Housing Motions

Housing

148. This Ard notes:

  • That the number of mortgage holders in mortgage distress is growing rapidly
  • The serious impact of mortgage distress on families, local economies and the financial stability of the country

 This Ard Fheis calls for the establishment of independent statutory distressed mortgage resolution processes in both the 6 and 26 Counties the purpose of which would be to:

  • reach a legally binding resolution of mortgage distress on a case by case basis
  • protect the family home through a variety of measures including loss sharing, shared equity and transferring tenure type to social renting
  • enable those unable to remain in the family home to downsize or transfer to more sustainable mortgage arrangements via short sales or property/mortgage swaps
  • protect the taxpayer by ensuring that mortgage lenders and inter-bank commercial lenders share a portion of the burden involved in the problem of mortgage distress
  • implement the Law Reform Commission’s recommendations on the reform of the bankruptcy laws to enable people to have a fresh start if formal bankruptcy is the only way of addressing their mortgage distress

 This Ard Fheis recommends that:

  • Sinn Féin launch a major national campaign on the growing housing crisis in the 6 and 26 counties, the purpose of which is to highlight the growing homeless, social housing and distressed mortgage crises and to promote credible, costed and radical alternatives aimed at meeting people’s housing need.

 Ard Chomhairle

West Belfast Comhairle Ceantair

Keenan/ Doherty Cumann, Carrickmacross

Charlie McGlade Cumann, Drimnagh, Dublin
O’Neill/De Barra Cumann, Cork City

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

149. It is quite clear that the Bankruptcy Act of 1988 is simply inadequate in tackling the intricacies and difficulties of modern bankruptcy. Ireland’s bankruptcy system provides no reprieve and no way out for those struggling with debt. Instead of being helped people are being punished and branded debtors for life.

Sinn Féin should adopt the following policies:

  • To immediately stop the practice of banks pursuing loans that have already been written off by the banks. This could be achieved by making it an offence for a bank official to swear that a sum of money was due to the bank when the fact was that the sum had been written off.
  • To translate the debts that have been written off by the banks into debt relief. That is once the bank has got the benefit of the write off through tax relief that the bank cannot then pursue the debt.
  • To introduce fresh bankruptcy procedures in line with international standards where the debtors discharge and related “fresh Start” is the key concept.

West Limerick Cumann

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

150. This Ard Fheis;

  • Expresses disappointment at the failure of the Fianna Fail/Green Party government to meet its 2010 deadline of ending long term homelessness and the need to sleep rough.
  • Expresses disappointment at the failure of that government to fully implement the homeless strategy, The Way Home
  • Notes that more than 4,500 people continue to experience homelessness with many thousands more living at risk of homelessness.

 Calls on the Fine Gael/Labour government to;

  • Set a new target date for the ending of long term homelessness and the need to sleep rough.
  • Update the National Implementation Plan for the homeless strategy including appropriate key performance indicators and new timelines and targets to ensure that all aspects of the strategy are implemented
  • Provide an adequate supply of housing to meet the needs of the 4,500 people currently experiencing homelessness throughout the state
  • Provide appropriate housing, health, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse services and other support services to people experiencing homelessness
  • Develop a new youth homelessness strategy with a focus on aftercare & out of hours services
  • Amend section 45 of the 1991 Child Care Act to provide a statutory right to aftercare
  • Conduct an annual state wide count of homelessness using the ‘counted in’ methodology

Ard Chomhairle

Charlie McGlade Cumann, Drimnagh,
Dublin

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

151. This Ard Fheis commends the work of the Simon Community and supports their campaign against the cuts in emergency funding. Sinn Féin will also continue to campaign for services to be put in place for people who are ready and wish to move on from the Simon Community.

Louth Comhairle Ceantair

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

152. This Ard Fheis calls for properties under the control of NAMA which are identified as suitable for social housing to be handed over to local authorities in order to reduce the housing lists, and developed with a mixture of social and affordable housing, long-term and short-term lettings to address a diversity of housing needs.


O’Neill/De Barra Cumann, Cork City

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

153. This Ard Fheis calls on the 26 county Government, in conjunction with NAMA and the appropriate department, to examine the issue of ghost estates taking into account the following:

a) The handover of ghost estates to each local authority area where said estates are located

b) Create a new short term national housing rental agency to provide those dwellings to those currently on the various social housing lists, with the option to accept or refuse

c)  Create employment for local people who are out of work to complete outstanding work on unfinished/abandoned housing estates across Ireland

d) The monies generated from rents will result in a return of monies through the national housing rental agency to further invest in other such ghost estates

e) Houses can be rented under a rental timeframe and the resident can have an option to buy after an agreed timeline. In addition the resident can buy the property at the lowest point of value when resident in the property during the time of renting

f) Residents who avail of this programme do not have to buy the property after the agreed timeline. Renting can be done for as long as the residents want but under all existing and future tenant Laws. This will protect the tenant and the Council in the future.

 

Wolfe Tone Cumann, Sallins,

Co. Kildare

 Passed                      Lost                      Referred

154. This Ard Fheis calls on the Minister for Social Development to:

  • Order the immediate installation of carbon monoxide alarms in all social housing properties which are still heated using glass-fronted fires
  • Initiate a scheme for the replacement of glass-fronted fires in all social housing properties with a safer, cleaner and greener form of heating
  • Ensure that cyclical maintenance of social housing properties is continued to prevent the deterioration of the housing stock whilst striving to achieve Decent Homes standards
  • Ensure that all housing authorities have sufficient legal powers to deal with anti-community elements in order that other residents are not the continual victims of the actions of anti-social activity and crime
  • End the sequencing of city centre developments which has postponed the development of the North Street and Castle Street areas, thereby causing them to fall into greater dereliction.

 West Belfast Comhairle Ceantair

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

155. This Ard Fheis condemns new housing practices in some local authorities in the 26 counties of removing people from the housing list who are not in overcrowded accommodation following a new assessment. These people still have a housing need and the new practice is a deliberate strategy to purge the housing waiting lists in order to present a false understanding of the nature of the state's housing crisis. Being on the local authority housing list is a gateway to other housing options such as rent allowance and voluntary housing.

 Emmet Clarke Cumann, South West Inner City

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

156. This Ard Fheis commends and supports the residents of Dolphin House, St Teresa’s Gardens, Croke Villas, Dominick Street, O’Devanney Gardens and other areas awaiting promised regeneration. The conditions in which some of these residents are living are worse than slum tenements and are totally unacceptable in so called modern Ireland. The Ard Fheis supports Dolphin House in their Human Rights Campaign and will continue to ensure that their right for decent housing is to the forefront of our housing campaign.

Emmet Clarke Cumann, South West Inner City

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

157. This Ard Fheis calls on the Oireachtas team to bring present legislation or a private members motion to the Oireachtas on the issue of Ground Rents and other unjust rent payments being paid to British absentee landlords in respect of land that was stolen off the Irish people in the first instance.

Keenan/ Doherty Cumann, Carrickmacross

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

158. This Ard Fheis calls on the Minister for the Environment, Community & Local Government in the 26 Counties to empower and resource local authorities to properly maintain, repair and refurbish their social housing stock, ensuring especially that the changeover time from one tenant to the next is kept to the minimum, thus reducing the danger of vandalism and damage to local authority houses and apartments. Given the high level of unemployment among skilled construction workers and apprentices, a scheme should be established to employ people to carry out this work.

Patrick Cannon Cumann, Donaghmede
Baile Átha Cliath

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

159. This Ard Fheis deplores the continuing dereliction of unfinished housing estates and commercial developments and urges more effective and concerted Government action to address this problem which condemns communities to years of living in unacceptable conditions.

Patrick Cannon Cumann, Donaghmede,
Baile Átha Cliath

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

160. This Ard Fheis:

Opposes the privatisation of social housing into the hands of private housing trusts.

Opposes the handing over of public property to private developers using the name of “Housing Trusts” to build so called affordable housing.

Opposes the introduction of a scheme whereby local authorities and landlords work together and share a register of homeless people and move them into the private rental sector which is unregulated and in receipt of upwards of £90million annually from the British government. This scheme could eventually see prospective local authority tenants become displaced and lose their housing points.

Cumann Marks/McKeown, Iúr Cinn Trá,
Newry Comhairle Ceantair

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

161. This Ard Fheis calls upon the Irish Government to regulate that builders construct a rainwater harvesting system in all future developments.

Black/Ryan Cumann, Lucan,
Dublin

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

162. This Ard Fheis reiterates its call for a Housing Ombudsman to be established who would have with the remit to rule over disputes between residents and management companies in new housing estates where exuberant service charges exist as an interim measure until such time as management of the estate is taken over by the relevant local authority.

Charlie McGlade Cumann, Drimnagh,
Dublin

Passed                      Lost                      Referred

Ard Fheis 2011