Dáil debates

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Housing Provision: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

 

6:25 pm

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

Anyone with an ear to the ground knows that Fr. Peter McVerry's statements were correct. Far from addressing the crisis in homelessness, this Government is the biggest contributor to the problem through paltry rent allowance. The system that sees people become paupers while trying to make up the difference between the rent supplement and the rent cannot be allowed to continue, given the backdrop of rising rents. If the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Paudie Coffey, is serious about tackling homelessness he must answer the call of Fr. Peter McVerry and move immediately to increase rent supplements. This is the most immediate and effective way to stop the rise in homelessness in the short term - it is not enough but it is a necessary immediate response. If the Minister of State does not do this we will face hundreds of thousands more people in similar difficulties in the coming months.

The Minister of State must address the issue of empty State properties and dwellings as it is a crime that otherwise decent dwellings are idle. Properties that come to mind include the Curragh Camp, where families are being driven from houses that are fit for purpose and could be improved with a little work. This is occurring while Kildare County Council has 8,000 people on the housing waiting list. The only way to deal with this problem is by building houses.

This is not the first housing crisis the State has faced as one occurred previously in the late 1940s. At that time the State had the vision and commitment to build houses in places like Finglas, Ballyfermot, Cork and Limerick and housed thousands of families. It was not a case of fighting for crumbs but a real house building programme. There were radio advertisements in Britain appealing to workers to come home to help build these houses, thus addressing emigration, unemployment and social need. The Department of Local Government linked up with the Department of Health under Noel Browne to engage in a programme of hospital building and succeeded in the eradication of TB. Building a social housing stock is an investment for the future - it protects communities against homelessness and it creates good, stable family environments. We can do this but we have not yet done so because the Government has chosen to rely on a failed model of privatisation. This must stop and houses must be built.

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