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

I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom tacaíocht a thabhairt don ábhar seo. Tá géarchéim ann i dtaca le tithíocht agus aontaím leis an rún seo.

I welcome the motion put forward by the Technical Group which raises the issues of housing, homelessness and unaffordable rents. I have stood in this House more times than I care to remember over the past five years calling for some of the measures included in this motion. It is very sad that I still have to plead the case for such measures today from a Government that has presided over such a resounding failure for the people in need of housing in this State. Inaction and spin has, for the most part, been all the Government has offered the people who have depended on it to tackle the housing crisis and I am sure that is all we will get tonight.

Government Members will try to spin the nonsense of their so-called strategy for housing. They will try to tell us of their investment in housing, of promised NAMA housing, of rent freezes and extra emergency beds. The figures do not lie and behind the Government spin it is clear the minimum has been done by both Fine Gael and the Labour Party in order to present the pretence of a desire to improve the lives of those in need of housing, of homeless families in hotels and B&Bs and of young families struggling to make their rent. The Government has failed spectacularly and the people who have suffered are the most vulnerable and worst off in society.

This motion is not perfect and Sinn Féin has some concerns regarding the potential for some of its policies to be realistically implemented. However, at its heart is a desire to do something meaningful for people and to expose the record of the Government's misinformation. Mention of breaking EU spending rules is a concern and we fell this kind of approach would not only be unnecessary to deal with the crisis, but would also be detrimental to this project. We have approximately 130,000 households in need of housing in the State. This is just less than the number of people currently housed by local authorities. This figure represents families, couples, single people and children all of whom are in need of a secure, adequate and affordable home.

It is an absolute scandal that the Government would preside over a situation where approximately 8% of the State's households are in need of housing or that it would do so for so long without taking meaningful action.

These are families who are living in cramped, damp, under-managed and overpriced private accommodation, or who are sleeping on the sofas, spare beds or floors of the homes of family members or friends. I have spoken about mothers who have had to share their parents' sofas with their children for months on end because they have nowhere else to go. Who could call such accommodation a home? What are such persons if not homeless, like thousands more who are not counted in official figures? For years the plight of the thousands suffering these conditions has been ignored.

When the Government finally admitted that there was a problem and that it had some responsibility to deal with it, the housing strategy, Construction 2020, was developed. Ministers told everyone who listened how billions of euro would be invested in housing. The original figure included in the document, €3.8 billion over six years, was presented as if it amounted to a major increase to be invested in building homes and that it would deliver tens of thousands of units. The Taoiseach regularly inflated the figure to more than €4 billion when he wanted to make it sound even more impressive. The reality, however, is much less impressive. An allocation of €3.8 billion over six years equates to an average spend of €633 million per year, almost €1 billion less than was spent in 2008 from the capital budget for housing. Since 2008 the budget has been cut severely and the money promised is not much greater than what was spent in preceding years under the Government. Moreover, much of the promised expenditure is scheduled for after the Government has left office.

It is worth noting, too, that less than one third of the first tranche of the money has actually been put towards housing construction, with €1.2 billion being earmarked for encouraging the private sector to provide social leasing, rent supplement, RAS and HAP units for rent at near market rates. Of the paltry 1,750 homes promised to be built by the beginning of 2018, just 167 are planned for Dublin. Of course, the Government press release failed to highlight this fact. The reality behind the Government's grand plan is more of the same, throwing good money after bad at the private sector in the hope the housing crisis will just go away.

Will the Acting Chairman confirm that I have 15 minutes to make my contribution?

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