Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This crisis is dire and is getting worse. The most frustrating thing is that the Minister has been warned for over three years that the crisis was coming. I have reviewed comments I have made in the Dáil since 2011 and I gave dozens of warnings on this. I am sure others can say the same. In July 2012 I said "it is not an exaggeration to say that the Government's new housing policy and cuts to rent allowance will lead to a new era of homelessness and a return to slum landlord and tenement conditions". The Government denied there was a problem at the time and only now admits that one exists. The Government said reliance on rental accommodation schemes, RAS, and the private rental sector would solve the problem. This approach has failed catastrophically and the Government has shown contempt for the warnings given. The Government's approach exhibits catastrophic errors of judgment and now that it has finally acknowledged the issue the problem continues to worsen.

In the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area in the past six months some 99 houses have been allocated and 600 people have joined the waiting list. In other words, six times more people have joined the list than have been allocated houses. We are digging a hole from which we will not be able to emerge if we do not face reality and build social housing and take emergency measures in the interim.

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