Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Quinlivan raised a particular point. This seems to have become a theme in recent days. If we continue to look at small-scale social housing projects we are never going to deal with the housing crisis. That must be grasped and accepted by everyone. The idea that we can build ten houses here, 20 houses there and 30 elsewhere makes no sense. We are not going to house 100,000 families that way. We can argue about the scale of the waiting lists, as the Minister has done today, but there are large numbers of people who are not on the waiting list and who would like to get on it. There are bus workers in my constituency whose income is too high for the list. Let us suppose 100,000 is a representative figure for now.

I wish to take up this demonisation of social housing. I am not saying it is on the part of the Housing Agency but it is a general theme that has come up. Who says we cannot have decent communities made up of a few hundred houses? It seems to be a demonisation of people. We need to deal with poverty. People have been made poor in recent years by austerity and many other things. I was brought up in a housing estate of 500 houses, but almost everyone had a job and that was different. The way around this is either to increase eligibility for social housing and have a greater mix of people, some of whom would be working. That would give higher rents to the local authorities or housing agencies. I know many people who would go for that. Another thing we need to look at is affordable housing. The private sector is not going to build affordable houses. Many workers are paying €1,400, €1,500 or €2,000 rent per month and they would gladly take an affordable house. I do not agree with the constant view proffered that we must only have small-scale. We cannot deal with the problem that way.