Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his good wishes. I do not disagree with anything he said. The history of how we have come to this crisis is that the Government of the time essentially outsourced its responsibility to the private sector for social housing and then, when the market and the sector crashed, people and their needs crashed with them. We are still dealing with the legacy of this and we see it in every new homeless family that presents itself because they cannot, unfortunately, find a solution in the private rental sector today. Many have, but not everyone can. This is why there has been a change by this Government to make sure we are putting more money into social housing delivery, and that is the important thing. That capital funding that has been put in place over the course of the Rebuilding Ireland plan has been ring-fenced for protection. Next year, more than €1 billion will be spent on delivering on and meeting the social housing needs of our people.

The Deputy spoke about social housing being a dirty word. I hope this is not the case because there is a responsibility on the part of Government to make sure that the taxes of every person in this State are spent in a way that can deliver for the needs of people who need our help the most. That is what we must achieve. This does not just mean social housing in the strictest sense; it also means co-operative housing models and the like, and some very successful schemes are already up and running in that regard.

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