Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I noticed the glee on the Government benches as Members congratulated themselves on housing delivery. The Taoiseach was in attendance at one of those great launches, at which one of the families who got the keys to their home had been on a social housing waiting list for 14 years. That is a generation. That is the time it takes to raise a family. As we meet and speak here, there are families, as I said to the Minister earlier, who are raising their children in the box rooms of their parents' homes. There are kids and families in bed and breakfast accommodation, hotels and so on. There is a sense of desperation everywhere.

I asked the Minister about the undershoot of €2 billion in respect of capital spend on housing the Government is sitting on. How in the name of God is the Government falling €2 billion short on its spend on housing and sitting on that €2 billion in circumstances in which people have been on housing lists for a decade and more, living in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation and desperate, with no real prospects? That needs to be explained by the Minister.

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