Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on housing and homelessness. We are experiencing a national crisis and the response from the Government has not been up to the mark. In my constituency and the Limerick city and county council area, in excess of 5,300 people are on the housing waiting list. The response from the Minister has been to invest €13 million in the provision of 68 housing units in the next number of years. This figure equates to 1.28% of those on the housing waiting list. That the Government describes this as a robust response speaks for itself. It is wholly inadequate and, unfortunately, it is failing the people of my constituency and Limerick city in the provision of housing.

Government party Members have been critical of the Fianna Fáil Party's record on housing.

It is a fact that during the years 2007 to 2010 we provided in excess of 14,500 housing units whereas the current Government, of which the Minister of State is a part, provided a mere 1,254 housing units from the years 2010 to 2014. It is most disingenuous. The Government is living in fantasy land and is delusional in trying to criticise the Fianna Fáil Party and the previous Government for the provision of housing units. The numbers speak for themselves: 14,500 as against 1,252.

It is worth putting on the record the role the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party have played at local authority level. Part V of the Planning and Development Act allowed local authorities to take a cash contribution in lieu of the provision of housing units, as the Minister of State is aware. The Minister of State has sought to criticise my party for that section of the Act, but it was the Minister of State's party and the Fine Gael Party which controlled all the local authorities up until the last local elections. They ran local government for practically the past 15 years and they did the deals with the developers to buy out their part V obligations.

See this speech in context