Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

They have not been delivered. The council says it does not have the money. The Minister is advancing money all the time. How many new schemes has the Department approved since June of last year? The figures show that only three were built in the first three quarters of the year and none in the final quarter.

There are several blockages and too much of a delay. People only want a respectable house. Planners will not allow people who have the money and the site to build. It is a dog in the manger job. We need houses not reports. Money is announced and re-announced and re-hashed. The Minister should visit. We will take him on a tour from Cloughjordan to Clonmel, to Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Thurles and all the rural villages. I will show him all the voids, the empty houses that have not been refurbished. It is not happening. The county councils are saying they do not have the money, the Minister says he is smothering with money. Who is codding who? Homeless people are frustrated.

I am involved in voluntary housing and we build more houses than the Minister would build in five years and we are only a few lay people. There is no expert among us. The Minister has all the experts and nothing is happening. It beggars belief. I am on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and I know all about the reports. We want houses to house our people who want to pay rent, not reports and announcements of money being regurgitated. It was the same with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Kelly, who nearly smothered us with announcements but with nothing to show for them.

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