Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak. I was here for the Minister's speech. I did not read it but I heard it. I do not know who wrote it. Honestly, hand on heart, the Minister should not have read it out. When is the Minister and the committee Chairman going to admit this is utterly bewildering and that there is utter failure? I refer to the figures that have been produced. Four hundred children were made homeless last month. There are 3,700 children homeless: my goodness. There are 1,700 families homeless. This is shocking. This is an indictment of the Minister. He is the fifth or sixth Minister for housing in the past seven years. I do not know what AK-47, Deputy Alan Kelly, was going to build. Fine Gael is in government. There has been an abysmal failure. Why can the Government not call what is happening a crisis, which is what it is? I have asked the Minister, his predecessor and the Minister of State from Meath, Deputy Damien English, on countless occasions to ring up the county managers and directors of services responsible for housing. There is nothing going on. Eleven houses were built in Tipperary, my county. There were over 3,100 approved applicants in five years. There was a rise from 11 to 16. It is a joke.

The Chairman of the housing committee, Deputy Bailey, is shaking her head. I wrote to her several times about a company in Cahir that is interested in providing steel-framed homes and she would not even invite them before the committee. I wrote several times and got no answer. It was several months before she came back to me, through emails, and I was eventually told "No" because my request might be perceived as favouritism or whatever. The Chairman is not interested in solving the problem. If she were-----

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