Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The landlord regulation is one prong of a housing solution. When is the Government going to start building houses? When will it start a social housing building programme? When will it release National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, lands that are held by the State to enable building to start? We need a multi-pronged approach to get at this crisis.

Everybody in this House must be having the same experience as me. One or two families a week come to me because they are homeless. I do not have houses to give. I then put pressure on Galway City Council, which sees 20 families a week presenting as homeless. Galway County Council is experiencing the same problem. At some level we have to move on. We know there were problems with the lack of regulation and with developers but now there is a human crisis of mammoth proportions. Can the Leader imagine anything less dignified than not having a roof over his head? I know a family with five children in Claregalway which has got a notice from the landlord for January. The five children are under seven and the baby, who is under eight weeks of age, is sick. The father is asking me to help him find a house. Galway County Council cannot provide a house. The family was already on the city list for nine and a half years. It moved into the county and does not get credit for the time it was on the city council’s list.

The entire housing situation is a mess.