Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My point is that there is something fundamentally wrong in respect of the meetings, the structure, the number of meetings the Government has been having, the lack of joined-up thinking and the lack of urgency shown on this issue. That is why we are experiencing chaos for many families and crises in dealing with homelessness across the board and in housing supply. The Government's own targets for social housing have not been met and in the past three or four years fewer than 1,000 social housing units have been built in the entire country. The Taoiseach should contrast this with the 14,000 social housing units built between 2007 and 2010 as there is a huge difference between the two figures. It appears as though the structure has not worked and that the Cabinet committee system has not worked because, by any objective yardstick, what was a problem or challenge a number of years ago has evolved into a full-scale crisis, notwithstanding that the committee has met eight times or nothwithstanding the Cabinet sub-committee structure the Government has established. Does the Taoiseach accept the basic point that what the Government put in place was not adequate and that the number of meetings held simply has not been adequate to deal with this growing and escalating crisis for many families nationwide?

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