Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the housing crisis in my constituency with the Tánaiste again. There are 170 people in emergency accommodation in Louth and 111 in Meath. It is unprecedented. We also have a housing waiting list that is heading towards the 5,000 mark. It has never even approached that before. Nobody is coming off the housing waiting list. It just increases all the time. Meanwhile, as I have raised before, we have 50 acres of council-owned landbanks in County Louth that are lying fallow, unused in any social or affordable housing building programme. The Minister has the data on the council landbanks because he had it collated last year. Despite the number of times I have raised the issue, the Government has still not released funding. Doing so will only make a small dent in the numbers but it will make a dent and it will help those people through the misery of the housing crisis. When will the Government roll out funding for the building of social and affordable homes on council-owned landbanks?

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