Seamus Healy TD 087-2802199
Leaders Questions to the Taoiseach
Healy Says Families on Housing Lists Being Abandoned and calls on Government to Build Social and Affordable Houses
Deputy Seamus Healy: There is a social and affordable housing crisis. More than 100,000 families are languishing on local authority housing waiting lists. These families cannot afford to buy or build their own homes and cannot access mortgages. In addition, because the Government has slashed the income limits to qualify for local authority housing, thousands of other families cannot get on those lists, cannot access mortgages and are condemned to private rented accommodation for the rest of their lives.
Social and affordable house building by local authorities and voluntary housing agencies is almost non-existent. The local authority house building budget was decimated by the Government, down from €367 million in 2010 to €65 million in 2013. Similarly, the voluntary sector budget was reduced from €70 million in 2012 to €55 million in 2013. The local authority social and affordable house building programme has been privatised by the Government, by bailing out landlords and developers, by shoving €500 million of public money into their deep pockets through the payment of rent supplement each year and paying their mortgages over and over again through rental accommodation and leasing schemes.
The ESRI has advised that we need to treble the house building programme. We have read that the Government has a draft housing plan. However, based on press reports, it relies solely on financial incentives for developers to build. It also apparently proposes to remove the requirements for builders to provide a proportion of social and affordable housing in each development.
With 100,000 families on local authority housing waiting lists and thousands more who cannot get on those lists, will the Taoiseach ensure direct investment in local authority and voluntary housing agency house building? Are there any proposals in this plan, which the Government is apparently preparing, for such investment?
The Taoiseach: The Deputy has raised a matter of very considerable concern to people. Clearly he and everybody else is aware that during the so-called boom years we built nearly 100,000 housing units when we had a requirement for perhaps 25,000 or 30,000. We are now building 6,500 to 8,000 when we need 25,000 to 30,000. Of course these cannot be provided overnight. I am well aware of the pressure, particularly in city areas on the need for detached housing for families, many of whom are now caught in apartments or rented accommodation that is not suitable.
Considerable work is going on here. The Minister, Deputy Burton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O’Sullivan, have initiated a pilot project in Limerick for the housing assistance payments scheme, which will be of interest to local authorities. That should be in legislation by early summer. On Thursday we will have a meeting of the Cabinet dealing with the construction sector in general, which will be of interest to the Deputy and others. We need to get the construction sector to contribute far more to the economy than it is. It used to be at 24% or 25% and is now down to 6% or 7%, which is much too low.
Clearly Deputies are aware of the pressure on local authorities for social housing. There is a programme in place for this year for the recommencement of local authority housing. There is to be a debate on housing in the Dáil in the next two to three weeks and the Deputy will have his opportunity to make a longer contribution to that with his many suggestions. The Government is conscious of the issue and it will be a feature of what we will discuss at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Based on the Taoiseach’s reply, it is clear the Government’s draft plan is regressive as regards social housing. Obviously it will cater only for those who can afford to buy these houses or get mortgages for them. It will not cater for local authority housing applicants or those who have failed to get on the housing lists because the Government has reduced the income limits significantly. The issue I raise was highlighted today by a family who are protesting outside the office of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, because of the rent caps that are in place by the Government. That family are constituents of the Minister. This is an urgent matter. It is an emergency situation for the 100,000 families who are on these waiting lists and for those who cannot get on the lists. There must be a huge increase in investment in social housing. There is a real housing emergency and the Government is relying on a wing and a prayer of private developers and the market which failed us in the past.
I again ask the Taoiseach whether he will significantly increase the income limits for local authority housing. The Government has slashed them by half whereby families on less than €25,000 per annum cannot get on those lists. Will the Taoiseach immediately commence a local authority and voluntary agency house building programme to ensure those 100,000 families and the others who cannot get on that list have proper housing?
The Taoiseach: I would be the first to say that the public housing situation is not what it should be. The Minister for Finance has already made it clear that NAMA is offering 4,000 units that are available for housing.
Deputy Seamus Healy: There are 100,000 families on housing lists.
The Taoiseach: Admittedly some of them may not be in the proper locations and some of them may not be committed but it is an offer of 4,000 units.
The social and public housing programme is clearly too low and it is not meeting the demand we have. When Ireland was building 100,000 houses when 30,000 were needed, clearly the private sector area was very expensive, to put it mildly. The housing assistance payments scheme, which will be of interest to local authorities, will be tested in a number of pilot areas beginning in Limerick and should be law by the summer. The question of having more public housing capacity available and the question of income limits will all form part of the discussions and proposals that come from Members on the housing debate—–
Deputy Seamus Healy: Will the Taoiseach increase the income limits?
The Taoiseach: —–and will be part of the Government’s discussions on stimulating the construction sector in the economy generally this week.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Lock-out, a struggle for workers’ rights. The previous year marked the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the all-Ireland Labour Party by James Connolly and Jim Larkin in Clonmel. In a few short years we will remember the sacrifice of James Connolly and his comrades in 1916. It is more than 125 years since Michael Davitt initiated the Land League campaign against rack-renting landlords.
All of these were movements for the rights, freedom, independence and self-determination of the Irish people. Today the Government is prepared to sell the roofs over the heads of 13,000 Irish people to the modern equivalent of rack-renting landlords, foreign vulture capitalists. A total of 13,000 Irish Nationwide mortgage holders face the appalling vista of their mortgages being sold to these foreign vulture capitalists. These companies are not subject to the Irish regulations put in place to protect distressed mortgage holders. The mortgages are expected to be sold at huge knockdown discounts. Performing mortgages will be discounted up to 30% while distressed mortgages will have discounts in excess of 50%. These companies will be able to squeeze Irish Nationwide mortgage holders, increase interest rates, repossess homes and make obscene profits. The mortgage holders are being thrown to the wolves by the Government.
Deputy Mattie McGrath: Hear, hear.
Deputy Seamus Healy: They are not even being allowed to bid for their own mortgages.
An Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett: I thank the Deputy and ask him to put a question.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Media reports, rightly in my view, have described this sell-off as pure financial treason and an act of outrageous vandalism. Will the Government reverse the decision to sell these mortgages? Will the Government instruct the IBRC liquidator, as it is entitled to do in law, to stop these sales?
Deputy Joan Burton: Special liquidators have been appointed to oversee the liquidation of the IBRC. This is in law for the benefit of all the creditors of the institution, including the State. The special liquidators, as with any liquidator, must maximise the return, and to do otherwise would leave it open to legal challenge. The process involves the special liquidators conducting a valuation and sale process for all the assets of the IBRC, including the residential mortgage portfolio. They are obliged to ensure they maximise the price obtained.
I understand and respect the Deputy’s concern for the people who have mortgages with the institution. A number of such sales have been carried out and quite a number of Deputies have asked this question of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance. In those cases a number of the purchasers, although they are outside the State, have adhered to the code of conduct and the guidelines set down by the Central Bank.
Deputy Mattie McGrath: What about Danske Bank?
Deputy Joan Burton: This is exactly what I would expect to happen in this case. Unfortunately, because of the collapse of the banks and what Fianna Fáil bequeathed to us, we have a situation in which quite a number of financial institutions have collapsed.
Deputy Mattie McGrath: The Government is in charge.
Deputy Joan Burton: To get the economy working again fully – we have started the recovery – we must sort out the issues arising from liquidation. I am very confident the mortgage holders will find that, as has happened in previous cases in this respect, the advice and codes of conduct established by the Central Bank will be adopted. Nothing else makes sense, if I may say so, for the purchasers of the mortgages, whoever they may be and whether they are from Ireland or from abroad, because at the end of the day they will want to recover their money. If, as the Deputy suggests, they will buy some of the mortgages at a discount, it will make sense for them to treat their customers very well because it will ensure they recover the money they invest in the deal. This is what has happened in Ireland and other jurisdictions where unfortunately there has been this type of bank collapse followed by liquidation of financial institutions.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Quite clearly, these families are being thrown to the wolves by the Government, because that is what the reply means. It means the Government is reversing the gains made by Michael Davitt and James Connolly, who called for the reconquest of Ireland from foreign landlords and foreign capitalists. The Government is restoring the modern equivalent of the rack-renting foreign landlord and providing them with the modern equivalent of the battering ram. Will the Government extend Irish legal protections to all mortgage holders? Will it allow householders to bid for these mortgages? Will the Government allow the special liquidator, KPMG, and its advisers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, both companies that were highly complicit in the banking crisis, to decide the future of Irish families? The Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party accused the former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, of economic treason regarding the bailout of Anglo Irish Bank. The Government is knowingly prepared to sell the roofs over the heads of Irish families to these international vulture capitalists. Is this not also economic treason?
Deputy Joan Burton: The economic treason was probably by the people who brought in the bank guarantee resulting in the disastrous collapse—–
Deputy Mattie McGrath: The Minister’s colleagues in government voted for it.
Deputy Barry Cowen: The Government extended it.
Deputy Joan Burton: —–of a number of banking institutions, as happens, unfortunately, in banking collapses. It gives none of us any pleasure to have to recall very sad history of the party opposite when it ruined the economy and the livelihoods and jobs of more than 250,000 people.
Deputy Dara Calleary: You could do with recalling your own history.
Deputy Mattie McGrath: What about the Labour Party?
Deputy Barry Cowen: And you turned it around. You are doing a great job.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Will the Government allow the people to bid for their own mortgages?
An Ceann Comhairle: Do you mind? Thank you.
Deputy Joan Burton: I am perfectly aware – I understand and I sympathise with people—–
Deputy Dara Calleary: Crocodile tears.
Deputy Joan Burton: —–who are affected by the fact they took out a mortgage, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, with a solid-as-a-rock building society, perhaps specialising in mortgages for teachers or gardaí, but suddenly all of the certainty collapsed with the bank guarantee.
Deputy Seamus Healy: Will the Government protect these mortgage holders?
Deputy Joan Burton: What the Government is doing is sorting out the legacy we inherited.
Deputy Michael McGrath: You are selling them down the Swanee.
Deputy Joan Burton: The Department of Finance is aware of this. We have two previous examples of groups of mortgages being sold—–
Deputy Michael McGrath: It is unenforceable. That is the point.
Deputy Joan Burton: —–and where the interest of the mortgage holders has been treated absolutely consistently with the code of conduct and the other advices of the Central Bank. This is what I anticipate will happen again this time.
Deputy Bernard J. Durkan: Hear, hear.
In light of Irish Water stating yesterday that they will not have charges identified until after the elections despite the Taoiseach stating to the contrary during Leaders Questions on 04 February http://wp.me/p1Uvd5-wN , Deputy Healy again asked the Taoseach this morning:
Deputy Healy asks the Taoiseach the following questions with regard to the introduction of the water charges:
“Where water is not fit for purpose, such as in the case of the 18,000 families subject to boil water notices like residences in my constituency served by the Burncourt regional water supply scheme, will families be charged for water?”
“Where hard water is supplied and is corroding electric kettles, shower heads, washing machines and dishwashers, as is the case across the northern part of Clonmel, will the families be charged for water?”
“A huge number of premises will not be metered before the introduction of the charges. How will the bills for these families be calculated?”
“What will be the free water allowance? Will larger households get a larger free allowance of water?”
“Where individuals have special needs for extra drinking water, will the extra amount be free?”
“Will individuals with medical conditions requiring frequent use of toilet facilities, for example those suffering from incontinence, prostate problems or Crohn’s disease, be provided with extra free water for sanitation?”
In addition Deputy Healy asked the Taoiseach if he had misled the Dáil last week, reminding the Taoiseach of his reply which is on the Dáil record, or had Irish Water mislead the Dáil Environment Committee yesterday.
Workers & Unemployed Action 