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

In fairness, I thank the Social Democrats, including Deputy Cian O'Callaghan. It is hardly shocking that we have a motion that relates to affordable housing, but it is more like a lack of affordable housing. We have unaffordable rents and house prices and the situation is getting worse. We can all bandy about all the percentages we want – good, bad or indifferent – but the fact is that we know what people are looking at when they are looking at www.daft.ie, even in respect of the town of Dundalk. We all bore ourselves with this sometimes but unfortunately the people who have to deal with it daily do not.

In Dundalk and its surrounds there are approximately ten houses for somewhere between €1,200 for a standard house up to €2,750 per month. Again, we have all seen higher rents than that. It just so happens that is all that is available. When we talk about unaffordable housing, we are also talking about unavailable housing. We all know the issues that exist for those who have been lucky enough to buy a house. We know they have unaffordable mortgages. We need to see the Government step up because it is all well and good giving out about our proposal, which was time-constrained and targeted, but people require help and we need to see a Government that is willing to give it.

We know that the issue of housing and the lack of it will not be resolved until we see accelerated delivery. We have been talking about modular housing, timber frame housing and 3-D concrete printing, but the fact is that is all we have been talking about. We need to see scaling-up on a major level. We need to see targets. We can all talk about the lack of affordable and cost-rental units being supplied by each local authority. It is straightforward for me to talk about it because the number is zero for Louth County Council. This will not wash.

The Minister was in the House. He is able to bluster and he is good at it. On some level, if we were not dealing with such a serious issue, I would nearly commend him. On some level he does not care and he will say whatever is necessary, but as Deputy Ó Broin asked, where are the targets and figures and when will we see delivery?

I agree with what Deputy Cronin said. We need to see Government intervention in the action Fórsa is taking at this time. There are people working in homeless services. I would not like to be doing their job. As difficult as the job we do is, in some cases we put the worst circumstances in front of them. Those people are in an absolutely dreadful situation. The Government cannot be a spectator. We need housing to be delivered. We have all seen homeless figures going through the roof, which we all expected. Even where there are supports, they are not the supports that are necessary. There are regular people who never saw themselves in that circumstance but have fallen into it and there are others who need additional resources and those are not being supplied in any way, shape or form.

Deputy Gould put it well when he stated we are almost back in the period of austerity. People are making the decision to leave for Canada, Australia and everywhere. That is people with good jobs. It is not sustainable. It is not good enough. We have had housing advocacy organisations talking about what is wrong, but now the IDA and IBEC are talking about it. It is a pure disaster. We will bring the system down. We need to see action and we need to see it now.

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