Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague Eoin Ó Broin on his contribution to the debate tonight. The debate appeared to focus all of our minds on finding solutions. It was not the usual blame game.

We all accept that there is a housing crisis. No one in this Chamber denies it. We come across those difficulties every day of the week.

The "Prime Time" programme showed another symptom of that crisis. It was extreme, raw and shocking. I have never seen anything like what was on that programme, with so many people crammed into rooms. I have been dealing with the housing crisis for a long time. I remember one occasion where foreign nationals were the tenants and the landlord was turning a toilet into a bedroom to claim money. That situation took place in the South Dublin County Council area, and no one was monitoring it.

In another example, an owner of a business had staff - foreign nationals - living in a container, and he invited me along to meet the staff. The staff were quite happy living in a container beside a power unit over a shop. That was shocking.

I had a young woman with two children in my constituency office within the last two weeks. She outlined the accommodation that she was living in. She does not live in my local authority area, but she wanted advice. She is living in a house with bars on the windows. There is a gas boiler in the bedroom. There is water running down the walls. The electricity works sporadically, and sometimes sparks. There is mould in the room. There is a shed and garden at the back of the accommodation that is covered in drug paraphernalia. She asked me what to do. I can report this to the local authority, but the sad reality is that I do not have alternative accommodation for that young woman. That is the crisis we are in. There is nowhere to refer people to. That is the difficulty.

I am in a local authority area that is second on the list in terms of inspections. It is fantastic that there are inspections going on, but I am aware of different housing stock in the area where people are living in overcrowded conditions. I am aware of houses where foreign nationals are living and where neighbours complain that there are families moving in all the time. People are moving in the middle of the night and it is impossible to say how many are living in one house. Who investigates? It is a private house. The local authorities are not really that interested.

I know of situations where the local authorities have put people in two bedroom accommodation. That was when these people had perhaps one child and now they have two, three or four children. It is not a priority for the local authority to transfer those people. Its priority may be for homeless people.

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I also know of families where there might be five, six or seven adults living along with the parents in the house. There might also be children in that house. They are all packed into local authority housing. I am just offering this example of the crisis that exists. Every Deputy can give other examples.

Different things bring about change. We like to think that the Grenfell Tower fire will bring about change in respect of fire safety and so forth. There must also be change in this area. What we are seeking is quite reasonable and has cross-party support. It is about more resources, more inspections and the NCT.

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