Mr. Conor Skehan:

I will start at the end and work back. The person described by the Deputy who said it was a tiny percentage is Fr. Peter McVerry. I did not say that. The person who said it was a tiny proportion was Mr. David Hall. I did not say that. I was very careful in the words I used, which was to say that if it was happening, it might be in one or two constituencies only. I am careful with my words.

In terms of the deserving and undeserving poor, it is the opening slide in my lecture that I give people about housing. Housing is one of the subjects I teach in DIT. I specifically draw attention to the potential for this to be kidnapped or hijacked by people who want to use it for socially divisive means so I am well aware of the potential for hurt. I am well aware of the potential for people to feel defamed or otherwise injured by these but I am not making this comment on the 400 or 600 people in Fingal. I am saying this for the 85,000 people who are on our housing waiting list - the 85,000 people who, to use the words of Fr. Peter McVerry, may find themselves having a queue jumped. I am not even going to talk about what happens when one starts the business of identity politics of saying "you're in my group or the other". The whole point of drawing attention to this is because the Housing Agency's remit is all of housing - everything in housing, which is everybody who is need of social housing - and to make sure that everybody in social housing is treated fairly and given a fair opportunity. The 100% is the concern of the agency, not the 1% causing a distortion, which are the words used, in the application of social policy. It is the 85,000 people about which I am worried.

In terms of defending my position, far from it because I have literally nothing to lose; I am in here to defend those 85,000 people. I am in here to make those statements to make sure that the majority of people who are entitled to social housing and who we as a society should be proud of, are provided with it and dealt with equitably and fairly. We are a fantastically good country. We deal with people who are in need. When we get out into the business of proportion and look at some states in the US where a significant proportion of the population of the entire state live in trailer homes, the 100,000 units of social accommodation we provide every year is the kind of thing we can and should be proud of. We can always do better. We have a waiting list of 85,000 people. It is down from 91,000 last year to 85,000 this year so it is going in the right direction. It will never be good enough.