Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We face a serious crisis and are putting in place emergency responses, some of which were outlined by the Taoiseach earlier today in the Dáil. We need to do more and to do better. I know that the crisis is hurting people today and that tonight children will sleep in hotels and emergency accommodation, which is unacceptable. Of course, I support people's right to protest legally, peacefully and safely. I am glad to be a participant in a democracy in which people can go out and do so. However, we are not protestors here; rather, we are law-makers. We have been elevated to a privileged position, with which comes a mandate and a responsibility to seek to change the law where we believe it needs to be changed in order to do better for the people. That mandate does not just fall on the Government alone; it also falls on each Deputy in this House. Ours is a minority Government. That means that every Deputy is empowered to bring forward the right ideas, to get support for them, to see them through the House and to see the laws changed if we work together. Let us try to do so. Let us try not to use housing and the people who are suffering in the crisis as a political weapon. Let us try not to divide the House on this issue but to find common ground where we can work together. Let me try to do so in two ways. The Government has no ideological position when it comes to housing. I want to see safe houses being built in the right locations for all of the people. I want to see this happen quickly and will use any method at my disposal to do so. I will not oppose a local authority in buying or leasing a home long-term if it gets homeless families out of homelessness more quickly. Where I might have an ideological position, if I can call it that, is where I believe we should use housing policy to deliver mixed tenure and support and unite communities, rather than divide them.

Another issue on which I would like to find common ground in this House is local opposition. I know that Deputies, in every party and none, have gone out and opposed local plans for house building. I know that has happened before.

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