Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear the Minister of State will provide more funding for the homeless. It is taking a long time and the situation is getting worse. There is chaos at present. The amount of people being reported as homeless is crazy at this stage.

The amendment is straightforward. It identifies a problem and the Minister of State should accept it. The local authorities should not be penalised. Certainly, they will not get the funding. It is quite obvious that if sites are identified, the local authorities will end up being penalised. That is money they cannot afford to hand out.

I plead with the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, to consider the amendment. He knows, as he has dealt with local authorities over the years, that we have had lots of problems with local authority land, whether in-fills, regeneration or PPPs. This will drive the local authorities to sell off land. That would be a disaster because we need to target properly that land for social housing, which is the big issue here.

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