Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to voice my displeasure at again having to sit here through a mockery of what has happened. Nobody won anything yesterday, least of all our reputations for solving problems. I have a headache from listening to rubbish. There is no solution from anybody here. All they want to do is bicker and blame somebody else. All of these things are in their control.

I do not want to shout, so I will calm down and put the issue to the Tánaiste. I received a document from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage yesterday. I had not decided how I was going to vote because I have spoken about planning for three years. There is a very serious issue, whereby 70,000 planning permissions have been granted but not yet commenced. They will not be commenced until the Government deals with the issue of viability. Developers are not building houses because they are being granted planning permission for houses that are not wanted and people will not buy. The only people who are buying housing units at a particular level of density are housing bodies and county councils.

The Government and Minister have failed to influence a policy that makes viability a planning consideration. I am a member of the Regional Group which put forward eight very constructive proposals but the Government cannot implement that pertaining to viability. Instead of reducing densities, which is what I have asked for three years in order to encourage viability, the document I have received refers to increasing density. Can the Tánaiste believe that? He probably does not know what I am talking about because the Minister did not, which is worrying. We are talking about homelessness and blaming landlords. There will not be another unit built if the Government continues with this policy. The Minister told me he received this document the night before I did. I can understand why because he must have asked a young first-year college student to write it. He certainly did not get anybody with any brains to write it.

If the Tánaiste reads the blacks of the House over the past three years, he will realise 70,000 planning permissions have been commenced and will read about the advice I have given over the past three years regarding planning policy process. It is time that we all stopped the BS - I will not say the word, a Cheann Comhairle. It is a time for us to pull together because if one homeless child in Wexford is not accommodated, I will bring the child here and he or she will sit on the Ceann Comhairle's lap. I want an answer as to why the Minister would insult my intelligence and that of the developers who are trying to help people in this country.

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