Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Is the Minister aware of the sheer scale and magnitude of the homelessness and housing crisis? Worse still, does he care about it? I say this for a particular reason. I am the former chairperson of Louth County Council's housing strategic policy committee which invited the Minister several times to meet it to discuss the housing crisis in the county and on each occasion he turned down our invitation. Almost 5,000 people are on the housing waiting list in County Louth. Of these, almost 2,000 are on the waiting list in Drogheda alone and many of them have been waiting for up to nine years for a house. The county has 70 acres of land zoned for social housing, on which not one house has been built. The only solution which is one that requires political will is the roll-out of a State-wide, State-funded and State-led social housing building programme.

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