Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not propose to engage in a lengthy debate around housing issues in relation to O'Devaney Gardens. People need to speak factually about what is happening at council level. Planning permissions are being sought but they are being refused. This has nothing to do with the residents, many of whom I have spoken to. Only last week, a resident told me that she would have welcomed redevelopment in the area because it would mean her child, who has lived in the area all her life, might be eligible for one of the redeveloped properties.

Last year, I was approached by a woman who had been in rented accommodation for 18 years, in respect of which she was in receipt of rent allowance. When I asked her the reason for that, she told me that nobody had asked her to move out. My understanding was that rent supplement was never to be a long-term solution. In my view, it was only when landlords started taking back properties because they were in financial difficulty and needed to sell them or because they had family members who had lost their homes and needed them, that people who had gotten comfortable in rented accommodation realised they could be faced with homelessness if they did not get their names on the county council housing waiting lists. However, what they did not realise was that their eligibility for housing is linked to the year they joined the list.

I agree there is a real problem in the social housing area. However, the biggest problem we face in this regard, in particular in the inner circle of Dublin, is land availability. There was a time when there was plenty of land available along the Coombe bypass.