Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Does the Taoiseach ever take a walk around this city and see people living in tents outside the Garden of Remembrance or sleeping in tents outside shopping centres or just around the corner from the House, on Nassau Street, where one practically has to step over human beings huddled in sleeping bags? How does he think their Christmas will be? Does he think they will have a happy Christmas? They will have a miserable, cold and lonely Christmas and they will be filled with nothing but utter despair. Fr. Peter McVerry has said again that the Government's Rebuilding Ireland policy is an utter failure, with child homelessness at its highest rate ever. Everybody knows this and we also know that local authorities need to be funded to build council houses. We have told the Taoiseach that over and over again. I ask him not to give his usual spiel or have his Minister regurgitate inaccurate figures again. We are talking about human beings, families and children. Will the Taoiseach and the Government accept that their Rebuilding Ireland policy has been an utter and absolutely dismal failure?

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