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

I thank People Before Profit for tabling this motion. It is timely we are having this conversation because on Monday my colleague, Councillor Noel Connolly, brought a motion to Kildare County Council seeking the establishment of a dereliction task force. The meeting was told the council is in the process of setting up a town regeneration team, which it is hoped will make some effort to address the blight of dereliction that is rampant in south Kildare and the Portarlington area of Laois and Offaly. It needs an urgent and consistent approach. If we are to make any headway, we need a carrot-and-stick approach. We need to encourage property owners to bring these properties back into use or transfer ownership to someone who will. They need better support but we need to collect levies. In Kildare, there is more than €1 million outstanding. It is not acceptable.

Unfortunately, in some cases the State is complicit in the dereliction. At the top of Main Street in Rathangan the Office of Public Works, OPW, owns a large building that has been derelict for decades.In Newbridge we have O'Modhrain Hall, another building that has been derelict for decades. This building was held in trust for the people of Newbridge to support cultural, music and Irish language purposes. It has recently been sold and there is still no word on thecy-présscheme which will decide how the proceeds of the sale are distributed. I ask the Minister of State to use his influence to see if the O'Modhrain Hall trust has been registered as a charity and when a decision will be made on the proceeds.

I would like to challenge the narrative being put forward by neo-Nazi groups who have raised their ugly head recently to sow dissent. They maintain that the housing crisis is being caused by migrants, which is not true; by people seeking international protection, which is not true; or by people on social welfare, which is again not true. We have a housing crisis because of deliberate Government policy that favours funds over families and treats the roofs over people's heads as a commodity. It has to stop. Sinn Féin in Government will deliver change, a referendum on the right to housing, social and affordable housing and everything necessary to reverse the disastrous policies of this Government, which has presided over a 175% increase in homelessness. It is a disgrace.

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