Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's comments regarding homeless children living in emergency accommodation are quite depressing. He said there was a slight fall in the number. I am not talking about the situation we had in the past where a very small number of people were homeless for a variety of reasons. We are talking about families who ordinarily in previous times would have had access to a council house within a reasonable period of time but who are now living in hotel accommodation for a prolonged period of time. We know the psychological impact of that on children in terms of their development. The Taoiseach has offered no hope here this morning in terms of making any significant dent in the numbers who are living in emergency accommodation with all of the societal damage and potential impact of that on those families and children.

At 68%, home ownership is at the lowest level since 1971. That is the reality. Despite what the Taoiseach said in terms of his stated position, the reality is there was a significant shift in the past five to six years towards the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme model and various rental approaches which have absorbed huge amounts of money with less emphasis on house building, particularly the building of council houses in terms of broader social housing areas. The delayed delivery on all of those has been quite shocking given the urgency of the situation. Rent prices have continued to soar. There is no point in saying we aspire to homeownership if the nuts and bolts that govern that are not dealt with by Government.

To date, they have not been dealt with in the context of people's capacity to afford to buy homes. The Taoiseach might indicate the progress that has been made in terms of the affordable homes scheme.

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