Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to express my renewed sympathies to the families of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee as the killer of their loved ones was sentenced last night. Our thoughts are also with Anthony Burke who so bravely spoke out about the attack on him too.

We are all watching the appalling situation and rising death toll in Gaza with increasing distress and horror but today I do want to raise a different issue with the Taoiseach, which is the issue of housing. It is not just in healthcare that we find gaping holes in the Taoiseach's Government budget. There are missing billions in housing too. On budget day in a surprise announcement the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, told us that he would seek Cabinet approval for an additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency. This was a welcome announcement but a peculiar one because neither the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, nor the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, had mentioned it in their budget day speeches. We are now two weeks on and it is not clear where that mystery €6 billion will come from. Is the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, perhaps hoping to find it down the back of a couch? Whatever is going on I hope it will materialise soon because he is fast becoming known as the Minister for initiatives and not for delivery. In a rare twist I agree with him and I hope that he soon finds that €6 billion and that he and his Department get their act together soon. The housing crisis is the civil rights issue for this generation. It is not going to fix itself. Those who are renting, who are stuck with unaffordable rents, and who remain in permanent fear of eviction are at the sharp end of this housing crisis. It is now seven months on from the lifting of the temporary no-fault eviction ban. It is seven months since the announcement of the first refusal scheme that was a half-hearted half measure for contingencies for renters. It is seven months on and we are finally seeing the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, bringing legislation to the Cabinet just today. It is incredible that this measure is taking so long to implement. What kind of message does that send to renters who are at the sharp end of the housing crisis and who are still in fear of eviction?

The Taoiseach's Government has failed renters and has failed to fix the housing crisis. The Government has even failed to secure and ensure additional adequate and robust legislative powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA. This is the very body that was supposed to be the vehicle to deliver on the necessary increased housing supply in this chronic housing shortage.

The Taoiseach may be aware that a change in terminology by the Central Statistics Office has meant some provisions in the Act that create compulsory purchase powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA, have now been rendered ineffective. The irony is that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage was on the working group that decided to make this change in terminology, a change that we in the Labour Party pointed out will result in the need for amending legislation to restore adequate, robust powers to the Land Development Agency.

In the absence of those powers, we might call the LDA the Lame Duck Agency. Where is the additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency? Can the Taoiseach ensure that the agency will have the robust powers it needs to deliver on housing? What can the Government offer renters who remain in fear of eviction, given the first refusal scheme is still not in place and there is no prospect, it seems, of reintroducing a temporary ban on no-fault evictions this winter?

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