Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Rent allowance is an issue; of course it is. The Deputy had flooding down in his own city in Cork and other places around the country. Emergency responses were had very quickly, but we should not have somebody sleeping in a doorway in this city - 154 of them on any night - in June 2014. I intend to see that this social committee and the agencies for which we are paying €45 million of taxpayers' money respond in kind here and that these are treated as an emergency situation and that we get on with the building of social housing - the NAMA units, the renovation of those boarded-up units and get the private sector to measure up here in terms of what we know it can do in terms of provision of adequate, affordable, warm, comfortable housing for people. This is an issue and it is one that I intend to take very seriously through this committee.

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