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

I wish to raise three brief matters. I have no doubt that the Minister personally wishes to resolve the housing crisis. He has moved by bringing forward the action plan. My constant theme has been that its focus is wrong. The focus is on kickstarting the construction industry, but most of those houses will be private houses. The planning permissions the Minister is talking about accelerating will generally be for private houses which will be unaffordable, certainly in Dublin. I do not know about the rest of the country but prices are shooting up in Dublin. They will not be attainable for anybody on the social housing lists and even for people who are struggling with rents. That is my key problem.

Focusing on this pillar of public housing, last week I said that I do not understand why the plan, the Government and the Civil Service are not focusing on the areas where homelessness and the housing crisis are highest. That appears to be the obvious thing to do. A report was published on 17 February, "A Preliminary Analysis of Children and Families in Emergency Homeless Accommodation", which I am sure the Minister has read. It found that 70% of the homeless families in Dublin were from two areas of Dublin - 118 families or 38% were from Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart in my constituency and the constituency of the Minister's colleague, Deputy Varadkar, and the former Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, and 89 families or 29% were from the Ballymun-Finglas area, while 13% were from Lucan-Clondalkin, followed by Drumcondra, Donnycarney, Crumlin and Drimnagh. The bulk of the people were from two areas in Dublin. My issue, and I am not Dublin focused as I have sympathy with the homeless everywhere, is that we know where the problems are, yet most of the local authority building is not being concentrated and directed to those locations. The then Minister published a document, "Laying the Foundations", last year in which the targets for Dublin were embarrassingly low, given that it is where most of the problem is. They would only deal with approximately 10% of those who are waiting for accommodation. Representatives of local authorities who appeared before the housing committee told us they are meeting their targets, but homelessness is increasing because their targets are ridiculous.

Why has the Minister not met representatives of Fingal County Council, in particular, which covers Blanchardstown and Mulhuddart? It is my constituency, but I am not being parochial. We are snowed under with homelessness and there is no plan. The council has not built or developed anything for years. There is only one site of council owned land in Blanchardstown that is ready for development, but no plan has been brought forward to the council.