Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A home is pivotal for the well-being of a family. When people are without a secure home, everything else can fall apart. Physical and mental health, nutrition, education, relationships and work all suffer. There is no greater way to rob opportunity or steal a child's future than to make that child homeless. The Government is in large part the architect of the housing crisis. For years Fine Gael has been allergic to State investment in housing. Fine Gael has radically distorted the housing market by the introduction of unfair tax incentives to vulture funds and to international landlords. Of course, for years Fine Gael has had a policy of inertia when it comes to dealing with landowners sitting on vacant properties.

However, it gets worse. In the middle of the most grievous housing crisis in generations, the Government is one of the largest owners of vacant properties, and is doing precious little to resolve it. Three years ago I tabled a parliamentary question to all Departments and State agencies. I discovered that they are presiding over thousands of acres of vacant land and buildings totalling 155,000 sq. ft owned by the Government were standing idle. These are not lands owned by NAMA or other development agencies. These are just Departments sitting on land and doing nothing about it.

An example of that is the folly of Thornton Hall, a 150-acre site right beside the M50 bought in 2005 for €50 million. The reply to the parliamentary question I tabled to the Minister for Justice and Equality stated that that land us being used for the production of potatoes. That shows exactly where the Government is with regard to this crisis.

In recent weeks, I tabled another parliamentary question to get an update on those buildings. The vast majority of those that were standing idle three years ago are still idle today under Government ownership. They are vacant, empty and derelict, just like this Government.

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