Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Collins is right that is has been going on for 30 years but we must acknowledge that in the nearly two and a half years in which we have had a Fianna Fáil Minister - we had this debate on Wednesday night - we have made those changes. We are committed to public housing. We want to deliver it. I accept the politics of competition where we all have to criticise each other's performances and so on but by any objective assessment, the tools we have given local authorities will mean we will be able to build more public housing over the medium term. An Opposition Deputy said something to me in confidence and so I will not name him. He said "We will probably be cutting the ribbons on houses you guys are building". That is probably true because the Housing for All plan is going to serve this country for more than a decade and we are going to build thousands and thousands of houses, just as we did in the past. That is unashamedly a Fianna Fáil commitment and I am very proud of it.

I am again in agreement with Deputy Ó Cuív that this change to the income limits is an example of Fianna Fáil's commonsense approach to implementing policy. We could go off and have a full report on this. We could have experts and all sorts of other things coming in and I have no doubt that would add to the decision-making in the Department. However, the Minister was clearly frustrated with that process and said he would not wait any longer. He decided to increase the income limits by €5,000. Perhaps it is a bit arbitrary. Perhaps it is based on Deputy O'Donnell's assessment that it has gone up by 20% with the average industrial wage and therefore that is a good figure to apply. What is clear is the Minister did not want to wait any longer and wanted to implement this change. It is not a change that has a budgetary impact and that is one of the reasons I am so critical of my coalition colleagues' ten years in government, as they did not get housing. I say that with respect to them because I think they understood that more than anybody else, after the last election. They did not get housing. They did not get it for ten years and they did not do what we have done with them and our Green Party colleagues over the last two and a half years. This was a very simple change. Regardless of what advice an official gives a Minister, he or she could make this change and the current Minister has done so. It is an example, for me anyway, of the difference between the two lead coalition parties here, because we in Fianna Fáil understand the housing need of people who need local authority housing.

There is a further reason it is so important we have increased local authority income limits. It is a smack in the face to tell somebody they and their children can benefit from the social inclusion programmes we have put in place, which include breakfast clubs, study groups, free books for schoolchildren, access programmes for university allowing their children to study anything any other person on any other income can study and when they graduate they can get a good job, and then to cancel all that, as well as their ten years on the waiting list, because we helped improve that family's ability to earn an income. It is absolutely counterproductive to say to people we are going to help them and their families improve their lives and give them more equal opportunity but when they get it we are going to take away their right to have the local authority house they so desperately need. I commend the Minister on increasing the limits, if for no other reason than that it says to people that if they go out and have the ability to educate themselves and so on - there are people who cannot for good reason and all the rest of it - they should not lose out. I commend the Minister on that and look forward to the further review. I am happy to cede the rest of my time.

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