Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Now there is no hotel accommodation and people are being turned away from homelessness services. Given all of this, how will it be possible to end long-term homelessness by 2016? Voluntary housing bodies can play a role in the solution, but they do not have the capacity to be the solution by themselves. The State has a responsibility to provide housing through local authorities, and it is by prioritising public provision that we will begin to turn the tide on this crisis.

Sinn Féin has submitted an amendment to the motion and I ask that it be supported by those who want to deal with the problems in housing system. It gives flesh to the points of the original motion, adds clarity on what is needed and provides a way for real investment in social housing to happen. Will the Minister of State listen to these proposals and meet Sinn Féin to discuss them further? The National Pensions Reserve Fund has been renamed the strategic investment fund and its website claims it has a focus on productive investment in the Irish economy to support economic activity and employment. Sinn Féin has identified €1 billion in this investment fund which could be used for social housing investment. Based on statistics from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, it would be possible to build approximately 6,502 homes using €985 million of this fund and to renovate the remaining 948 long-term vacant homes with a further €15 million investment. This would total approximately 7,500 newly available homes under local authority control, which could be commenced in the next 12 months.

This would be in addition to the existing plans to deliver approximately 5,000 homes by 2015. Were rent supplement recipients, of whom there are 78,000, prioritised for housing, approximately €32 million could be saved on that bill and local authority revenue also would increase. In addition, it would create thousands of jobs for people who formerly had been employed in the construction industry. The provision of 7,500 new rental homes would curtail significantly the demand on the private market. This would drive down rents, which have soared in recent years, thereby putting many into emergency accommodation or into being at risk of homelessness. Such a decrease in rents would reduce further the cost of rent assistance payments. This would be a bold move but it would have an immediate positive effect on the lives of many thousands of people. It would give hope to the many desperate people who fear for the roof over their family's heads due to the effects of six years of austerity levelled at the most vulnerable. Were the Government to seek to dismiss my figures, it would merely be dismissing the figures of its own Departments. It is the stuff of fairy tales to think this problem will go away. These are realistic proposals and I ask the Minister of State to consider them as seriously as this situation demands.

The housing budget has been cut year on year and last year it was cut by €60 million. A total of €1 billion has been cut from the housing budget between 2008 and the present. I accept this did not all take place on the Minister of State's watch but also happened during the tenure of the previous Government. More than 90,000 people are on the housing waiting list and more than 5,000 people are in accommodation for the homeless. In addition, approximately 30 additional families or individuals regularly report as being homeless. People are being evicted from their homes. Banks and lending institutions are becoming more aggressive, and with the mortgage crisis, there is more to follow. If this is not a crisis, what is? Action is needed.

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