Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I was about to let loose. I wonder whether the Minister has ever thought for one minute that the current housing policy and others that preceded it are and were wrong. I would like somebody on that side of the House to say, "You know what, I think we have got it wrong." I am not getting that sense and I do not think it will ever happen.

To deal with the housing crisis, we must look at what happened 20 years ago. There is a historical legacy of commodification and marketisation of homes. In fact, it is a basic need of human beings to have shelter. This discussion is like Groundhog Day because we are now in a situation where 10,000-plus people are in emergency accommodation. There is a crisis in regard to the provision of rental accommodation and affordable housing and those issues are only going to get worse. Several speakers alluded to the tsunami of notices to quit, with a huge number of people in line to be homeless come the autumn. Those figures are going to go north rather than south.

This situation is completely untenable and unacceptable. One factor relates to the operation of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme in the rental market. HAP rates are nowhere near market rental rates. Even in the case of the homeless HAP scheme, the amount of money that is being given to private landlords is obscene. In many cases, they are charging up to €2,400 per month for a home. These people should be wearing balaclavas because they are robbing the State. Some of the homes are not worth €2,400 by any means.

This is both a historical legacy issue and a contemporary issue. It comes down to policy, choice and the decision to look at shelter as something that is all about the monetary value. This is not new. It has happened in Britain and elsewhere around the world, where speculators, or robbers, speculate on property. That is the situation in which many people find themselves. Homelessness and the housing crisis affect everybody at this stage. It is not the classical situation where it is just about the people who are homeless and living on the street. That is not the situation at the moment, if it ever was.

The most recent general election probably was the most important election for a generation. It sent a message to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which have been ruling the country for the past 100 years, that people have had enough and are not going to take any more when it comes to public services, particularly housing, that are inadequate. It is the reason many people who voted for the Minister of State's party are now turning away from it. The housing crisis will be the key factor in the next general election, whenever it happens. If the Government does not address the issues we are talking about today, the parties in government will pay a heavy price. People do not forget the misery they have endured. Some have had to emigrate and others have had to go into emergency accommodation. It stays etched in people's minds that they have seen their children go into emergency accommodation. It is unacceptable that in such a wealthy country, more than 11,000 people have been allowed to end up homeless.

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