Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

We have had all this talk for four and a half years. It is too late for the families who are suffering. It is four and a half years too late for the Labour Party to turn its attention to this issue. The Minister spoke of a lack of supply. To reiterate the point on house building, 8,794 council houses were built in this country in 1975. I have just told the Minister that this year 500 will be built. How can the Minister talk about the Labour Party taking this seriously? He did not answer the question, which was very clear. Does the Labour Party feel this is an emergency or not? Does it think it is just a problem? Will the Minister please answer this in his summing up?

How many houses will be built using the €37 million allocated for Dublin? Will hotels, modular homes and all of the other emergency accommodation measures be included in this regard or will it just be home building? I can understand how some families might feel modular housing is an alternative for them - and better than being stuck in hotels and travelling miles to school with no proper food or cooking - however, the Minister said modular homes would take four months to complete, while houses could be built in three months. A house does not take much longer than three or four months to build. The key problem is planning. If the Minister really thought it was an emergency, he would be introducing emergency legislation to allow the Government to acquire the land that exists. For example, NAMA has ownership of one third of all the land in Dublin. The Government would be building houses and fast-tracking social and affordable houses rather than relying on modular homes.

Fine Gael obviously does not give a toss about people in social housing, but this is something-----

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