics is still evident. Somebody said last night that it was important to doff the cap to people with disabilities and then deftly and silently move on. That is why I take umbrage at those four paragraphs on page 55. They nod towards the inclusion of people with disabilities, but there is nothing in there about their way into proper housing. The Government and the Department did not distinguish between waving back at people with disabilities as they moved on to deal with the bigger issue and take real action.
There is a major housing crisis from which I do take for one moment. It is great that we are going to tackle it,0 but it must be done on the basis of equality that includes people with disabilities
I welcome the Minister. I acknowledge the huge body of work that is the action plan for housing and homelessness and to compliment the Minister and all the stakeholders and individuals who have taken a keen interest in this critical issue. It is good to see that we have the document before us and the challenge is to drive it on. I have no doubt that is what the Minister intends to do. We know at this stage that it is a complex issue. It involves everything from the standards employed in the construction of housing which we have to get right to looking at market forces. In general, we do not like to interfere with the market but needs must. We are living in emergency times for all the people without homes, those who are hard-pressed paying high rents and those who cannot buy their own homes. Affordability is an issue. Fundamentally, the question is how we create cohesive communities where individuals and families can grow and thrive. It is more than a house. A house is a home and part of a community.
It often strikes me, coming from my neck of the woods, that there are two sides to the one coin, as is clear in the figures. There are empty houses, schools in danger of closing down or losing teachers, GAA teams unable to field players, and so on. The population in such areas is being depleted. We saw the census figures last week, which showed that counties such as Donegal, Sligo and Mayo are losing population. I have no doubt that it is young people who are gone and that they have migrated. Based on the employment figures and their skill sets, they have gone to the big cities. Then one comes to the city and sees severe pressure on services. We have services and facilities, to an extent, in more rural areas, yet we cannot keep people there. There is a huge challenge in spatial planning to ensure we do not leave things the way they are and that we intervene with appropriate supports, especially in areas like the west. In terms of investment and growth, we have seen the least growth in that area, notwithstanding efforts in the regional action plan for jobs.
Now that we see continuing growth and employment and continuing increase in Exchequer figures, especially the tax intake, I would like to think we can further support initiatives to develop these areas which will, in turn, allow people to stay. People will not have to live on fresh air. No matter how beautiful the area one comes from, while there may be tourism, we need more than that. That is how we are going to fill houses and allow people to sustain their families, especially in rural areas.
I am disappointed by how the area of town and village renewal is set out in the plan. A Programme for a Partnership Government contains an ambition to develop a scheme similar to the Living City initiative, which would incentivise businesses and people to move into the urban centres covered under the scheme. This is going to be looked at under the Minister's policy document towards the end of the year. If one goes around any of the market towns, practically any of them around the country - it is not just County Mayo - it becomes a depressing experience. They are the saddest places. No wonder people are depressed or despairing at times and that is notwithstanding whatever other improvements there are, whether in small indigenous industry jobs, agriculture and so on. When one goes into them, one sees shops shut down and houses shut down and empty. They are like tombstones for a time gone by. This has been happening since the collapse of the Celtic tiger. The retail sector has changed and people are shopping online. We have to create a new vision for what towns and villages will look like. It needs specific intervention. It is past time we had a proper scheme to repopulate towns and villages. We need to get people back living in them as we see happen on the Continent where they have services available and all the rest. It would involve the local authorities and looking after small independent traders in order that there would be shops, pubs and restaurants that people could use.
This is the least fleshed out part of the proposal before us, whereas, to me, it is the most relevant when I go beyond the cities and it is not being addressed. It needs to be done yesterday.
I wish the Minister well with the action plan. I hope the passion he has shown today in his opening contribution can be sustained over the period needed to see this plan implemented. He is going to meet a great deal of opposition and difficulties. I wish him well.
By way of being helpful, I want to ask whether the Minister will take on board a number of issues my party sought to address in a Bill on social and affordable housing that we published this week. The first of these is the recommendations from the long-discussed Kenny report. In the Minister's action plan, he has said lands are currently zoned to satisfy a population of 6 million, but there is no breakdown of these lands. The Minister knows, given that he alluded to it and answered a question on it yesterday, that one of the big problems is that financial investment funds are buying up land and storing it in order to make a killing. By not implementing the recommendations of the Kenny report, how does the Minister believe we will prevent this from happening and how is land going to be freed up? How much land is owned by the State that is specifically for the building of houses and how much is private land? The Minister might tell me the mix of both, if he has that figure.
I express my disappointment that NAMA has not been broadened out, as recommended in our Bill, to make it into a housing development and finance agency. NAMA had a specific role and it is fulfilling that, but it now needs to move on to the next phase. I would like the Minister to comment.
I am also disappointed that the whole matter of private rent increases has not been dealt with in the action plan. The Minister has said there will be provision for landlords who own in excess of 20 units. However, the reality is there are many accidental landlords in this country who own two or three units and who are mortgaged up to the hilt. The people in question are trying to extract the maximum rent from tenants in to pay their own bills. The Minister needs to look at the smaller landlord.
Senator Michelle Mulherin spoke about village and town centre renewal, which I support. We had a plan many years ago to provide funding for landlords to upgrade accommodation above their shops, but it never took off. We need to revisit this issue because rural Ireland needs this type of upgrading.
On the planning process, much has been made of sending planning applications for developments of more than 100 units straight to An Bord Pleanála. I put it to the Minister that he is actually taking away the local democratic input of councillors and local authorities in respect of planning. In many cases, councillors representing the people bring to the table a lot of local issues that would not be known by local officials and, in some cases, by the developers, which would actually assist the process. Moreover, An Bord Pleanála is a finite resource in terms of staffing. If all of these proposals are going to An Bord Pleanála, will the Minister provide extra staff for it and how many will he provide?
On student accommodation, it is like the saying, "Live horse and you will eat grass", in that the Minister is pushing it out to another strategy in 2017. With respect, I know that the Minister brought this plan forward in 100 days, but there is plenty of evidence and information that would have allowed him to bring forward specific proposals on student accommodation rather than saying he is going to prepare a strategy in 2017. It has come to my attention that 2,000 units of commercial accommodation have just fallen of the map in Dublin city in recent months. Will the Minister comment on where they have gone? Have they gone to Airbnb or have they disappeared? One building in the city centre was removed as a commercial property and put into Airbnb and it took in €79,000 in income in 2015. There are a lot of things going on which the Minister might say fall outside the remit of his Department, but there is no regulation of Airbnb in this country. It is, however, regulated in other jurisdictions. Many students will get sucked into this because there is no other avenue for them to get accommodation, particularly in this city and to a lesser extent other cities. I would like the Minister to comment on this issue.
I wish the Minister well with the action plan. Like Senator Paudie Coffey, I could talk for another 20 minutes, but I do not have the time. The Minister might address my questions when he responds.
I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on the significant work he has done. I read his action plan three times last night and then decided I would go back and look at A Programme for a Partnership Government. There was much play on the first 100 days and seven housing items in the programme were to be delivered within that period. Obviously, all of that has not happened, but it is perhaps on the way. I commend the Minister for the work done. The way he is driving this demonstrates his absolute commitment in respect of the issue of housing.
I have been a member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council since the early 1990s. I am very familiar with housing issues and local government and have been involved in the Association of Irish Local Government and attended many conferences on housing. There is a real dynamic in that regard. This is one of the most important issues for the Government which I acknowledge and for which I salute the Minister.
I was a little taken aback to see that there is a very high reliance on the private sector. That is obviously a deliberate policy of the Minister and a continuation of the policies of previous Governments. I do not have too much of a difficulty with some of it. However, let us remember that we have over 30 local authorities, all of which have a statutory function for housing - they are the housing authorities. I took the trouble to telephone six local authorities this morning to ask what they thought. I also took the time to flag this report for and send it to every chief executive, every director of planning and every council in the country last night when I received it because I think it is important that they know what is going on. I want to point out that there were mixed feelings. The one thing that is clearly coming out this morning from local government planners is the importance of local knowledge and local understanding of the demographics, including among councillors. There is a partnership approach between strategic policy committees on planning and the directors. The Minister would know better than most, given the work of his Department, about the lack of performance of some local authorities versus others and that this is driven more by some than by others.
I wish the Minister well. The report is 114 pages long and contains 84 action items. The Minister, under five pillars, has clearly set out the description of the actions, the objectives and the timescales, which is practical. It is up to parliamentarians and councillors to keep the pressure on and see there is delivery. I remind the Minister that he has a very large bloc of Fine Gael councillors across the country, as do Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. Moreover, what happens in the Oireachtas does not necessarily permeate down through his organisation to the local authorities. There is a terrible record of councillors opposing social housing and Part 8 developments. I want the Minister to have a conversation, as part of his promotion of the action plan, with his party membership. I want him to ask his parliamentarians and councillors whether they are on board and committed to this Fine Gael-led Government and its policies. This is very important because, on the ground, county mangers will say and I have observed that some party councillors are not supportive of the provision of Traveller accommodation and emergency accommodation. For example, there is no emergency accommodation in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area for people who must leave their homes owing to domestic violence, which is a terrible indictment of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, one of the most prosperous local authorities in the country. It is worth making that point.
I do not know what the Minister is doing about An Bord Pleanála which is continuously failing in respect of its 18-week deadlines. I can think of one case in my county where this has happened on three occasions. I rang this morning and was told that the earliest we would have an outcome was at the end of August.
Unless the Minister is going to tell us something different today, to make an appeal or observation, as it likes to call it, to An Bord Pleanála will cost €50. I rang it this morning, although I was aware of it, but I wanted to check my facts. To object or make an observation or submission against or for someone might want to make contact with the local authority or An Bord Pleanála and it will cost €50. Has the Minister taken this on board? I want him to address the issue today because it is a really important measure. The board advises me that the cost is €50. Are citizens who have a right to engage in the planning process, as of today, expected to pay €50? It is the same in the case of critical infrastructure projects.
My next point takes it a little further. There were major shortcomings in An Bord Pleanála which, as the planning authority, is also within the remit of the Minister. If I am in County Kerry and a Deputy, local authority member or citizen and want to look at a file on An Bord Pleanála, I cannot view it online. Again, the board confirmed this to me this morning. I must travel to Marlborough Street in Dublin to request to see a paper file. The board needs to smarten up and make everything available online. On the other hand, in my planning authority, I have the right to walk into the council office to request and look at the file. Every citizen has the right to engage in the planning process. There are EU directives on environmental freedom of information. People cannot be required to come from County Kerry, County Mayo or Cork to Marlborough Street in Dublin to look at planning files. I want the Minister to address that issue. There is a real deficit in open and transparent planning. Perhaps the Minister intends to do something about it.
We know that students are under pressure in finding accommodation and that they are competing with others who want to rent accommodation. There are no clear, strong commitments other than objectives, not even objectives, to provide student accommodation. I want to know how the Minister will answer that question.
I spoke to the Minister last week about the Part V contributions. We know that there are many millions on deposit in some local authorities, including mine. I rang today to find out exactly how much and was told it would take some time but that I would receive a reply this afternoon. Last week I asked the Minister to write to every local authority chief executive to ask for a statement. I do not know if he has done it. I know that he is a busy man and do not expect him to jump to something I might suggest, but I reiterate my question. He should ask them to do so. I will be able to furnish him with the information on Tuesday or Wednesday. However, as Minister, he should know it. He and his departmental officials should know about the substantial number of millions of euro sitting in accounts which has been collected under Part V for social and affordable housing. I want that money to be ring-fenced and used.
The Minister should not overlook the direct provision and construction of social houses by local authorities. They do it well and have a strong record in doing so. They deliver locally which creates employment in the construction industry. I still think there is a role for them in the direct provision and construction of social housing for the many thousands on local authority housing lists. I genuinely and sincerely wish the Minister well with this plan.
Senators Kieran O'Donnell, Brian Ó Domhnaill, Rose Conway-Walsh and Alice-Mary Higgins are offering.
I welcome the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, for whom it has been a long day. I commend him for this ambitious and bold document.
One of the key instruments of housing has to be the old-fashioned building programme undertaken by the local authorities. The Minister is to put 47,000 social units in place by 2021. Already that work is under way in Limerick. The Minister announced €9 million in funding to provide 50 homes spread throughout the city, with 24 on the Childers Road and another ten on Sexton Street North, in Thomondgate and Kileely Court. There will be 12 on Burke Avenue and four near Athlunkard Boat Club towards Corbally. While funding is extremely important, what is often overlooked is the timeframe between funding being granted and housing being built. It has to be fast-tracked as the process can often be very slow. It is not just about funding being allocated but also about the speed at which they are built. The 50 homes to be allocated represent a start. There is a large local authority housing waiting list in Limerick.
Limerick City and County Council is carrying out an assessment of housing need in Limerick. Forms will be sent to all those on the housing waiting list by the end of July. They will need to be returned to the local authority by 21 September. I urge everyone who receives the form to ensure it is completed. If they have queries, they should go to the local authority, but they must get the form back in as we need to operate with crystal clear data. It is most important that everyone who should be on the waiting list be on it. All too frequently reviews have been carried out and people dropped from the list. This may be because the form is inadvertently sent to an incorrect address or people just do not return it. Those who believe they are on the housing waiting list but do not receive a letter by the end of July - the form may have been sent to a different address - should go to the housing section of the local authority on Merchants Quay and put their case to it.
I will make some observations on the proposals made. I very much welcome the proposal to provide 47,000 social housing units. It is critical that the programme get under way and become a sustained policy of the Government. Towards the latter end of 2000 it had dropped off and the private sector was picking it up. The private sector is also important. It is extremely important to have a social building programme in every village, town and city on a consistent basis. The target to build 25,000 annually is ambitious but achievable.
The document refers to first-time buyers and I understand it will be brought forward as a budgetary proposal. It is critical that no measure introduced lead to a rise in the price of houses for first-time buyers. We need a supply and a demand element to ensure first-time buyers will have an incentive to buy property at a reduced price.
On town and village renewal, there are many villages in east Limerick, including Murroe, Cappamore, Caherconlish, Castleconnell and Ballyneety. It is extremely important that something be put in place - I know that it is mentioned in the document - to encourage people to live and work in these areas. I know that the Minister has made reference to this, but it needs to work easily. It could be in the form of grants or on some other basis, as there may be some other mechanism that could be introduced. We must, however, make it attractive for people to live and work in villages which are all integrated and extremely important.
This is very much a working document and I commend the Minister for introducing it in such a short time period. As he stated yesterday, he is looking for further ideas to advance the housing plan in place.
I welcome the Minister to discuss the housing plan launched yesterday. It is ambitious. I have not read it in detail, but I have looked through it. I also listened to some of the debate in the other House yesterday. To achieve anything, it is necessary to have a plan which we now have.
It is a blueprint that everyone needs to row in behind and push. I have concerns and a number of suggestions, but I welcome this initiative.
We are in a crisis. According to the recent census figures, the number of housing units nationally increased by 18,981, bringing the housing stock to 2.02 million. In the same period, the population grew by 169,700 to 4.756 million. Such metrics lead to the skewed housing provision. Many commentators, including the Housing Agency and its chief executive, someone for whom I have the utmost respect, have written and spoken about this. The published plan will go some way towards meeting the challenges.
Many Members have referred to housing output, be it private or social. Both outputs fell off a cliff after the 2010 EU-IMF package. Output levels were at approximately 80,000 units in 2007, dropped to 40,000 or 50,000 and then fell off a cliff, ending up with a national housing output of 10,000 or so. While I welcome the plan's ambitious targets, are they achievable and measurable? They are time-bound. How will we achieve the objectives required to deliver the plan? I have some concerns in this regard, as most people do. I am sure the Minister does as well, since he must deliver on the plan. The new housing office within his Department must be well resourced and have the necessary expertise, communication channels, be they open channels or back channels to local authorities, and every delivery vehicle available to it. As legislation accompanying the plan will need to be introduced, it is important that it happen forthwith.
Something that struck me about the recent census figures was the number of vacant properties around the country. Of the approximately 260,000 such properties, some 61,000 are holiday homes for people living in Ireland or abroad. There are many vacant properties up and down the country. I examined my parish last weekend. It has many vacant properties where, for example, a grandparent, an aunt or someone died and left the property to family members, it fell into a state of disrepair and then became uninhabitable. We do not know how many such houses there are. There are no data to suggest they number over 100,000, but neither are there data to suggest the contrary.
The Housing Agency compiled a good report on the matter recently. It used the 2011 census figures, but it made a number of suggestions with which I concur. According to the latest census figures, there are 16,321 vacant apartments and 7,795 vacant houses in Dublin at a time when 6,000 people are officially homeless, including 2,000 children, and 130,000 people are on the social housing list. The Housing Agency made a number of suggestions that merit consideration and are not covered by the report. For example, it recommended a two-year timeframe for identifying the number of vacant properties, with a view to enabling a strategy or template on vacant housing, the empowerment of local authorities to carry out this research locally and an examination of a scheme to bring these properties into productive use. I suggest we consider schemes that have been introduced in other countries such as grant-aiding people to bring properties into productive use and allowing them to rent the properties or lease them long term to local authorities. Since that would be prohibited by the current tax regime for landlords, this matter needs to be examined, as it has not been identified in the report. Some 130,000 people are on housing waiting lists, but what is there to say there are not 130,000 vacant housing units owned by individuals who would lease or sell them were they brought into a state of repair?
I thank the Minister for attending and commend him for this plan. He has shown leadership in that regard. I will point to a couple of elements that should be included, but it has a number of very good aspects that, if implemented properly, will work as required.
We are mindful of the ever-changing situation, in that 160 people were made homeless in the past month. If it remains the same, 12,000 families will be made homeless during the plan's lifetime. We must bear this in mind. I raise this point because I was in the Castlebar court a couple of weeks ago to witness repossessions that made families homeless. This issue needs to be tackled in such a way we can intervene with the banks. On behalf of one family with two children, a bank was offered €50,000 to settle the €66,000 owed to it, yet the bank refused. We need a mechanism whereby banks can be made to take responsibility. After all, the €64 billion that we gave them would have gone a long way towards building new houses.
A number of people have been and others will be made homeless because of the pyrite issue affecting counties Mayo and Donegal. It is welcome that the Minister will visit County Mayo and has been to County Donegal to see the situation at first hand. I visited a house last week to see the renovations required because of pyrite. I would not call them "renovations", as all that was left of the house were the foundations and the roof. Everything else needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Given that such houses are continuing to deteriorate, hundreds more families will be made homeless because of pyrite. A relief scheme similar to the one provided in the east must be made available to prevent the people affected from being made homeless.
I come from a local authority background, namely, Mayo County Council. As Senator Victor Boyhan pointed out, local authorities have statutory responsibility for providing houses, but they need resources if they are to work this plan in a timely manner. Consider the length of time it takes to get from the planning stage to houses being built, even in small developments. For example, just six houses are to be built in the Glenamoy housing scheme, but because the local authority does not have the expertise or adequate personnel, the process is taking too long. The Government can claim that the money is being made available, but the money is not doing what needs to be done because local authorities do not have the requisite resources. The impediments and extra costs encountered during the planning process by people who want to build their own houses make no sense. Planners telling people that they can build at this end of a field but not at the other end puts building a house beyond affordability. How long should it take a local authority to build a house once it has received planning permission? Is there an average time and has the Minister agreed targets with local authorities on how many houses will be built in the next six months?
I am pleased that the plan has flexibility for local authorities to purchase houses. There is provision to give grant aid to people who need to refurbish their houses or bring them up to a standard where they can be bought or rented by the local authority.
I welcome the Minister. I also welcome the plan. As others said, it shows real commitment by the Government and real leadership by the Minister in addressing this issue. It is an ambitious plan, with an annual level of residential construction of 25,000 homes and the delivery of 47,000 social housing units in the period to 2021, while, at the same time, making the best use of existing housing stock and laying the foundations for a more vibrant and responsive private rental sector.
Others have touched on the five key pillars of the plan. They include addressing the issue of homelessness and providing early solutions to address the unacceptable level of families in emergency accommodation. I cannot overstate the importance of this. It has an impact on the young children who must live in hotels with no sense of normality and no cooking facilities. They move from hotel to hotel and do not know whether they will attend the same school. All of these are terrible stresses on young children. It is urgent and a priority that it be addressed.
There is also the problem of people having to sleep rough and the dangers involved in doing so. The State has a duty to keep people in their own homes. We want to accelerate the increase in the social housing stock. There will be funding of €5.35 billion to deliver 47,000 units. I welcome this serious commitment by the Government. There is also a commitment to build more homes, increasing the output of private housing to meet demand at affordable prices. There will also be an infrastructure fund of €200 million to open large sites in areas where people need homes. Fingal is such an area, with the highest population growth rate in the country, at 8%. It will also improve the rental sector, as others outlined. There is much work to be done because there has been a haemorrhage of landlords from the area for a host of reasons. Many people who bought second homes did so to provide for their future and pensions. They were small investors providing for themselves in their old age. We need to address these issues. There is also the issue of utilising existing housing stock, which I welcome.
Another area I would like to mention - I know that the Minister may have heard me say this before - is encouraging downsizing by empty nesters to smaller homes and giving them an incentive to do so if it is their desire. Nobody wants to move people from the house of their life if they want to stay there, but very often they would be comfortable if there was an incentive. We need to get rid of the blockages, locally and nationally. I will return to this point.
What people want to see from the plan is an increase in the delivery of housing. It will require the implementation of all of the actions outlined in the plan by the Minister. It will also require an overwhelming team effort by all stakeholders to achieve these targets. There will need to be a strong focus on behalf of all stakeholders to reduce any bureaucratic or other blockage to achieving this and the national targets included in the plan. There will be a need to treat the plan as an emergency response to a national crisis.
Irish people are of the land, as we know, and place a high value on ownership of home and land. Ones house is one's home, one's sanctuary, one's place of safety and where families gather. When one does not have a house, it goes to the heart of one's sense of well-being in a very negative way. We know that there are blockages with regard to Part V and other issues to be addressed. The Minister has alluded to this in the plan. I suggest that if needs be, we look at suspending it for the duration of the crisis. The extent of departmental monitoring and the approval requirement of local authorities needs to be looked at and I know that the Minister is doing this. I do not know how many stages there are, but one must go back and double-check with the Department at every stage along the development. We need to address this.
There is also the issue of quick build housing. It has a bad reputation, but we know Germany has been doing this for years and has bespoke housing constructed offsite and built onsite in a matter of four to six weeks. This is being done in Ireland by a company which delivers four houses per week. These are of a high standard, higher than the regulations that apply and they are guaranteed for more than 70 years.
Some local authorities have struggled to meet targets, but Fingal County Council has managed to exceed them. It had a target of 1,376 for the period from 2015 to 2017, but in the period it expects to deliver 2,000 social houses. It has been buying houses and reduced the number of voids from more than 200 to 45, which a represents a figure of 1%.
I commend the Minister. This problem goes to the core of our democracy. We need to treat it as an emergency and priority and I am glad to see that the Minister is doing so.
I welcome the Minister and commend him for the leadership he has shown in dealing with this issue and his genuine and passionate engagement with the House earlier when he put forward his vision for this area. I particularly commend him for underscoring his commitment on the question of social housing. I also admire his strong leadership in keeping the housing delivery unit very close to hand with fortnightly reporting. It is commendable that there will be such strong public accountability and oversight. I commend the Minister for holding responsibility in this area.
Previous speakers have highlighted the concern in the House about the role of the private sector. It is very strongly emphasised and it would be very important as we implement this to examine the experience of public private partnerships and that we examine the extent to which the case is made for public private partnerships. Is the profit component which is brought in wherever there is a private partnership outweighed by the added benefit? I ask that this case be made again and again, rather than it being assumed as it comes into practice in order that we will have a rigorous rationale in each case as to why the option is being chosen.
As others stated, we need to build up our local and public capacity in the provision and construction of housing and, in the long term, in the management of housing. This is an area in which we have seen a depletion at local authority level and a pulling away from managing housing. When we speak about putting people into houses through social housing, people will need to continue to live in these houses in the long term. We need to look at maintenance staffing levels which have been so severely depleted at local authority level. In the west many housing estates are half-finished with no clear responsibility. If we are looking at housing on a grand scale, there needs to be thought about how these housing estates will be maintained in the long term and where responsibility will sit. We do not want to see companies benefit in the short term and pull away from responsibilities in the medium term.
I was a little concerned to see the question of infrastructure placed in the section on building more houses rather than in the section on social housing. It is very important that if the State invests in infrastructure it does not simply serve to open up greenfield sites for private development but that it be largely focused on mixed or public housing development and that this be a priority when it comes to the concrete allocation of these infrastructure funds. This is a practical suggestion, but the detail will be important as to where it goes.
We cannot completely sideline the planning question which has been adequately discussed by others in the House. We have seen the fast-tracking of housing on flood plains in the past and the impact this has had. There is a role for planning which must be maintained. When we speak about infrastructure and amenities, people living in homes also need to live in communities. As we look to bring land banks on board and put public land into use, let us also ensure we leave space, even if it is in the medium rather than the immediate term, to plan for amenities such as green spaces that will make these homes into communities. That is particularly the case with regard to schooling.
I expect the Minister to work closely with the Minister for Education and Skills in that regard.
I welcome the Minister placing predictability at the heart of this measure. There is a concern about leases and that concern will accelerate as the ten-year leases signed in the past five or six years expire. Where any private vacant stock is taken on board, I urge that purchase be favoured over leasing.
My final point and perhaps the most important relates to the hidden homeless. Hidden homelessness is a particular issue for women, particularly for those coming from situations of domestic violence. In addition to the fact that we must consider refuge places that are appropriate for women leaving violent situations, there are medium-term issues to be addressed. We must consider the fact that many women who have left such situations are staying with family members in unsuitable conditions and feel very distant from any option to secure accommodation. At local authority level, for example, they are often required to be living in an area, but they might wish to change location. This might be crucial to their well-being and family's safety. Moreover, they might technically have a share in a house. I might correspond further on the issue of domestic violence, if the Minister is amenable.
I am conscious of the fact that I spoke for approximately 35 minutes earlier; I will, therefore, be brief.
I am not sure why the Minister said that.
I could repeat what I said, if the Senator wishes, although perhaps not for a full 35 minutes.
I will try to answer some of the questions asked. There are elements of the programme which relate to victims of domestic violence, but if the Senator has further suggestions to make, I would like to hear them.
Regarding disability issues, I accept the points the Senator made. In this document there are many areas in which we are signalling intent, but we do not go into precise detail. There is almost a full page on the subject. There is a commitment to extend the national housing strategy for people with a disability and ensure it takes effect. I will talk to the Senator again about the issue separately. However, there is no lack of ambition. It is an attempt to include a series of different priorities and ambitions in a single document, without over-emphasising one over the others.
In response to other concerns outlined by Members, I wish to get a couple of things straight about the planning system. Many of the really bad planning decisions made in the past were made under the system in place. Sometimes councillors were at fault; sometimes it was the fault of planners and sometimes An Bord Pleanála made poor decisions. Building large housing estates on flood plains should not have happened, but the changes I am making to the planning system will not make them any less likely to occur. We must have a system that is robust and that we can trust but in which decisions are made faster. There is an emergency and the idea that we continue as normal, give everybody his or her say as normal and stick to normal time procedures will not do what we require. We must make decisions faster, but I emphasise that does not mean that we make poor decisions.
Primary legislation will be required to allow and instruct An Bord Pleanála to do what we will ask it to do under it. It will be brought through this House, as well as the Dáil. Senators will have an opportunity to make the points they have made about the cost to the public to make objections and observations, the availability of information online and so forth. We can discuss all of those issues. I will ask the House to facilitate the passage of that legislation early in the autumn. I cannot simply say all planning applications for more than 100 houses must go to An Bord Pleanála. The current provision is protected by primary legislation which I will have to change. There will be an opportunity to tease out all of these issues and ensure we protect members the public in their ability to understand what is taking place and make observations and objections should they wish to do so. At the same time, however, we must resource An Bord Pleanála to make decisions in a timely manner - 18 weeks.
The approach of An Bord Pleanála will change. Instead of asking for further information which often pushes a process to over a year in length, it will make decisions in 18 weeks. The reason I have asked it to do this is that it will put a massive onus on developers to get the application right, consult locally and engage in proper and detailed pre-planning consultation with local authorities to ensure consistency with local development plans and so forth. Early on I suspect there will be a significant increase in the number of refusals by An Bord Pleanála, as opposed to giving the board the option of seeking further information and the process continuing. I am telling developers to get their applications in but to ensure they get them right before they are sent in in teasing through all of the issues. We are changing the emphasis by increasing the responsibility placed on the applicant and then ensuring the system makes decisions faster. I believe this can work. Local government will still have a big role to play in pre-planning consultation. If that consultation does not take place and if the application is not consistent with what local councillors have decided on in the local development plans, An Bord Pleanála will not grant planning permission. That is the thinking behind what we are doing.
Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill referred to vacant properties. There is a great deal in the action plan about what we could do in that regard. One of the Senator's suggestions is to provide grant aid to renovate properties to make them fit for purpose for rental. That is exactly what we are proposing to do. In fact, we are copying a scheme that has been very successful in the United Kingdom under which local authorities can approach a property owner and offer him or her three or five years rent upfront, which can act as a grant to get the property into a suitable condition for renting. After five years he or she will have a much more valuable property and he or she will have had a sustainable tenant for that period. There is a series of other proposals to make it easy to make the transition from commercial to residential without having to go through a long planning process to seek a change of use and so forth. I share the sentiments expressed by the Senator.
I wish to make a really important point about public private partnerships, PPPs, although I will probably run out of time.
The Minister already has.
Some people will accuse me of making public land available for free to private developers. We are not doing this. We are setting up a partnership to deliver mixed tenure communities. It involves private sector input, as well as local authority or approved housing body input, in order that we can have private houses next to social houses, affordable houses, affordable rental accommodation, perhaps some student accommodation or accommodation specifically designed for the elderly or for people with a disability. It is about trying to achieve mixed tenure. We will have three flagship projects under way before the end of the year to show how it can be done. That is what I mean when I talk about the strategic use of public land. We can provide space on zoned land to put these new projects together. It is a different approach towards providing social housing.
Incidentally, I welcome what Councillor Daithí Doolan said at one of the stakeholder sessions we held, when he spoke about supporting this approach, whereby 40% or 50% of a housing development might be private sector housing, 20% or 30% might be affordable housing and 20% or 25% might be social housing. In that way we will create a mix with diverse communities. We can move early to show how it can be done better than we have in the past. The idea that every acre of publicly owned land must be filled with mono tenure social housing that is all the same in housing estate after housing estate has created problems for us which we must try to avoid in the future. The 47,000 new social housing units we will create in the next six years must be integrated, where possible. Obviously, there will be some social housing estates, but we must also have mixed, diverse communities growing up together and achieving better outcomes.
I hope that gives Senators a flavour of the plan. If they have other suggestions to make, they should send them to us and we will try to take them on board.
Sitting suspended at 3.20 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m.