Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

By every measure, the Taoiseach's Government is failing to tackle the national scandal that is the housing emergency. Private rents and house prices continue to spiral out of control. Social housing output remains glacial with fewer real council houses to be delivered this year than last year. Not a single affordable home to rent or buy has been delivered by Government over the past three years. An entire generation of young people, unlike their parents before them, face the prospect of never owning their own home.

Since the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, assumed office, homelessness has reached unprecedented levels. Tonight almost 4,000 children will sleep in emergency accommodation and all the while the Taoiseach persists with a plan that is not only failing but is, in fact, making things worse. People know that and they are justifiably angry. That is why thousands of people demonstrated at the Take Back the City rally in Dublin last weekend. That is just a glimpse of that anger. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions' Raise the Roof demonstration on 3 October will amplify that message all the more loudly.

Yet the Taoiseach and the Minister blame everyone but themselves for their failure to address the underlying issue, namely, a lack of homes. They have blamed local authorities, local councillors and opposition Deputies and I heard the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, on RTÉ radio this morning explaining away his deplorable record by saying that the numbers of people in homelessness are going up because people keep on presenting to emergency accommodation. I want to know if the Minister is now blaming the homeless for being homeless because the buck stops with him. Both the Minister and the Taoiseach are responsible but their plan is not working.

The Minister claims that Sinn Féin has not offered solutions but we have offered ample solutions. We have offered solutions around investment in social and affordable housing, the introduction of a temporary tax relief for renters, alongside a rent freeze, the introduction of legislation to prevent buy-to-let landlords from seeking vacant possessions and the proposal to introduce legislation requiring local authorities to offer assistance to those at risk of losing their homes or tenancies. These are alternatives - take them and use them. Listen to the NGOs, listen to the approved housing bodies and take their alternatives and use them. It is not that no one has offered solutions; it is that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, have refused to act and to listen. True to form, their friends in Fianna Fáil bury their heads in the sand as well.

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