Debate contribution: Housing: North Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Kelly on 9 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Kelly

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

9 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Housing: North Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4482311

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I think that we are going to come to an agreement on the issue. I do not want to go over it all again, as the previous three Members to speak articulated it very well. I will emphasise a few of the issues, because they have been comprehensively covered, particularly the points system. That will be reviewed, but there needs to be a good consultation on that. There have been attempts to change the intimidation points system for quite a while, because it has been massively abused. We know what the problem is. It was described earlier, and statistics were given, but, just to give one again, of 4,409 applications, 3,479 have come from people who are in housing stress, and only 655 homes have been built. I am not here to criticise the work of the Housing Executive and the housing associations; they have been doing good work, but we need to assist them. What can be done, Minister? I thank you for coming to the debate to listen, Minister. I know that your responsibility goes way beyond North Belfast, but we are talking about North Belfast. Of course, North Belfast is in the top four areas of need, along with west Belfast, Newry and Mourne, and Foyle. Forgive me if I am repeating comments that have been made, but I think that some work was possibly done on the public land that the Department owns before you stepped into the role. I ask you to check that, because work that we can build on may already have been done. One of the big issues is the amount of land that there is for building in North Belfast in order to meet the current demand. There is also council-owned land to consider. Article 15 of the Housing Order has been mentioned, but we could look at amending it in order to make the process easier. At the moment, under the Belfast development plan, there is an aim to have 20% social and affordable housing. That figure is way too low. We need to increase that to give a fair amount of flexibility, which could make a big difference to what we are dealing with. I agree that there are different types of housing tenure, and we have looked at the different aspects of that. However, social and affordable housing is the area where the stress is most felt. We should mention equality in the context of all that. In the past, we have had discussions about discrimination, where we have nearly said, "This is discrimination", and "That is discrimination". I think that if equality is built into the process, it affects people across the board. I am not just standing here as a republican or a nationalist talking about a particular area of North Belfast, but we should make equality central to that process to make sure that there is no discrimination, on whatever basis that might be. Maybe the Minister could also look at that, because we need to eliminate any type of discrimination. I want to praise co-ownership, and maybe I need to expand on that. It has allowed people who would never be able to have a mortgage, especially at the moment, to have an opportunity, and it can make a big difference to their life. Carál mentioned a particular example, but there are many examples of the rents that are now being paid, and they are unbelievable. Co-ownership allows people to avoid the huge private rents in those circumstances. However, as I said, the problem goes much wider. Ring fencing is one of those terms that people use a lot, and then all the Ministers start panicking, because it is very hard to get ring fencing. The type of ring fencing that we are talking about, however, is for the areas where there is the most need. If there is a budget, another thing that might be looked at is the ring-fencing of part of the budget for that. The whole thing, of course, is to have a budget with which to build houses and reduce housing stress. That is what this whole conversation is about. A number of things were mentioned. One thing that comes up time and again and which never seems to go anywhere is vesting. Vesting is quite a hard negotiation — it normally involves negotiation — but it goes back to the fact that we have public land and are looking at what way to use it. Alongside that, I think that it was Nuala who mentioned the idea of this also being about refurbishment and maintenance. Examples have been given by other MLAs, and there will be more. Housing is the biggest issue that comes into my office, but there are also the issues of maintenance. I am not attacking every landlord, but, when you start to deal with landlords, you see that there are some landlords with private properties in which there are young children and there is mould on the wall. I have been in and out of houses, flats and all that and have seen that. You see people trying to paint over that mould, and then you go back in six months to a year and see that the problem is still there. Accountability is something else to look at. Downsizing: I say that as a person of my age. A lot of people want to downsize when everybody has flown the nest, and they go to the Housing Executive and say that they want to downsize. It is about giving attention to the appropriate place for them to downsize to. Going back a bit in history, it used to appal me that, when there were problem tenants around interface areas, there was a habit of moving them out of somewhere that they should have been moved out of, but of then concentrating them. Many a time, you landed in some interface area and, although you did not know how it started, found that there was a drink house and all of that. For those people who are shifting down in size, it is about looking at the appropriateness of where they shift to. I think that it works on the basis that the Housing Executive does not approach them; they approach the Housing Executive. If you like, they are trying to do something to help the housing situation, so maybe a wee bit of extra thought should be given to where they might move to. Thought should be given to them going to an over-55s housing project, because that is what they are looking for. I will finish off by talking about the tower blocks, which were mentioned. Around the blocks in New Lodge, after Grenfell, there were quite a number of moves to do with the danger there.

I will indeed. It is about keeping an eye on that. This is the last thing. I mentioned Grenfell. I do not know whether this is within the Minister's bailiwick, but there is a debate because of the Victoria Square apartments. Six years is clearly not long enough when it comes to accountability for buildings. We need to look at that.

1,196 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification