Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to thank the Senators - particularly the Labour Party Senators - who gave us the opportunity to discuss homelessness in the Seanad. In the course of my contribution, I will address some of the specific issues raised, but will also address some of them at the end. While I acknowledge that everybody spoke constructively, I must take the opportunity to respond to Senator Ó Domhnaill. The crisis in homelessness and the difficulty of supply, which has been going on for a number of years, is the collapse of the economy, which was presided over by the Fianna Fáil Government. Due to lack of regulation and due to reckless lending, development happened when it should not have happened and people got mortgages that they could not sustain. They often did this for domestic mortgages, but others became accidental landlords and are now charging high rents because they are trying to maintain unsustainable mortgages.