Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Whatever.

I want to say a few words on something that is very important to every Member of this House. I will start by wishing the Minister of State, Deputy English, and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, the best of luck with this plan.

Every Member of this House, irrespective of what his or her politics or whoever he or she supports, has been concerned and hurt for many families which have, without question, suffered over recent years in homelessness. It does not only apply to Dublin, Cork or Galway. I can tell the Minister of State that I know of families in my constituency of Roscommon-Galway living in hotel rooms. It is a very distressful time for them. I am hopeful that the proposed strategy will generally work, that we will ensure that everybody will have a roof over their head and that their parent or parents will not have to be worrying about where they will sleep the next night. We have all heard the stories about people having to put their children into a school in the daytime and walk the streets because they were living out of bed and breakfast accommodation. It is a horrific situation and nobody in this House wants it to continue. That is why I wish Ministers English and Coveney, and the strategy, the best of luck. While we might come from different angles, all contributors to this debate are concerned about getting this right.

I am a strong advocate of home ownership. We should not be saying to people that they do not have a right to own their own home. The Irish have a proud tradition of owning their own homes. On many occasions when I would be talking to tenants in local authority housing they would tell me that they would like the opportunity to live in their own homes. I welcome the fact that we have a new tenant purchase scheme.

I do not approve of the situation where local authorities' properties under the Part V scheme cannot be included in any tenant purchase scheme for social housing. It is unfair. It is a nonsense and I would ask the Minister to take another look at it. We are told the reason the Part V units are excluded from the incremental tenant purchase scheme is to ensure that all residential communities remain mixed-tenure developments. This reason seems to be a perversion of the original intention of Part V, the previous scheme and the central idea of mixed-tenure communities. I would say that the tenant purchase scheme discriminates against lower income households in these mixed communities by stating that it is only the right of a higher income household in mixed communities to have an opportunity to own their own houses. I am very much in favour and a big supporter of Deputy Cowen's Bill.

As I said, I wish the Minister and the Minister of State well. I hope we can solve this problem. I hope that we can all work together to relieve what is probably the biggest crisis facing us in the country at present. Hopefully, that will happen very shortly.

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