Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Government's record has been appalling in this area. It is spending vast amounts of public money on housing but most of that is going into the pockets of private landlords or else it is buying expensive turnkey housing rather than building it directly through local authorities. It has promised for years to introduce an affordable housing scheme. The Tánaiste is still talking about it but it has not started yet. I have raised this umpteen times and he has denied that this is the case. We do not have affordable housing programmes under way at present. Local authorities are crying out for them. The approved housing bodies have the capacity to deliver large numbers of social and affordable rental schemes if the Government would take those three actions they require. Why is the Government holding back on those? What we need now is action not empty promises, which is all we have had to date. There are ways to address this effectively that would ensure we have an effective response and that it would be done in a cost-effective way. Unfortunately, Fine Gael is yet again using the most expensive approach to tackling a major issue.

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