THESE EVICTIONS MUST BE STOPPED!
MINISTERS KELLY AND HAYES MUST ACT!
Tipperary is the 7th highest county for repossessions cases after Dublin, Cork, Galway Meath, Kildare, Donegal but above Limerick and Waterford.
36 Applications for Repossession are before Clonmel Circuit Court this week alone.
On the 31 Dec, 2014, the number of civil bills for repossession in Co Tipperary which were lodged in court by lenders was 341. Of these 293 were still proceeding on Jan 1,2015. (Courts Service see below).
This makes Tipperary the 7th highest county for repossessions after Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Cork, Galway, Donegal but above Limerick and Waterford.
48 Tipperary Homes were repossessed last year according to figures for 2014 issued by the Courts Service recently. Only 8 of these were “buy to let”. The Tipperary figure of 48 orders granted and 293 orders still in process were both over 4% of the national total. But these figures are now to escalate dramatically. David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association has claimed (Irish Times March 9) that 25,000 homes will be repossessed over the next 2 years. This means that over 1000 Tipperaryhomes will be repossessed over the next two years.
The increase in the price of houses is making it much more attractive for banks to repossess and sell-on homes and they are taking full advantage of government decisions.
In the Dáil last week, Labour and Fine Gael voted down a motion to remove veto power from banks in matters dealing with the family home.
In Spring 2013, the Labour/Fine Gael Government passed an amendment in the Dáil to allow banks to repossess homes after repossession orders were struck down by Justice Dunne in the High Court.
Over 38,000 Irish households in mortgage distress cannot avail of the Personal Insolvency Service because they have insufficient disposable income! They must not be evicted.
The veto given to banks by the government over the mortgage to rent scheme and other restructuring instruments must be removed immediately.
THE GOVERNMENT IS TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FORTHCOMING SPATE OF EVICTIONS!!!
I am calling on Ministers Kelly and Hayes to insist that the government stops these evictions now!
Seamus Healy TD
087-2802199 seamus.healy@oireachtas.ie
Statement in the Dáil during the private members motion on Housing Affordability on 27 January 2015.
Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
There is a very significant housing crisis in this country and the figures are truly horrendous. A total of 90,000 families languish on local authority housing waiting lists throughout the country. A total of 73,000 families are on rent supplement, in many cases, condemned to live in poor, substandard, damp and insecure accommodation.
For example, in Tipperary, 3,100 people are on the local authority housing waiting list and not a single local authority house will be built in 2015. No council, including Tipperary, has been given a capital allocation for housing this year as yet. This means that the council will be lucky to build any houses in 2016 – or at the very most, it will be at the end of 2016 before they are built.
This huge housing crisis is a result of the policies pursued by the previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and by this Government slashing the local authority house building programme and privatising housing. The 2020 social housing strategy is a continuation of that privatisation. At the end of that period, we will find that three quarters of the social housing will be provided by private rented accommodation, with only 5,800 new local authority builds per year. Some 40 years ago, in 1975, we were building 8,794 local authority houses. We need to repeat those figures; we need to build at least 10,000 local authority houses for people on the housing waiting list. There is no doubt that the privatisation of public housing has been an absolute disaster. No less a person than Uachtarán na hÉireann has drawn our attention to the issue. He has stated that we have to accept once and for all that people who need housing and cannot provide that from their own means should not be abandoned to the market place and the principle should be accepted that their housing should be as good as any other housing. He stated that one of the most basic deprivations a human being can suffer or fear, is that of being homeless. He further stated that it is about democracy, that one cannot leave the provision of housing to a residual feature of the market place. We have done that and homelessness is the consequence. He also stated that we have to accept that we need a great, huge increase in public rental accommodation.
The Irish Council for Social Housing said something similar when it stated that the over-reliance on the private market to meet social housing demand is unsustainable and ultimately unpredictable. Barnardos states that it is seriously concerned about the scale of the housing crisis now facing many low-income families, particularly those reliant on social welfare.
Many children experience their childhood in overcrowded, unsuitable and insecure accommodation, which affects their social, emotional and educational development. We need an emergency public house building programme, with an absolute minimum of 10,000 local authority builds every year. This programme would be self-financing and would make common sense. It would put construction workers back to work and ensure additional PAYE income for the State. It would also ensure a saving to the State in social welfare payments and it would provide additional rental income for the State. It would also support the local economy, as it would put money in people’s pockets which would ensure a huge boost for local shops and businesses in danger of closing.
What we have heard from the Minister and the Government this evening is not the real world. A total of 90,000 families are on local authority house waiting lists, which is a huge figure. These thousands of families are condemned to live in insecure, poor and substandard accommodation. This must stop.
Statement by Seamus Healy TD 087-2802199
Minister should Provide New Houses Not Spin
Minister Alan Kelly has now admitted that only 475 new social housing units will be built in the entire state this year. This government has now been in power for over 3 years.
Tipperary Co Council’s Director of Housing Services Claire Curley told a recent meeting that 750 people presented as homeless in Co Tipperary since January 2013 including 244 so far this year.
There are 2,500 families on the local authority housing list in Co Tipperary at the moment and 90,000 nationally.
In answer to a priority question from me(Question No. 5 of 17 September 2014, Minister Kelly had said: “Overall, I expect some 6,000 social housing units to be delivered across the range of programmes in the calendar year 2014.”(Dáil Report).
But when I asked Minister Kelly for a breakdown in a supplementary written question, it turned out that 2,500 of “the social housing units to be delivered” were in fact the payment of rent allowance to those in private rental accommodation and only 450 were newly built social housing? This spin is totally unacceptable when over half of applicants are on the waiting list for over 4 years and 750 people have presented as homeless in Co Tipperary alone over the last 18 months. Only 750 additional social housing units were provided nationally in 2013
President Higgins has recently criticised the lack of provision of newly built social housing and insisted that the fundamental human right to housing should not be left to the market. I call on the Minister to insist that new and much increased capital funding be made available to social housing bodies and to Tipperary Co Council to tackle this deep human crisis.
Seamus Healy TD
087-2802199
Workers & Unemployed Action 