Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We all agree the country is facing a housing and homelessness crisis. The number of people sleeping on the streets is growing, the housing lists in all the local authorities are lengthening and the bills for emergency accommodation are spiralling. Our solution is that local authorities need to be adequately funded to become, once again, the primary supplier of social housing. This housing must meet the needs of those languishing on the lists. In my town of Youghal, more than 160 families are on the housing list. In Cobh there are more than 500, and people can wait up to six years in Midleton for a housing offer. I have had cases in which people have waited for up to ten years before any offer of housing was made. Three generations of one family live in overcrowded conditions and this in itself brings added problems of stress and strain to a difficult situation.

The Government's recent announcement of €15 million for housing is little more than a drop in the ocean. It was more an insult than a solution. I take this opportunity to raise the particular issue of family break-up. When one partner must leave the family home in line with a court order he or she is homeless. Unfortunately, local authorities refuse to allow these people onto their housing lists. After a break-up, a partner has nowhere to live but still will not be accepted onto a housing list as there is a financial stake in the family home. Is it possible to reach an arrangement whereby once the family home is sold a financial contribution can be made to the local authority, similar to the financial contribution scheme for senior citizen accommodation? Will the Minister of State address this issue directly?

Sinn Féin proposes to tackle the housing crisis head-on. We have identified €1 billion of unused money in Ireland's strategic investment fund. Current cost projections from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government state that the average cost of building a new social housing unit is €151,477 and the cost of renovating an unused social housing unit is approximately €15,756. Using the money we have identified, the Government could provide an additional 7,450 homes on top of current targets. If initiated now we could be on track to deliver a minimum of 12,450 new social housing units before next summer. Using €985 million from the strategic investment fund, 6,500 homes could be built, each costing approximately €151,477.

Sinn Féin is dedicated to offering realistic and achievable solutions to the housing crisis. We are not interested in plucking numbers out of our imagination or accepting the status quowhereby more than 100,000 people are not adequately housed and more and more are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

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