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

I am delighted to support this Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Right to Housing) Bill 2017 and I warmly commend our colleagues in People Before Profit and Solidarity on bringing it before the House. This afternoon at Leaders' Questions, I listened in disbelief as the Taoiseach kept spinning about 80 citizens being housed each day. We all know that this mainly refers to citizens and families entering HAP and so-called family hubs and that the delivery of social and affordable housing continues to be non-existent or a trickle.

In my constituency in the three months since the Minister was appointed, and Deputy Varadkar has been Taoiseach, and in the six months before that when Deputy Enda Kenny was Taoiseach, we have had nothing, with hardly a single house provided. At the end of July, on behalf of my constituents who are homeless, threatened with homelessness or up to a decade or more on housing lists, I made a lengthy submission to the Minister's review of the Rebuilding Ireland action plan. My first and core recommendation was that he would bring forward housing emergency legislation similar to the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation to deal with the banking emergency. He should take very vigorous steps to address the complete disaster and catastrophe we have in the so-called housing market.

I called for at least 10,000 additional new social housing builds each year for the next five years with an additional capital investment of at least €1 billion a year. I also asked that local authorities and social housing bodies again have a primary role in directly building homes.

This NAMA proposal was made off the cuff by the Taoiseach at the Government's recent think-in. There are different proposals from NERI and others. Many people think that some kind of housing executive is necessary in the greater Dublin area because the four surrounding counties seem to operate as almost a single housing market. Dublin city, in particular, however, has grave problems in trying to create any kind of an efficient housing programme. I also submitted a wide range of other proposals to the Minister. It is deplorable that the Minister's party and Fianna Fáil while talking about being non-ideological have on ideological grounds refused to accept the Thirty-fifth Amendment (Right to Housing) Bill 2017 tonight. I urge the House to support the Bill.

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