Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council recently signed an agreement with a German cuckoo fund called Realis which will see the council paying between €2,000 and €3,000 per unit for a 25-year lease on 87 apartments. The price of each of these apartments was in excess of €630,000. This is the reality of the housing policy of the Government and the Minister. It is absurd, insane and immoral. In fact it is criminal, given that while this is going on, 4,000 homeless children live in temporary emergency accommodation. Today we have seen homelessness figures increase to 10,514.

One of the solutions is to build public housing on public land. We have enough zoned public land to build 100,000 units of public housing. Rebuilding Ireland specifically puts forward the idea that the private market will solve our housing crisis by building private houses on public land. What recently happened in Dublin City Council with O'Devaney Gardens is also criminal. The Government has handed precious public land over to a private developer to build a development of which 30% will be public housing. That land could be used for public housing and the cost rental model, which would allow mixed tenure. That is part of the solution.

The other part of the solution is to introduce a right to housing in the Constitution. The UN special rapporteur for adequate housing has explicitly said that this should be introduced all over the world, not just in Ireland. Housing should be recognised as a human right in the Constitution so that people are empowered to demand their right to housing. I support this motion of no confidence. Nobody has confidence in this Minister, and he is not the only one.

I have another reason to express no confidence in Deputy Eoghan Murphy. Three years ago, a Bill passed Second Stage without opposition. That Bill was the Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Water in Public Ownership) (No. 2) Bill 2016. The Minister has dillydallied and said he would bring forward amendments. In July he said he would have the wording of amendments ready in autumn of this year. We are still waiting. We are facing an election in about 40 days and we have still not received the Minister's amendments. The unions of the Right2Water Ireland movement are concerned about this, along with other organisations and the people themselves. I do not have confidence in the Minister on the housing issue and I do not have confidence that he will implement the will of the people. On paper, everybody in this Dáil agrees with keeping water in public ownership. If the Minister does not agree with it, he should bring the Bill into the Dáil, argue against it and let people know what his position is.

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