Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We had quite a comical scene in recent days with Government Deputies from the two political parties fighting over microphones in radio studios throughout the country trying to take credit for the capital investment programme that was announced. It would be important to have a debate on that capital investment programme in the House. In that context we should have enough time to talk about the real issue that is at the heart of Irish society at present, which is homelessness and the housing crisis in general. It is always politicised as was seen this morning with more one-upmanship on dealing with an issue that is now at crisis point.

Let us be under no illusions; it is a legacy on the Government parties' behalf. They came into government claiming that there were too many houses in the country and they are leaving government with a shortage of houses. We are now putting people into emergency portakabins. By any stretch of the imagination the homelessness issue has been an unmitigated failure on the Government's behalf to address what was always going to be an issue. People do not stop growing up, having children, growing older or forming different house formations. All of that was politely ignored by the Government for the past four and a half years. We now find that we are running around trying to find emergency accommodation in portakabins for families.

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