Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A short film, "Through the Cracks" was shown in the AV room earlier. It shows the effect this scandalous situation has on children and their mothers. I could not make it to the showing because I was at a committee meeting, but my parliamentary assistant went and was very much affected by the film. He said that every single Deputy on the opposite side of the House, namely, those in Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance, should watch the film. It really exposes the impact the housing crisis is having on families. We can call what is happening a crisis or an emergency; I call it an absolute scandal. Regardless of how we look at the figures and at what is or is not happening, it is obvious that the situation is simply scandalous. There are 180,000 houses vacant nationwide. Speculators are sitting on development land. Local authorities and State companies are holding 70% of all zoned land, which would be sufficient for building more than 110,000 dwellings overall and 70,000 in Dublin city alone. Young workers are spending up to 70% of their incomes on rent. Accommodation for students is completely unaffordable. More than 3,000 children are in emergency accommodation, a figure that is rising year on year, month on month and week on week. I can have no confidence in the Minister. He has failed to grasp the nettle and radically change policy.

Let us be clear, however. The Minister did not create this crisis. He inherited it from his predecessor, Deputy Coveney, who inherited it from Deputy Kelly, who inherited it from Fianna Fáil. The problem in this area has obtained for the past 20 or 30 years. The policy of abandoning local authority housing, adopted by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour when in government, lies at the root of the problem. Local authorities dominated by the same parties must share the blame. They were happy to offload what they viewed as a burden. There is a solution; public housing on public land and a mix of local authority housing and cost-rental units with affordable rents and security of tenure. Until such a policy is adopted, financed and implemented, this scandal will continue to obtain.

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