Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion. The Minister should go, and he should take this Government with him. Housing is a fundamental human right and it should be enshrined in our Constitution. Families need a stable and secure long-term housing position to live, grow and develop. A Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government handed over the public house building programme to the private market, and that failed policy has been continued by successive governments, including the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government and this Government of Fine Gael supported by the Independent Alliance, despite its absolute failure. It has failed miserably and it has been a disaster for families.

Fine Gael has had seven years to tackle the housing crisis but the only result is that housing in all its aspects has been made a commodity by successive governments. It has become a commodity in an uncontrolled private commercial market. The current Government and this Minister have made things worse. We have 10,000 people homeless, including 3,500 children, and there are 100,000 families on local authority housing waiting lists. There are 30,000 families on the despicable housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, thousands of people couch surfing or living with relatives and friends, and thousands of others caught between a rock and a hard place because they are over the limit for a local authority house but do not have enough income to be approved for a mortgage. Rents are still spiralling outrageously and house prices are still soaring, despite mortgage rates being twice the European Union average.

Would Deputies believe that the Minister has claimed that the Government's policies are working? This is not only an example of reality denial but is an insult to the victims of this so-called success, the homeless. The Minister should go, and he should take this Government with him.

See this speech in context