Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are in a national emergency as a result of the housing and a homelessness crisis. It is a sad fact that is has been born out of the inaction of successive Governments. Fine Gael's reliance on the private sector to provide the required housing has proved to be disastrous.

The Government has also been deaf to our calls for a national social and affordable housing programme. If the Government and its predecessors had listened sooner, we might have avoided some of the worst aspects of the housing crisis and reduced the disastrous impact it has had on our most vulnerable citizens.

Recently, Sinn Féin published a vacant homes policy which calls on the Government to adopt a more ambitious approach to dealing with vacant properties. One of the key recommendations is the hiring of dedicated vacant homes officers within local authorities. These officers would be tasked with engaging with the owners of vacant properties to encourage them to return their homes to use. Vacant homes officers would build up a vacant homes register and work to a vacant homes plan. Such a plan is just one of the measures the Government could adopt to ensure that families have a place they can call home. Another constructive measure would be the introduction of rent certainty. Until this is achieved, the Government should, at the very least, extend the rent pressure zone legislation to the entire State.

The Government continually fails its citizens. It has had ample opportunity to rectify these man-made crises. It had the opportunity in its most recent budget to allocate resources and proper funding to alleviate the housing and homelessness crisis, but chose not to. The launch of the budget fell, coincidentally, on World Homeless Day but it was notable for its lack of any real initiatives to resolve the housing for the homeless crisis. The budget will fail to reduce homeless numbers or decrease the enormous number of people on local authority housing lists. It will also fail to increase the number of units being built. Already, demand vastly outstrips the number of units being built. As our homeless die on our streets and as families and individuals struggle to find a place to call home, the Government offers no hope, only disappointment, to these unfortunate people. We see the consequences of the Government's failed housing policy every day when we walk the streets and lanes around Leinster House. We see the Government's failure in the rough sleepers in shop doorways and along the side streets of our towns and cities and in those families moved, often every day, from one bed and breakfast accommodation to another. We see its failed policies in the thousands of children growing up in an environment of instability and uncertainty. The Government has provided no hope for the future to these unfortunate people. We must build more social and affordable housing, and local authorities need to take a lead role in that regard.

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