Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

There is much logic to what I am saying now because it is based on fact. Fianna Fáil bowed its head to the builders in its tent at the Galway races. The Minister of State can dress it up any way he likes but that is the truth and the Government is not delivering. No matter what argument the Government puts forward, it is not meeting the housing needs of people.

The Minister of State spoke about affordable housing in Dublin. He should tell me where it is and who is buying it. People from his constituency are living in Louth, Meath, Kildare and Portlaoise, and are moving out of Dublin city. The Minister of State is making it impossible for a generation of young people in Dublin to live in and buy an affordable house in the city. It is not happening under his regime because the Minister of State is not doing his job. People are moving out of the city. Young people are spending long hours commuting because they have not been provided with a public transport network. They are unable to live a decent, normal life. They work 12 to 13 hours per day and never see their families. One case study done in County Meath showed that young parents do not have quality time with their very young children. That is the type of society the Government is building and it is not acceptable to us.

The Government has refused to make its spatial strategy work. It is building everything around Dublin. It does not have a strategy to deal with moving population and jobs out of the main city, Dublin, to the provinces and the west to build up Limerick, Cork, Waterford and other places. The Government is an absolute failure.

What is working in the heart of Dublin city is the Dublin Docklands Authority. It has a very effective housing policy which the Government does not have. It has social, affordable and private housing in the same blocks and everybody is happy with it because it is being properly managed. Fears some people might have of a dysfunctional family or a family involved in drugs in their apartment block are being dealt with radically and properly. If people misbehave, their lease is taken from them and they are not allowed to continue to live in the block. If we are to have a true social mix, we need proper social management and people who may be dysfunctional or anti-social must be dealt with properly. That is how it should be done and not the Fianna Fáil way of saying "yes" to builders in the tent at the Galway races.

What is wrong with the Government is that it is not capable of standing up to the vested interests. By not doing so, it is failing in its duty of care to provide proper, affordable and decent housing for people. It demonstrates a lack of nerve and commitment. Despite all the talk opposite about socialism and change, the way the Government treats young people who cannot buy homes and the elderly in nursing homes, some of whom have experienced appalling cases of neglect under the Government's watch, shows that it is in the hands of developers and is not thinking of the needs of the people, which are not being met. That is where the Government is failing.

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