Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have two minutes to contribute, therefore, I will be blunt and to the point. I listened this morning as the Taoiseach responded to Leaders' Question and his replies were pathetic, insulting and irresponsible - pathetic and insulting, I can live with, but irresponsible, I can not. When he traded insults across the floor and accused us of being ideologically bound by certain things, he was telling untruths. The only ideology in this Chamber is the Government and its supporters who say the market will provide.

The Government is dealing with housing like a Lego set; it builds one thing one day, another thing the next day, and something else the next day, and the only common theme is that it does everything to support the market. This Government and the previous one - the Labour Party will have to take note of its part in this criticism - were instrumental in changing housing policy through the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. Under it, €300 million this year - which was doubled from last year and is likely to be doubled next year - is going into the landlords' pockets with absolutely no security of tenure, minimum inspection and so on, and we were told that was the only game in town.

If the Minister does not want to listen to us, perhaps he might read a letter from more than 50 academics, researchers and experts in this area that appeared in an edition of The Irish Times last week. They told us, "the current crisis is the manifestation of deep structural problems in housing policy and the philosophy that underpins it". They stated that a radical change is needed. I do not have the time to read it all. They go on to illustrate the effects of that and they talk about a new policy. That is what we are asking for here, a new policy. Public housing must be built on public land. The State must have a fundamental role in that policy, otherwise we will keep going from crisis to crisis. More than a year ago, Deputy Healy asked for a declaration of an emergency, finally we are getting it today. I ask the Minister to have a little humility, to do a little less talking and to listen to what is being said, if not by us, by the more than 10,000 who were outside these Houses today and by the various people who put their names to that letter last week.

I will finish on this point. I am from Galway. People have been on the housing waiting list since 2002 and there is no chance of them getting a house because only one house has been built there since 2009.

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