I welcome any legislation that draws attention to the problems of housing, particularly the problem of housing in my constituency, Dublin Central. I can safely say that apart from unemployment in my constituency housing is the biggest single social issue. The Minister has been complimented by many Deputies, including the last speaker, for bringing forward the Bill and I am sure it is well deserved but in my view there are two specific reasons why the Bill is before the House. The first reason is the campaign that has been waged by Senator Brendan Ryan and his colleagues in the Simon Community. There is no doubt that some sections would not have been included in the Bill were it not for that campaign. Senator Brendan Ryan, and the Simon Community, should be congratulated. They may find certain shortcomings in the Bill but I am sure they will welcome it.
The second reason the Bill is before the House is a more serious one from my point of view. I see it as an attempt to fill a vacuum, as a cover-up for the absence of Government policy in the area of housing. I should like to draw attention to some statistics to support that view. Since the Government took office they have dismantled the housing programmes of all local authorities, specifically in Dublin. I should like to refer to the housing capital allocation between 1982 and 1988. In 1982, the housing capital allocation to Dublin Corporation was £76 million; it was reduced to £70 million in 1983 and in 1988 it was £4.4 million. That allocation was not to build new houses but to complete schemes begun last year. In other words, Dublin Corporation have not been provided with any money to build new houses in the city centre. Does the Minister envisage that the Government will continue with this policy? Has the Minister decided not to build any more local authority houses in the city centre?
The Minister may tell us that the housing waiting list of Dublin Corporation has been reduced in recent years and I do not deny that. It has been reduced from an unacceptably high level to a level that continues to be unacceptable to me. I should like to quote details from the current housing waiting list of Dublin Corporation which I received from the housing allocation officer of the corporation, Mr. O'Sullivan. The number of applicants on the waiting list is 2,819 and of that figure 574 are senior citizens. I understand that 2,245 families are on the waiting list and that there are 100 single persons on it. That is unacceptable. I must stress that I am referring to the need to build houses within the city limits and not dealing with Tallaght, Clondalkin and so on, although I accept that those areas have been overbuilt. In my view, there is a need for facilities in those areas and not additional houses. There are vast areas of the inner city, in particular the Sheriff Street area, where there is a desperate need for housing.
The housing list I have quoted only conveys half the story. There is also the transfer list. Thousands of families live in overcrowded, substandard conditions in corporation flats. Many families live in one-bedroomed flats and do not have bathrooms or proper washing facilities. According to the figures issued by the transfer officer of Dublin Corporation, there are 2,256 families in the inner city on the transfer list who are seeking accommodation that will meet their needs. Of those 2,256 applicants, 421 are senior citizens. Between the housing list and the transfer list there are almost 1,000 senior citizens in Dublin who are looking for adequate accommodation and there are in the region of 5,000 families looking for proper and adequate accommodation.
It is in that context that the current policy of the Fianna Fáil Government is simply inexplicable. If this policy continues, in the next three or four years a situation will develop similar to that which developed in the sixties when there was a housing emergency in Dublin and when people took to the streets, marched and demanded a proper local authority housing policy. I have no doubt that that situation will develop in the next few years if the current housing policy of the Government continues. It is appropriate when a Housing Bill is before the Dáil that we should be told precisely what the housing policy of the Government is. Do they intend to continue to refuse the local authorities any finance to provide badly-needed houses?
The Minister may well say that the new emphasis will be on refurbishment. There are in the region of 1,270 flats in the Dublin city area which have no bathrooms and no proper washing facilities whatever. That sort of statistic is almost incredible in 1988, but it is the official statistic from Dublin Corporation. Families are living in one-bedroomed and two-bedroomed flats with no bathrooms and no modern washing facilities. The Minister has started a programme of refurbishment on the north side of Dublin which, if it gets off the ground this year, will mean that eight flats in St. Mary's Mansions in Seáan McDermott Street will be refurbished. I would take this opportunity to ask the Minister to check with the officials in his Department to see what is holding up even that tiny but badly-needed pilot scheme in St. Mary's Mansions. The corporation submitted plans some time ago and there seems to be some difficulty in even approving that small scheme in that very depressed and very disadvantaged area.
I hope the Minister might find it appropriate, when responding to this Bill, to announce a programme for the complete refurbishment of all 1,200 of those flats throughout Dublin city so that proper washing facilities would be provided for the people who are unfortunate enough to live there. That is something that is long overdue. It should have been done many years ago. A small start has been made — any start is to be welcomed — but I hope that a programme will be announced that all of these flats will be refurbished within a particular period.
The opening statement of the Minister of State last week was that this Housing Bill is a major social measure. I am not too sure what is meant by that. I do not see anything major in it. The Minister was complimented last week by the Deputies who represent the Ballymun area. I would love to be in a position, as a Deputy representing the Sheriff Street area, to be equally complimentary to the Minister but for the moment at least I cannot be so because I am not clear on what the Minister intends to do in Sheriff Street. Much more importantly, nobody who lives in Sheriff Street is clear either. The people there are very anxious to know precisely what the Minister intends to do. Despite all the hype, the talk and the hoped for development in the Customs House site, just over a wall from the Sheriff Street flats complex, in the last year in Sheriff Street the living conditions have deteriorated to an almost unbearable and certainly unlivable condition. Whatever hope the people there may have had when they heard of developments in the Customs House Docks site and when they saw new inner city houses being built in Seville Place and other areas, they have lost virtually any hope they had in the last year. They have heard a great deal in the press about the possibilities that would present themselves but they have seen and heard nothing from the Minister.
I wonder would the Minister take the opportunity today to let us know what he intends to do about the deplorable living conditions in the Sheriff Sreet flats complex. Does he intend to do what the people there have expressed in a very democratic and almost unanimous way, that is, to demolish the flats on a phased basis and rehouse the people who have lived here since the flats were built and who lived in cottages on the site before they were built? Does the Minister intend to rehouse those people in the North Wall area? If so, what steps have his Department taken to bring that about? Or does the Minister intend to sweep those people out of that area and, as some of the more cynical people who have watched the scene there would say, bring in the yuppie element and get rid of the traditional people who have their roots in that area? I do not believe the Minister would envisage doing such a thing, but it is important that he publicly state what his intention is and what steps he is taking to bring about a solution to the deplorable problem that exists there. The longer Sheriff Street is left as it is, it will become, day by day, a social time bomb. I do not think any Minister — I am sure the present Minister included — would want that situation to continue much longer. As a local representative for that area, I have to take any opportunity I get, and this is one, to highlight their plight and to call on the Minister to respond to it quickly.
I know that a working group from the Department, Dublin Corporation and the Custom House Authority have been examining this matter for at least six months, if not 12 months. Some time ago I questioned some of those people and they said they were getting close to a recommendation. I do not know whether that recommendation has gone to the Minister. All I know is that he has not made any announcement on the matter. I am not sure if the Minister knows what he is going to do in that area. I am saying as clearly as I possibly can that action is required and if the Minister does not take action I have no doubt that the people who live in that area will be forced to do so in their own way. I get some hope from the statements that I have heard from the Deputies who represent the Ballymun area. The Minister has been very active as regards that area and has responded to the needs there. I hope that his next priority will be the Sheriff Street area and that he will turn to that priority now.
One of the points made last week is common to many corporation flat complexes and defeats the whole new policy of refurbishment, that is, that, at a time when the Government and the Minister are talking about the need for refurbishment of flat complexes in Dublin city, the allocation that is made available to the corporation for the maintenance of flats schemes has been drastically cut, more than halved, in the last year or two. How can one proceed with a programme of refurbishment for the older flats while drastically cutting the maintenance allocation for the more modern flats? By the time the older flats are refurbished the more modern flats will need refurbishment because of a lack of maintenance. What is spoken about on the one hand and the reality of cutbacks on the other does not make sense. This is something which the Minister, who might not be as familiar with life in inner city flats as some of us, might spend a little time on to see what can be done to speed up the refurbishment programme and to provide a proper maintenance programme for the many thousands of tenants who live in the flat complexes in the city and elsewhere.
I have already paid a compliment to the Simon Community and to Senator Brendan Ryan for their campaign to bring this Bill before the House and it is only right to look at their comments on the Bill. In a document written by Brian Harvey they state:
The 1988 Bill does not impose any duty on local authorities to provide accommodation for the homeless, and the absence of this is its most serious omission. At best, the effectiveness of the legislation in ensuring that the homeless will receive help will depend on the willingness of individual local authorities to take positive steps and on the Minister introducing suitable regulations. At worst, a local authority may choose to do very little for the homeless or it may pass the buck on to local voluntary organisations. The Housing Bill is thus an enabling measure rather than a Bill which gives homeless people a right to housing.
In conclusion, Brian Harvey states:
If passed, the Bill will mean the homeless will be considered an essential element in local authority housing policy. Two objectives of those who have campaigned for change will be achieved: the definition of a homeless person and the identification of the responsible public authority. But the absence of a duty on the local authority will give a new lease of life to the uncaring or irresponsible housing authority.
The homeless Bill will mean homeless people on the streets long after this particular manifestation of poverty could and should have been swept away; it will mean homeless people unsheltered and unhoused when they could have been provided with accommodation. This is the real tragedy of the Housing Bill: that is why it has to be changed.
I wish to comment on the sentence: "the absence of a duty on the local authority will give a new lease of life to the uncaring or irresponsible housing authority". Having been involved with Dublin Corporation housing department for the past ten years, I can safely say they are not an uncaring or irresponsible housing authority; if anything, they are the opposite. They fulfil their task with the greatest of care and a sense of responsibility and sensitivity to homeless people and the people on their housing list. I do not feel that will be a major problem with Dublin Corporation, but what will be a major problem is the passing of this legislation without any allocation of resources to the corporation to provide the accommodation required. How can they respond to the needs of the homeless and to the needs of the people on their housing and transfer lists if they do not have any accommodation?
It has been said — and there is a great deal of truth in it — that the only policy that is providing vacancies for the corporation is that of the present Government which encourages emigration. It appears to me from watching developments in Dublin that the one contributory factor that is providing accommodation for the homeless is the emigration of families. If that is the position, and I am certain it is, it is a disgrace.
While I agree with the Simon Community that there should be a duty on the housing authority to house homeless people, there must be a duty on the Minister and the Government to ensure that the housing authority have the resources to provide accommodation for people on their housing list. For all the reasons I have mentioned, that is not happening.
From replies to questions I put to the Minister, I know he is of the view that there may be many empty houses and flats in Dublin city and that until they are inhabited he cannot see the logic of building new houses. I went to the corporation and got an analysis of the vacancies in the city area. These vacancies exist largely in three flat complexes. The first is in Ballymun, where there are many empty flats which are not in a habitable condition and where a major refurbishment programme is required. The second is in Sheriff Street, which I have already dealt with, and which appears to be in limbo. Nobody knows, particularly the people who live there, what the future holds for them. The third is in a complex on the south side which is undergoing a major programme of refurbishment, St. Teresa's Gardens. The problem there is being dealt with at least, and once the refurbishment programme is completed there will be no empty flats there. There are no vacant houses in Dublin city. Therefore there is no argument for not building new houses.
There is the problem of empty houses in the county areas, such as in Tallaght. The last speaker referred to this — and his solution to that problem is probably the best one — but I am talking about the Dublin city area, and there are no empty houses in the Dublin Corporation area. There is a very long list of schemes — I am sure it is available to the Minister so I will not go through them now — which have been before the Department of the Environment for the building of new houses in derelict sites in Dublin city for more than two years. They have not been approved.
More than most, I welcome the building of the new inner city houses over the last five to ten years, but the number of houses being built on the north side is just a drop in the ocean. From listening to the last Government speaker one would get the impression that that programme had been completed. It was merely started. Half the north side of the city is still derelict and these sites are in the ownership of Dublin Corporation. Plans for building houses on those derelict sites by the corporation have been with the Minister for the past two years, but have not been approved.
If the Minister has a commitment to do something about the housing position in Dublin and is to play a real part in resolving this problem, rather than introducing this type of a Bill, which we are told is a social measure, it would be more practical if he were to do two things: first, speed up the refurbishment programme of the substandard flats; and, second, continue, not dismantle, the inner city house building programme.