Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fine Gael took office on 9 March 2011 and has been in power ever since. Fianna Fáil has been in bed with Fine Gael and facilitated four years of confidence and supply before forming a Government alongside the Green Party at the last election. For years, we have listened to housing Minister after housing Minister and Taoiseach after Taoiseach tell us that the housing crisis cannot be fixed overnight. Budget after budget has been branded as being the budget that would fix the housing crisis. Eleven years on, we know that none of the parties in government can fix this crisis, because if they could, they would have done so a long time ago. Instead, we have had missed targets and false promises by the lorryload.

Young people are looking to airplanes as their hope for the future. The Tánaiste's comments over the weekend about the grass being greener fell flat on their face. He was left looking even more detached from the reality of what young people face in this country. Government spokespeople bang on about delivery, but all they have delivered have been record rents, record house prices and a record level of homelessness. That is the mark of this Government's delivery. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage does not acknowledge that we are in a housing crisis. This is a housing emergency for those who cannot afford their rent. It is an emergency for the workers and families who are locked out of buying their own home because institutional investors have been allowed to run riot by the Minister's Government. It is a housing emergency for the thousands of children who will not lie in a bed they call their own tonight. The Government must declare a housing emergency now.

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