Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the issue of social housing, which has rightly been raised frequently in this House over the past number of years. There are currently around 100,000 social housing applicants on local authority lists across the country. Many of these people would never have envisaged having to add their names to such lists and their failure to find housing sees them sleeping in cars and staying in bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation. They sleep on friends' sofas, floors and mattresses and families have been splintered by the failure to provide social housing. A man held in high esteem in Ireland and internationally, Fr. Peter McVerry, summed up the situation last May when he said that in his 40 years of dealing with homelessness he had never seen things so bad. He described a tsunami of homelessness relating to the housing shortage and said the situation was beyond crisis.

Does the Government agree with the Labour Party suggestion on introducing rent control? A cap has been placed on social housing rents and this has caused real difficulties, particularly in the greater Dublin area. Why has the Government not used the strategic investment fund to deliver social housing?

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