Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is a well-known fact that the outgoing Government failed miserably in its efforts to deal with housing. It allowed a crisis to develop into what is now undoubtedly an emergency. On assuming office, there were 90,000 applicants on housing lists throughout the country. On the basis of further information, not from the Government but from information requests and questions to local authorities, we know the list now extends to 140,000 applicants. Some 350,000 people are now on housing lists.

As the Government knows, the building of houses ground to a halt. The low level of priority shown to housing by the previous Government was its choice and not part of a legacy. That is proven by virtue of the fact that it cut funding for the provision of housing by 54% since it came into office. Fine Gael and the Labour Party also allowed banks to have a veto on solutions for distressed mortgage holders, which caused more families to lose their homes, something that continues right up to today. The number of repossession hearings increased by 20% this year compared to last year. Vulture funds, which are subject to no regulation, are now threatening up to 47,000 homeowners throughout the country, something which was not mentioned by the previous two speakers despite the fact that they want to tell us they will do within the next four weeks what they could not do for the past five years.

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