Fianna Fáil raises concerns over rental issues

Fianna Fáil has insisted it will reconsider its support for the Fine Gael-led minority Government if the gaps in the housing report are not addressed. The party's spokesman on housing Barry Cowen said there were a number of areas which have not been addressed in the Government's Action Plan for Housing.

Mr Cowen cited the failure to address the problems in the rental market and in student accommodation.

He also said it had not considered the Oireachtas housing committee's proposals to establish a housing agency and to introduce a moratorium on home repossessions.

“There are gaps in this strategy that have to be filled. We will make proposals to fill them, in the event of them not doing so.

“If, after that process is complete, we feel this Government cannot address this crisis, we are going to have to look for another government to do it.”

Mr Cowen said the Fine Gael-led minority Government has taken a laissez-faire attitude to the housing crisis, despite Fianna Fáil insisting the issue be tackled - in return for its support for a minority Government.

Neglected

The Fianna Fáil TD said there were aspects that should be welcomed but he insisted there were areas neglected by Minister for Housing Simon Coveney.

“There are many timelines and we will be holding the Government to account to ensure none of them go off.

“This is all about implementation now. There are some disappointments, the plan is not complete. Difficulties for the rental market and the first-time buyers have been long-fingered.”

Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said the Government’s plan fails to address 40 per cent of the proposals made by the Oireachtas committee on housing.

He said the most glaring omission was the lack of measures to deal with the rental market. Mr Ó Broin said: “The plan is particularly disappointing on the private rental sector where no specific actions are being proposed.

“Rather, the plan proposes relegating the issues of long-term reform of the private rental sector and issues of security of tenure and standards to some future date.”

Commitments

Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the plan does not address two key commitments made in the programme for partnership.

There are no measures to establish a dedicated court for arrears cases, or a commitment to amend the code of conduct on mortgage arrears, he said. "We are eight years on since the banking crash, yet it is as if Fine Gael are only now waking up to the mortgage crisis.

“The 85,989 families in arrears can’t afford any more backsliding on what were, in the first instance, modest steps in the right direction.”

The Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit group claimed the housing plan announcement was heavy on spin and public relations but little else.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the Government’s answer to the housing crisis was to facilitate and incentivise the private sector.

Mr Boyd Barrett said this was the same strategy that had brought the country to where it was today.

He claimed this Government was merely repeating the same mistakes.