Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last month my colleague, an Teachta Ó Broin, and I met officials from the housing department at Kildare County Council. They were diplomatic in their answers, but it is clear they are working with one hand tied behind their back. Finance decisions from the Department are taking too long. Approved housing bodies are hamstrung. While many people may be critical of Kildare County Council, I know from first-hand experience that they are seriously understaffed and under-resourced. It takes up to three months to get a reply to a basic representation sent to Kildare County Council. Every reply to a query about housing states that there are 6,600 people on the council's housing list. The wait is ten to 12 years. People must find their own housing assistance payment, HAP, properties. You would need the miracle of the loaves and the fish, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire said, to consider HAP tenancies a solution. Today there are just 28 rental properties available in the whole of County Kildare, just one of which is within the HAP limits. There are only three properties available to rent for under €1,000 a month.

It is clear the Government's private market approach is not working and many people are suffering because of it. I have a list of 13 families, nine couples and 11 single people whose landlords have given them notice to quit because they are selling the properties. The current rules do not allow the council to buy property with tenants in situ. I have dealt with couples in emergency accommodation who are being accommodated separately. The nuclear family used to be held in high regard; it does not seem that way any more. I have been helping a mother who is raising four children alone since her husband left. This week she had to explain to four young children that the sign the landlord has put up outside her home means they will have to move. She faces emergency accommodation, if the council can actually find any, and the difficulty of getting kids to school in another town while trying to hold down her part-time job.

All these people are victims of poor Government policy. The present Government's policies are too investor- and developer-orientated. My colleague, an Teachta Ó Broin, when he is Minister with responsibility for housing, will change that. We have seen from the recent affordable housing targets that this Government lacks the will and ambition to address the housing crisis it has created, and it has created it. The Government proposes to build just 45 affordable houses in Kildare per year over the next five years. That is barely a drop in the ocean of what is needed. The Government is out of touch and out of time.

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