Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is codding himself if he believes his efforts and those of his Department are working. He certainly is not codding people on the ever increasing and expanding housing lists. There is a deplorable record in providing social housing units. The lack of affordable private housing is pushing an increasing number of people onto the housing lists and into homelessness. According to the latest figures for Louth, there were 124 people in emergency accommodation in April. In addition, the current high price of housing reflects a substantial shortage of housing units. Irish building firms are engaged in building large apartment blocks for international fund management companies as the return on investment is high owing to increased rent year on year. Until our indigenous building firms go back to providing affordable housing, with the backing of the State-owned banks, we will not see an increase in the number of houses available for purchase by the ordinary, hard-working people of the country.

While the Taoiseach has lauded my local authority, Louth County Council, for its record with compulsory purchase orders and bringing vacant units back into use, there are still 4,506 families on Louth County Council's housing list seeking housing. That is a total of people on the housing list and people availing of HAP. Louth County Council is proposing to build 850 housing units over a three-year period. When one calculates the housing waiting list figures per annum one quickly discovers that where the period of waiting on the housing list used to be eight to ten years in Louth, people going on that housing list today will be waiting for 16 years. If the Minister calls that progress he is codding himself. This is a crisis and we must deal with it immediately.

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