Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

To me, it represents the Government's persistent attitude of trying to minimise the scale of the problem and deny that it exists. Every Government backbencher knows that we are talking about an absolute crisis of proportions that have probably not been seen for decades. The Minister of State will not serve the citizens well by denying that truth or by interrupting Deputies. Equally, it is unacceptable to ask where the necessary moneys might be found given that tens of millions of euro have been handed to the banks. It is twice as unacceptable for a Labour Party Minister to act in such a manner.

It is demoralising in some ways that we even need to have this discussion. Given that we have been able for decades to send people to the moon or wherever, that we are able to send unmanned drones over thousands of miles and that our society has accumulated greater wealth than at any time in our previous history, it is almost overwhelming that we are living in an era when one of the most basic human rights - the right to shelter - is seen as too much of a luxury. That is what is happening not in a so-called Third World country, but in a so-called advanced capitalist country, which has been through an unprecedented boom, much of which centred on the construction industry. One really could not make this thing up.

A room over someone's head is more than bricks and mortar - it is a human right. The delivery of housing should be a starting point because it is the foundation of so many other aspects of life, such as human health. We know of citizens whose mental and physical health has been irreversibly destroyed by being forced to live in inadequate accommodation. All of us know that children's education is suffering because their parents have to uproot them from their communities on a regular basis when they have to start all over again in new areas. Those children will never recover from that. This affects all aspects of life.

It is an absolute indictment of neoliberal capitalism. The Minister will have heard the joke that after our construction boom we will be the first generation to stand in a field with our children and say we remember when this was all houses. It is the legacy of an unregulated market in which houses were built on flood plains, were falling down around people because of pyrite, were built without regard to fire hazards, and so on. It was the same lack of regulation highlighted by the judge in yesterday's court case. It is proof positive that the free market does not work. The only way the housing crisis will be solved is through a massive State-led programme to build and regulate the housing market. We are paying the price of an over-reliance and over-facilitating of the private sector to deliver housing. As a result, some people have become very wealthy while other people's basic needs are not being met, and the greatest scandal in some ways is that the State is paying more for an inadequate service.

The Government has made much of the point that we live in constrained times. The Minister of State made the point that we have not got the money. However, the rot started long before her Government came into power. I was a councillor in Fingal County Council for 13 years and even during the boom the State house building programme was incredibly limited. One of the key reasons was the failure to implement the Kenny report and control the price of building land. Yet we spend hundreds of millions of euro every year subsidising the private rental sector rather than delivering a national house-building programme. The excuse for house building the Government is putting together is pathetic. First, we need to recognise that there is a crisis. That has not been the Government's approach, nor has it been the approach of the Minister of State so far tonight.

All of us have been presented with devastating cases. For the first time in many years as a public representative, I and my staff have had to tell people there is nothing we can do because there are no houses available in the range of prices of Government rent supplement levels. Even if there were, the landlords would not take rent supplement. This discrimination against people in receipt of a welfare payment has not been outlawed by the Government, which is disgraceful. Not enough houses are being built. We are telling people they have been on the list only six years. People have to choose whether to move from their areas, uprooting their children from their schools; to lie and make up the difference themselves - which we all know everybody does - to the tune of hundreds of euro, pauperising their families; or to go into homeless accommodation, which is totally inadequate and costs the State more.

I could have spent my whole seven minutes talking about tragic cases from my area. A young family with a son in a wheelchair was forced into homeless accommodation and moved miles from their area and their son's special school. A woman with three children is living in her car. A young mother who gets nothing is spending €930 per month on a one-bedroom unit for her children. Couples with children are in city centre hostels and are bringing those children to school in Swords. This is absolute lunacy. We need to address this matter.

While I do not have time to develop the points, one way of not addressing the crisis is by failing to deal with people who are in housing but struggling with their mortgages, failing to address what the banks are doing, and adding to the homeless list. We need rent controls. Everybody else can do it; I do not see why we cannot. We need to immediately address the inadequate levels of rent supplement. We need to deal with the mushrooming of voluntary housing agencies, which should be investigated. Why can the local authorities not be empowered with the capital to build houses? Why do we need these multiple housing agencies? One of them took out a loan of €2 million to get new city centre offices when it already had a city centre office. How many chief executives are there and how many millions of euro are we wasting on that system? We are talking about lives, and the Government's response has been hopelessly inadequate.

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