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

I welcome Mr. Timmermans and his colleagues. We welcome his words of comfort and solidarity with respect to the negotiations on Brexit. We do not need to make that case to him. He is clearly very conscious of our needs in that area.

Mr. Timmermans mentioned that he was surprised at how quickly the country recovered. Yes, we did. We knew at the outset that we had to make severe sacrifices in order to do so, and we did it. It was not without pain. There was a lot of pain across the country in almost every household. Many people lost their homes in the course of it and are still losing their homes. Its fallout still continues. What it results in, unfortunately, is what has now become known as the various poverties, whether poverty accruing from a long period of unemployment, from lack of a home or from being unable to fund a mortgage on the home. In line with the UN's strategic goals to eliminate poverty by 2030, could I ask Mr. Timmermans whether the European Union is conscious of where we are at now and what we need to do from here on? For example, we cannot spend money building homes unless it is off balance sheet. That is the particular quirk here, it has to be off balance sheet.

That is a restriction on the degree to which we can handle the homelessness issue now emerging I am aware that it is endemic in some parts of Europe also. It falls within the fulfilment of the adoption of the strategic development goals of the UN, and the European Union's 2030 strategy. To what extent does Mr. Timmermans feel we can improve the situation whereby individual member states can avail of sufficient funds to provide the homes necessary?