Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of questions for the Minister relating to his contribution as well as an overall comment. I am not convinced that there is an acceptance of how bad things are. The way we have been dealing with this issue in recent years will not fix the problem. We are not making progress. People do not like to hear the word mentioned in this House, but there has been a neoliberal approach to the delivery of housing which is very problematic. It does not work and we need to do something different.

The Minister spoke about the role of the State and said that the supply of social housing in Ireland has generally been at around 9%. I support the new Central Bank rules because I do not see why we should drive people to despair in the future with mortgage repayments that they cannot meet. However, the flip side of that is the expectation that in the future, the Irish State will have to help approximately 30% of its people with housing. That is a huge game changer. The average figure is 9%, although I know it reached 15% in certain periods during the lifetime of this State.

That is likely to go to 30% and we have to accept that. I ask whether the Minister agrees with that.

The Minister asked if local authorities have the wherewithal to build the housing. Obviously, local authorities are not in a position to directly build. When we talk about directly building local authority housing, we are talking about local authorities organising it and the State paying for it. Obviously they have to be put out to tender and get builders to build it. They do have the capacity to do that.

To be parish pump about it, Wexford County Council has approved 31 units for 2016, 36 for 2017 and 55 house acquisitions for vulnerable groups in 2016 and 40 in 2017. I know two projects that are ready to proceed. Taghmon is ready to start on 16 houses but funding has not been approved. It is a ready to go site but it has not got approved funding. Carrick-on-Bannow is ready to start on ten units but funding has not been approved. Given the demand what is delaying the decision to approve the funding?

The Minister said the waiting list was inaccurate. In Wexford there are 3,800 on the waiting list. If that figure is inaccurate can we get somebody to make it accurate?