David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate all that is being done, and I accept that Mr. John McCarthy says the benchmarking is done and that he is satisfied there is value for money. My problem is that we can never really determine that, however. We can determine it at some stage long afterwards, but there is little democratic accountability about all of this. We came up against it in other areas also. We must find some way of doing it and of satisfactorily establishing that going down this route will give value for money and that everything is what it seems.

I will return to that point but I wish to make a general observation about the human side of all of this. I imagine Mr. John McCarthy and everyone else here understands that there are people in need of social housing, that there are people on housing lists - many of whom live in their parents' or friends' homes - and people in need of affordable housing, a matter on which we have not even touched. There was very little in the budget in respect of affordable housing. Almost everyone who has a housing need is forced into the private rented sector, which has pushed up the price of rents. When I arrive in my constituency office in Waterford tomorrow, probably a dozen or more of the many people I must meet will have housing-related issues. They are looking for social housing but it is not there. I will have to tell them that they must find private rented accommodation through HAP, but they cannot find places within the rent caps. They are on a merry-go-round and they come to us to look for assistance. They then ask us to make representations for houses which do not exist. I do not buy into that clientelist system of doing things in any event; people should be entitled to a home based on merit and need. They come to local politicians, however, when they want advice. The problem is that for many of them there is not enough private rented accommodation available, or certainly not at the rates where they can avail of HAP. They are left to their own devices and, in many cases, abandoned. That is the reality and, unless we seriously start to build, it will continue to be the case and there will be debate after debate in the Dáil regarding the housing crisis. The Cathaoirleach said earlier that it had gone on for five years but it is probably longer than that.

I return to what was said earlier about the amount of money we spend on subsidising people in private rented accommodation rather than building homes. The human cost of this is enormous. I stress that it is difficult for us, as politicians, to deal with people who we know have a real housing need and who ask us to help them or make representations. As I said, however, we are making representations for houses that do not exist. We must do it and we go into the local council and meet the housing officers but they say "Sorry, Deputy, but HAP is the only option". We revert to the constituents but they say they cannot find anywhere. Does the Department understand what it is like for people in that situation? Does it understand why we say there is a housing emergency which is real, which impacts on people's lives and about which much more needs to be done?

As an observation, in my constituency in Waterford, where the target is 687 units by the end of 2021 and with almost 300 people who are approved for housing this year alone, notwithstanding how many came off the list, we are only scratching the surface. We are not dealing with the crisis at all, notwithstanding all the figures trotted out about how many homes will be built, how many acquisitions and purchases there will be and so on. If the targets for each local authority are broken down, one will see we are not getting to grips with it at all. That is only an observation and if Mr. John McCarthy wishes to respond he can do so.