Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We all listened very carefully to the speeches of the Minister of State, Deputy English, and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. I agree with the Minister that supply is key to breaking the logjam. The point, however, is that for most of the past eight years, there has been no supply. I agree very much with my colleague Deputy Wallace that the Government had a choice either to empower the local authorities or set up a State building company that would build on out from the sites it has. The Minister of State asked me to show him what is occurring. We meet people who have been in homeless accommodation week in, week out, for two years plus. I could take the Minister of State to at least half a dozen large sites that are partially or totally owned by Dublin City Council and where there has been no movement not only for the last eight years but for the past 28 years. That is the problem. In many respects, the authorities have been hamstrung legally.

The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, asked what we would do differently. We have had to drag the Government kicking and screaming towards every little improvement, whether it was addressing the rights of tenants to some extent or the situation with rents. This was to begin to have even a minuscule direct-build housing programme for the councils and approved housing bodies. The man who was Minister for Finance for most of the past eight years, Deputy Michael Noonan, always put the interests of banks and the financial sector in front of the interests of the homeless. That is the reality. The current Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, has continued with that policy, by and large, right up to the present. That is the sad reality of this Government.

The Government has talked about emergency powers. Emergency powers were adopted in a few hours in 2008. My Labour Party colleagues at the time and I stood alone against the blanket bank guarantee. Deputy Noonan and I were both on the back benches and we knew exactly the meaning of the blanket bank guarantee. My colleagues and I stood against it. The current Government has an omnibus Bill. The Minister was discussing it this morning. If a hard Brexit happens, we will come in here and, in about two or three hours, we will legislate across the board to protect this country and our people in the North. That is what we are going to do and we know we are going to do it but the Government will not do it for the homeless people. It is refusing to take action on behalf of the 10,000 homeless - or, according to Deputy Ó Broin, 13,000 - and the 8,000 homeless children. It is just making glacial progress and will not take the drastic action that is necessary, which has been outlined.

Deputy Wallace is the most experienced of us but, like others in this Chamber, I have worked on building sites also. When I worked on sites, we were building a very large housing development in south County Dublin for Dublin City Council. It was a major development in east Clondalkin. We know what has been done and what can be done. The Government is refusing to do what can be done. It is all pie in the sky. References are made to 2020, 2021 and 2022. The 2020s look like they will be the Roaring Twenties again. It will be fabulous and we will have houses coming on stream year in, year out, but the problem is that so many families have suffered so much. The Government could prevent this in a couple of weeks by getting moving on some of the sites. In Dublin Bay North alone, we could probably build 15,000 or 20,000 houses over a couple of years, with the proper powers for either Dublin City Council or the four Dublin councils together. Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council are inextricably linked. We are all Dubs and we all wear the blue shirt, including when we have to put it on to support our brilliant Gaelic teams. We need to work together on housing also, as we always did, including when Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Lucan and all the inner suburbs were built. Unfortunately, the Minister of State has failed in a key remit. This whole issue and the failures in the health service will lead to a very serious depletion of the ranks of the Fine Gael Party in the forthcoming general election.

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