Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Government has made more announcements about housing, house-building, social housing and so forth than any other Government in the history of the State. However, according to the records available from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the number of local authority social houses built under this Government is the lowest in the history of the State. Every single year in this Government's term has seen fewer social houses built than in any other year on record. That is the truth. The Government can make all the housing announcements it wants but building local authority houses to get people off the housing waiting list, including the 8,500 people, Alan and Kelly included, on South Dublin County Council's waiting list, is the only way to fundamentally address the housing crisis. The Government is doing nothing to solve the problem apart from making announcements.

In terms of the case of Alan and Kelly and 3,000 other cases, the Tánaiste's advice is to recommend that people avoid going homeless. We, too, recommend to people that they should not go homeless and people recommend to themselves that they should not go homeless. People do not want to be homeless and they do not end up in homelessness lightly or without having made contact with a community welfare officer and doing everything else they possibly can. However, when a landlord is selling a property, the tenants must move out and many are unable to find somewhere else to go. Alan and Kelly are in contact with South Dublin County Council on a daily basis. They currently have emergency accommodation because other people were cleared off the homeless list, which will now fill up again. The advice they are receiving is not that they will be allocated a house but that they should find a landlord who will take the housing assistance payment. They cannot find any landlords who will take the HAP and they are not the only people in that position.

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