Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think it is fair to say housing is the single biggest issue any of us as constituency Deputies need to deal with. No matter the result decided here today, the fact is that there is no confidence outside, in the wider world, among the people I deal with and, I assume, the people many of my colleagues across this Chamber deal with in the present Government being able to deliver on housing. The issue we have with housing and accommodation is having an impact across every element of society. It is having a huge impact on economic delivery, and until such time as we put the correct plans in place we will not do business. We know that we need to ensure we have the throughput of workforce and we know we have to make sure the apprenticeship model and everything else we are operating provides that pipeline. We need to make sure that the State does all it possibly can from the point of view of delivering the homes necessary. That is affordable mortgages, council houses and cost rental. Unless we do that, we will be in a forever spin and will be failing people constantly. The homeless numbers and so on have already been referred to. At the moment we are looking at an abject failure. We need a change of Government but we definitely need a change of tack from the Ministers opposite. The people out there need that.

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