Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State knows too well that this House has debated housing more than any other issue in the past couple of years. If only words could build houses. We are tabling another motion tonight because, despite all the plans, the schemes and all the announcements that have been rehearsed again tonight in the Minister of State's speech, the situation for families and individuals in all our constituencies remains dire and everybody in this House knows that.

Housing is the number one issue. It is the one issue we face every day in all our constituency offices - people facing eviction. People with decent jobs who have a decent income are coming into us but it is impossible to find a place to rent. There is fear in their eyes when they are talking to you and you know in your heart there is probably nothing you can do for them. These are people on low and fixed incomes desperate to find a place to live and knowing, looking at the rental cost around them, that would be impossible. I spoke to one retired man this week who has been a long-term renter with a decent landlord. He understood and accepted that the landlord needed to sell the house but after years of living in the house that was his home, this retired person on a pension has now been thrown into a market that is hopeless for him. He only looks at what can be afforded. He went to one place and he told me that it was like a converted shed. That was the only place that was in his price range. That is shocking.

The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, means well and what he said is genuinely an attempt to solve the problems but his approach this evening, and that of the senior Minister, in tabling an amendment here is quite shocking. It is unacceptable. It is a self-congratulatory amendment, instead of saying that we have a collective problem that we need to resolve and what can we all do collectively putting our shoulders to the wheel to bring immediate relief to as many people as possible. It is not business as usual in this.

Responding to our eight specific proposals with a self-congratulatory amendment is to deny the crisis that we all know is real for our people. All is not well. The schemes and announcements are not working.

I wish to focus on our proposal No. 4. We can see vacant and derelict properties in all our villages, towns, cities and rural areas. I could bring the Minister of State on a tour of Wexford and point them out. Some have been derelict for years on end, including large buildings like former convents. We need a sense of urgency about bringing these back into useful service as homes for our people. We need to set real targets for local authorities, with an underscored demand that they must be met - in essence, a mobilisation of the State, both local and national, in the same way and with the same intensity, zeal and focus that was brought to bear in dealing with the Covid crisis. That is what is needed as well as everything else.

The policies of the Government will, over time, bring results, but we also need to solve the problems that people are experiencing now. The anguish in the eyes of the people the Minister of State and every other Deputy, including me, are meeting in our constituencies needs to be met with real solutions and a sense of urgency. I ask that the Minister of State revert to his senior colleague and ask him to withdraw the self-congratulatory amendment that all is well and all the schemes are marvellous and working, denying the reality we know is facing many people on the ground. Instead of that amendment, the Minister should take these eight proposals from the Labour Party and a dozen more from Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and everyone else to solve the problem collectively as best we can. If that national sense of urgency and commitment was brought to bear in the same way as we faced down Covid and previous economic crises, we would have done a good day's work today.

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