Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Apologies for my late entry. In fact, I was meeting representatives of a lending institution with a constituent to discuss the issue of mortgage arrears. It is one of many issues.

I welcome the Minister and his officials for whom I have three questions. First, there is the urgent, emergency problem, namely, the large number of families in emergency accommodation. The local authorities have insufficient accommodation available and have a huge number of people on various housing lists. For example, the number in my local authority area is growing and moving towards 8,000. The number of bank repossessions further adds to the problem and there is deep concern among the people directly affected.

What steps could be taken by the Department of Finance immediately? As the Minister knows, I have raised this issue on numerous occasions and made various proposals during the years. As he also knows, I am not one of the supporters of the voluntary housing agencies, but that is my problem. How do we deal with the urgent problem of what some call homelessness in the short term?

There is also the question of the degree to which funding can be obtained by bodies which are willing to assist the local authorities and that can be registered as being off the Government's balance sheet. I have made a number of submissions on this point. That is the nub of the problem with which we have been confronted. While we know that there are constraints on governments, we have a problem in this country that many other countries do not have.

How do we address this issue in the short term? It is socially and economically unacceptable that we have a large and growing number of people becoming homeless, with nowhere to go, and the social and economic damage of this to the economy will appreciate with the passage of time. Therefore, I again suggest the notion of a Government bond to fund directly a local authority building programme. I know the Minister has said - and correctly so - that a large amount of money has been made available - €3.8 billion already - to the local authorities, but we need to deal in the first instance with the immediacy of the problem. In six months' or a year's time, in case some people think that it will be acceptable to have people still homeless and living in emergency accommodation, with whole families living in one room, it will not be acceptable, nor will it be possible to achieve social stability if this is allowed to continue.

Lastly, the Government, as we know, and as the Minister has said, can borrow money very cheaply. Is there any way that money borrowed by Government can be made available to the local authorities through a medium, of which a number have presented themselves, in order to enable them to get involved directly in the building programme?

Those are the three issues, as far as I am concerned, dealing with my constituents, and this problem is getting worse by the hour.