Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am not against the structure in principle. It can be useful to have a core group or a sub-committee dealing with these issues but it is results that count. It is not a question of the structures but the results of their deliberations. Despite the eight meetings and the frequency of Government press releases, we are now in a live crisis. Last December 40 families lost their homes. It is now between 70 and 80 families each month. A year ago more than 300 families, including 726 children, were homeless in Dublin. In May this figure had risen to 900 children and almost 1,500 adults. I do not have a huge amount of time to go through all these statistics.

Two weeks ago, a major European report, the European index of exclusion 2015, found that the State had the second highest rate of rent and mortgage arrears within the European Union. One in five citizens is affected by this. Of the 28 EU member states, this state is the second worst, with almost half of the poorer households paying out more. At the end of June almost 100,000 mortgage accounts were in arrears and just over 70,000 households were in arrears of more than 90 days. All of the bad policies contribute to children being at risk of poverty - 34% compared to the EU average of 28%. Regardless of the structure and the number of meetings, the fact is the Government has favoured the private rental market as opposed to building social and affordable houses in which to house people. The dependency on the private rental market, which is for profit, has driven up rents. Unscrupulous landlords have exploited that and pushed down conditions for those who are renting the accommodation. The committee is not working. The crisis is getting worse day by day and there is no strategy to deal with it. Will the Taoiseach consider standing down the membership of that committee or, as I said to him previously, go to the European Commission to have the housing crisis declared a national emergency? I put that suggestion to the Taoiseach twice today and he has not even had the good manners to answer me. Even if he said to me, "That is nonsense, Gerry, forget about it," but he did not even answer me, he just ignored the suggestion. Would that not be something the Construction 2020, housing planning and mortgage arrears Cabinet sub-committee could consider in the time ahead?

As the Taoiseach and other Members were speaking, up came the magical year of 2016. What would any of the signatories of the Proclamation think of the statistics, which are living people, citizens, and the way they are being treated? They cannot even have a home, a roof over their heads, and they are in danger of poverty on the Taoiseach's watch.

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