Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach are leaving jobs today. The reality is Fine Gael was involved in the complete cessation of any kind of a reasonable social housing programme. We can go back to one of the Minister of State's predecessors, Mr. Jimmy Tully, who ensured during a very poor time that 25,000 or 30,000 houses were built in this country in the early 1970s. The Minister of State has not answered the question. What is the future for these families? Will it be, as Focus Ireland understands, that only families newly becoming homeless are those who will not be sent to hotel accommodation? The Minister of State is not ending the uncertainty and the disruption for the families here this evening, unfortunately. He is not addressing the key point.

The Minister of State spoke about HAP and certainly the experience in Dublin Bay North, and I believe in all of the other high rent areas of the country, is that HAP is not working, particularly for people facing homelessness and people trying to come out of homeless accommodation. Every letter I get from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive states citizens and their families are eligible for HAP-type accommodation, but these same people have sent out dozens of emails and attended dozens of viewings of apartments and houses and when people find out they are coming out of homeless accommodation there is no tenancy available. That is the reality. The HAP system is just not working for the people I represent. One suggestion is the Minister of State might ask why Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council are not directly responsible for organising to provide HAP accommodation rather than asking hapless and very vulnerable homeless families to do it for themselves.

I notice the modular housing, which has been referred to a lot by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is now scheduled to become permanent accommodation, despite the problems we had in this city back in the 1970s and 1980s with modular-type quick build housing. I welcome the small suite of measures in Rebuilding Ireland, but it is far too little and too late for the thousands of adults and children I represent and other Deputies represent. Quite clearly, we need a much more drastic solution. Unfortunately, the Government will not give it to us.

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