Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will do that by increasing supply and exiting more people from emergency accommodation into permanent, secure housing. In the last quarter of last year and the first two quarters of this year, we have seen more people exiting from homelessness into permanent social housing than we have seen since those records were collected. It is a good trend. We have also seen that there are many reasons people fall into homelessness and quite a diverse demographic as to why it happens. We have to support all of them. All people who require the assistance of the State require good emergency accommodation. We are funding that this year and doing everything we can to exit people out. What does not help when trying to increase supply is people on the ground giving any reason they feel it is appropriate to object to good housing developments, including social and affordable housing. People will have to live with the decisions they have made. It may have been for political capital on the ground that they saw fit to side with certain residents' groups to find a reason to oppose good developments in constituencies. I do not believe that is acceptable. We all agree there is a housing crisis and that we need to provide homes for our people. When it comes to specific decisions that need to be made or when very senior Deputies in this House on a regular basis on social media welcome decisions and refusals of developments in their constituencies, people will see very clearly what the real bona fides of those Deputies are. Do they actually want to see progress, or do they want a situation in which they can continue to argue that no progress is being made so they can capitalise on that for short-term political gain? That is not what I am about.

I and this Government are about increasing housing supply with more good social homes for people and cost rental, which did not exist 20 months ago in this State. We legislated for it and more than 1,000 tenancies have been approved. We will do more this year. The Social Democrats opposed the legislation that brought forward cost rental. The Social Democrats voted against the Affordable Housing Act 2021.

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