Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the housing crisis in County Kildare. There are more than 6,500 people on the social housing waiting list. Many of them are military families and the Tánaiste is their Minister, as Minister for Defence. At the same time, the Department of Defence has stated that 62 houses in the Curragh Camp are vacant or in various states of dereliction, which is unconscionable really when we think about how bad the housing crisis actually is. The Department will say is that it is not a primary housing provider. That is true. It is not a housing provider from a primary point of view, but neither is the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is in the education business, but he is still providing thousands of student accommodation places across the campuses in the country both for single students and students with families. The UK armed forces have 47,000 family homes all across the UK. They are looking after their own people. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, believes that in order to educate we must first accommodate, and the UK believes that if you want to do national security you must first do social security.

If I could make three suggestions to make things a bit better, first of all I would ask that we change the policy in the Department of Defence and adopt the policy that we had in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that we accommodate military families on military property to free up the private rental sector, take the pressure off the local authorities from a social housing point of view, and ensure that the military looks after its own. Second, I ask the Tánaiste to give a direction to renovate these 62 voids or vacant houses in the Curragh Camp and allocate them to military families for the same reason. It would take pressure off the local rental market and the local authority. Third, to double down on what Deputy Crowe said yesterday in this Chamber, the Department of Defence should be building its own housing, as it did in the past. If the university sector can do it for the students on campus, why can the military sector not do it? It is the international norm. If I could make one small suggestion, the next time the Tánaiste is driving home to Cork, he should take junction 12 on the motorway and have a quick drive around the Curragh Camp, which is a kilometre off the motorway. He could see for himself the potential these buildings have. He can tackle three crises: the housing crisis, the rural dereliction crisis and also the retention crisis in the Defence Forces. Then he can direct and instruct his Department accordingly.

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