Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the budget, the Government sought to put together the largest capital programme for housing in a generation. I note that this has been welcomed by Deputies on all sides of the House because, ultimately, increasing supply is the only long-term and medium-term way to address the issue arising from the fact that Ireland has a growing population. Moreover, the population of families with young children is growing hugely, and such people need accommodation on a long-term basis for themselves and their families. The only way in which many of them ever will get that is - as happened up to ten years ago in Ireland - through the provision of an adequate amount of social housing. A family will get a key to their own hall door, and when they close that door they can be sure that no landlord will arbitrarily arrive and suddenly demand enormous increases in the rent payable, regardless of whether they are working. This is the vision to which Members should aspire - namely, that families are provided both with opportunities of purchasing homes on an affordable basis and with homes to rent, either through housing agencies or the local authorities, in order that they can have long-term security of tenure and the key to that hall door which they can be sure will be theirs and their children's for as long as is required.

I have written to community welfare officers, and as recently as last week I met all-----

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