Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I wish to share time with Deputy Gilmore.

Ar son Sinn Féin ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le gach duine a ghlac páirt sa dhíospóireacht seo agus le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as an rún seo a chur os comhair na Dála in éineacht le Sinn Féin. On behalf of Sinn Féin I thank those who have participated in this debate and especially those who have exposed their outrageous dispositions to these glaring social needs. Ranked not least among these is the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, whose efforts last night regarding turkeys and stuffing was an absolute disgrace. I thank the Labour Party for joining Sinn Féin in putting forward this motion on the crisis in housing and homelessness in our country.

All I can say in response to the Minister's remarks on inconsistency is "wow" because he should know a great deal about that subject from his time in Government. I will rehearse a statement with which I very much agree:

the Government congratulates itself on the tremendous level of activity which is in progress, while overlooking the misery, injustice and division which it is creating for generations to come. There is no planning. There is no environmental or social thinking and ultimately that will be a cost to our economy.

These words are not mine. They are the words of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, when he spoke on behalf of the Green Party in November 2003 in support of a Sinn Féin Bill that would enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. He was describing the disastrous lack of policy on housing in successive Fianna Fáil-led Governments over the past decade. That approach to housing was developer driven and greed based. It was fuelled not by the housing needs of the people but by the profit motive of developers and the avarice of banks and other lending institutions. We can see the consequences in the virtual collapse of the Irish financial system and the deepening recession in the economy.

Ironically, after a decade of madly spiralling house prices, over-dependence on construction for employment, reckless lending, massive mortgage debt and the construction of unprecedented numbers of private dwellings, we still have a housing crisis because tens of thousands of our people do not have adequate homes. More than 60,000 people are on the local authority waiting lists for housing, a jump of more than 30% in the three years during which the Green Party has been a shareholder in this coalition arrangement. At the same time the phenomenon has arisen of empty houses and apartments in unfinished estates around the country, especially in the commuter belt surrounding the greater Dublin area. This is a mess of the Government's own making.

I was shocked and greatly disappointed by the remarks made by the Minister of State. I have seldom heard such an insulting speech as the one he delivered. His juvenile jibes at the Labour Party and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this considered and substantive motion are beneath contempt but they will be especially felt by the homeless and those who languish on housing lists throughout the State, including in his own constituency of Roscommon-South Leitrim. His contribution will not be forgotten by the people who have been languishing for years without their needs being addressed.

More than 40,000 households in the private rental sector are in receipt of rent supplement. These households are more likely to live in dwellings which do not meet the Government's existing standards. Many tenants are on low incomes and are more at risk of living in sub-standard units.

The capacity of local authorities to enforce standards needs to be increased. This critical area has not been sufficiently addressed. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government must ensure that local authorities take a proactive approach to their responsibilities for inspecting rented accommodation as part of the first line of defence for those who are in need of support and who cannot be expected to indefinitely occupy inadequate or inappropriate housing.

I urge all Deputies to support this motion and to reject the Government's amendment. We do not have to walk far from the gates of this institution to see the reality of the 5,000 people who are homeless on the streets of our major towns and cities at any given time. That is an absolute disgrace and it cries out for the Government to face up to its responsibilities. The contributions we have heard last night and again tonight are another exercise in hand wringing with no commitment and clearly no strategy. The Minister and his team of colleagues in Government, at either Minister or junior Minister level, must pull their act together or the next Government will have to pick up on the failures the current Government has presided over.

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