Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister cited a figure of 5,000 units. Would that it were the case that we have the certainty of this promise. My colleague, Deputy Dessie Ellis, has been pursuing the matter with the Minister and his Department but we can get no certainty, facts or detail on where the apartments or houses are to be constructed. Is there any decision on such a roll-out? It is an inadequate figure in any event and the potential is so much greater. The figures I have cited relate to an even larger problem because people cannot get on housing lists. This applies to people with no income, those without a valid lease for where they live and the added problem of rent supplement, which is needed in some cases. The increases in rent in the city, some 7.8% over the course of the year, puts people outside the qualification thresholds for rent supplement. In this situation, many landlords do not cooperate with tenants in properly accounting for the relationship. Is the Minister aware that the director of advocacy for Focus Ireland, someone who he knows well personally and who is a former general secretary of the Labour Party, has described the Government's promised provision of housing units as "quite clearly a totally inadequate response to the scale of the problem we've got"? The Minister should not take it from me but from someone who embraces his own politics as warmly as any of his colleagues in the House. Can the Minister please utilise the opportunity of this last sitting before Christmas to give people in real housing need and the homeless of our State, some real prospect that the Government will address the issue in a real and substantive way as early in 2014 as is practical?

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