Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is a tragedy but it is also a truth. It was also something I was extremely proud to witness. The solution to the housing crisis was outside the gates of this House today. It involved the working poor of this city, Newbridge, Mayo, Galway, Cork and Kerry, to mention a few of the places where the people I met today are from. Ordinary people in their thousands called on this Government to give them homes, not hostels or hotels. They know the solution and they are out to demand it. I would say to them, "Let your movement grow and mushroom and a thousand flowers bloom", because that is what the Government will listen to. For how long have we stood here and put forward Bills and motions from all sides of the House, yet the Government has listened to nothing except those who lobby it consistently to do their bidding - the developers, the builders, the banks and the wealthy?

Insofar as the Government has a housing policy, I congratulate it because it has worked. It has worked for the people whom the Government supports and who support it - the REITs, the vulture funds, the cuckoo funds, the bankers and the developers - and for whom the Government has bent, changed and moved the rules and goalposts. What it has failed to do is provide decent, affordable public housing for ordinary people on public land, and the public is well aware of it. The Government may be happy that it has pleased its cohort of supporters among Fine Gael, but it is certainly not implementing a policy that is looking after the people. The lifetime of this Government is short. I hope that it is very short-lived and that it does not get back in to rule over this sort of crisis.

Among the things the Government has done is drive up rents and refuse to implement a rent freeze, which it thinks will not work. It thinks we need more landlords. Remember, one third of the Members of this House are landlords. We have more than enough landlords. What we need is State-funded and State-run homes of a decent nature for the people. I am thinking of people like Ruby. I tweeted her photograph to the Minister. She carried a placard that read, "I'm Ruby. I'm four. I'm homeless." I tweeted another photograph to the Minister showing a family from Newbridge with four children who have spent two years in a hub. The eldest son has asthma and there is no sign of them being housed. I meet families in Ballyfermot in Dublin South-Central every day who are being evicted, and the Minister of State knows this because I have spoken to him about them. They are being evicted from housing assistance payment, HAP, properties. HAP is no solution for these people. We need radical reform and change. I believe that the people power outside the gates is the start of something new and frightening for this Government. Long may it continue until there is a complete change in the policies of this State to put people and their housing needs before the profit and greed of the Government's cohort.

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