Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Ó Broin not alone on this motion but on all of the work he has done and continues to do to fix the mess that successive governments have created in our housing market. That Government policy has failed is not in question any longer. For decades, the policies of successive governments have failed. They have failed young people, renters, first-time buyers and every person who wants security in their home. The evidence of this is all around us.

The evidence is in my family. It may not be in that of the Minister of State's but it is definitely in mine. It is not that long since the Minister of State's Green Party and Fianna Fáil crashed our economy off a cliff. The solution put forward by Fine Gael and the Labour Party was to invite the vulture funds in and roll out the red carpet for them. I see the impact of those decisions every day of the week in my constituency in Swords and in Balbriggan, and right across Fingal where I am proud to represent the people who are at the business end of the Government's policies because its policies has failed them. The human impact of this crisis is all around the Government and it is absolutely heartbreaking. I ask the Minister of State to open his eyes and not to reach blindly for the silly rhetoric that comes out of Fianna Fáil and for him to come in here to repeat it. I ask him to have a little bit of respect for the people who are listening to this debate this evening.

We have been constructive and have put forward solutions. We have used our own experience. More than 20 years ago I was able to buy a house. I bought this house because by the time she was five years of age, my daughter had had six separate addresses. That is what it was like and it is worse now renting in Dublin. I was able to buy a house on an ordinary income. That is gone from people now and they cannot aspire to owning their own home and having security. In 1965 my father and mother, and people like Bernard and Betty Browne, were part of the Dublin Housing Action Committee. They demanded adequate housing, fair rents for proper homes, protection from eviction and an end to the scandal of empty homes. More than 50 years on, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are fighting for the same thing and this time they are fighting the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Government. Fight, we will, and win, we will.

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