Fr. Peter McVerry:

To return to CPOs, I do not know what is the local authorities' problem. The National Roads Authority had no difficulty compulsorily purchasing houses and land when it wanted to build motorways. There was no constitutional problem with that. Why can we not compulsorily purchase houses for the far more important issue of providing people with homes?

I agree with Deputy Durkan that the local authority has to be the primary mover in terms of providing social housing. The housing associations and approved housing bodies are simply not capable of addressing the scale of the problem. We are going to get the housing needs assessment this year. There are certainly going to be well in excess of 100,000 households on the social housing waiting list. The approved housing bodies have no way of coming anywhere near that figure. It has to be the local authorities. However, I believe local authorities do not want to build social housing and that they do not want to manage social housing, certainly not on a large scale. I have a problem with them purchasing on the open market, although it is necessary. They are competing with private buyers and thereby pushing prices up and reducing the stock of private housing, which is also an issue.

With regard to the banks, I agree that there is a moral argument that the banks should take responsibility but I do not think they are going to respond to moral arguments. We must make the mortgage-to-rent option obligatory. Banks have a responsibility to explain to the courts why that option is not appropriate in any particular case. It seems to me to be the obvious answer. It would mean that a family would be kept in its home and continue to pay rent - whatever it can afford - to either the local authority or to an approved housing body.

I would like to see legislation preventing anybody - local authorities or banks - from evicting people into homelessness. I do not believe that young people leaving residential care should be allowed to leave into homelessness. We had one young 18 year old who was discharged from residential care on his 18th birthday. It was a Friday afternoon, he had no money in his pocket and there was no accommodation arranged for him. That should be illegal. It should also be illegal for the local authorities to evict Travellers from unofficial halting sites until alternative accommodation is available. It should be illegal for the banks and the vulture funds to evict families into homelessness until alternative accommodation is available. If the mortgage to rent option and the inability to evict people into homelessness was in place, I believe the banks might accept their moral responsibilities.