Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Maybe the Taoiseach does not recognise the urgency of the situation. Even if the mica scheme works well and 300 mica houses are done every year, where will the 300 affected families be housed? If 300 houses are done every year, it will take many years to get through all the houses affected by mica. We should be earmarking, buying and servicing sites now for temporary accommodation for people because when this scheme starts it will be too late to look for housing as it will take a year to deliver the houses. We cannot have families waiting. The problem is that families cannot get anywhere to rent.

In my end of the county, one cannot get a house to rent. There are families on the housing list that cannot get a house to rent. It is not possible. Yet, there are loads – thousands – of Airbnbs all over the place. Why not target those? If the accommodation is made available and can be done quickly for Ukrainian families, and rightly so, why has it not been done for Donegal families as well? The Government needs to be pulling out all the stops. I am glad that the Minister is meeting the chief executive next week and I hope he addresses these issues, which are vitally important and need to be addressed urgently. We will end up with a scheme starting to repair houses where families will have no where to go to get their house repaired and that is just not on.

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