Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government is supposed to represent and act for all the people.

There is an obligation on the Government to provide houses for the 98,000 people who need them. I agree with some of what Senator Landy said in this regard. Even if we do not get a single new house, the situation could be significantly improved by enabling local authorities to rent out their existing stock. As it stands, they do not have the money to make those houses ready for tenants. They do not even have the money to bring the properties up to the BER energy rating standard. The whole situation is risible. Properties throughout the country have had to be boarded up because they were vacant for so long that the windows ended up being broken by vandals. This is what happened to 14 houses in one estate in Lifford in my constituency. Those dwellings have been boarded up for more than 12 months because the local authority does not have the money to fix them up and allocate them.