Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. I was here earlier to hear Deputy Fleming tell us that there was no housing crisis and everything was hunky-dory. As we speak, there are 50,000 families on local authority house waiting lists. That is 10,000 more than when the Government parties took office in 1997. If that is not a crisis, I do not know what is.

The reason there is a crisis is the Government has refused to put enough money into building local authority and voluntary houses. There are people waiting on local authority housing lists for two, three, four and five years. Unfortunately, there is no political will to ensure that these local authority applicants get houses any quicker.

We are not building anything like enough local authority houses. The NESC report suggested that we must build at least 10,000 local authority houses every year for the next eight years if we are to make any inroads into the problem.

No doubt part of the problem in this regard is the price of building land. When I was a young clerical officer in south Tipperary county council in the early 1970s, all the talk was of the Kenny report which would control the price of building land. Nothing has been done about this in the 30 years since because the people who own that land are supporters of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. The handful of billionaire developers who own that land in Dublin and the handful outside the country are supporters of the Government. The Government does not have the political will to challenge these people and to control the price of building land.

I will make one more point in the short time available to me. In every town, village and city across the country, and in local authority housing estates in particular, we need proper management of local authority estates, community and sporting facilities for young people and community gardaí to ensure that the anti-social behaviour evident in every corner of this country is tackled properly. There must be community gardaí available to liaise with young people as they grow up and there must be community facilities available for those young people to ensure they, their families and their neighbours have a future.

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