Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Where is the senior Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, for the discussion of this very important motion? The man who is responsible for housing in this State does not even have the decency to come to the House this evening. Absolute contempt is being shown to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in 176,000 social homes when the Minister does not have the decency to turn up. It is a scandal. People are living in cold, damp and draughty homes. Where is the Minister? He sometimes criticises Sinn Féin. We are here today with solutions for this Government to take on board for these people. They are real solutions for people. This motion is a plan that needs to be put in place.

I have with me a photograph of a house in Mayfield in Cork. There is a hole in the roof. This lady has been living in the house for 13 years since the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government brought in the austerity measures. Her name is Georgina. She reported this to the city council and she has poured money into the house. She has painted it and cleaned it and has spent a lot of money on electricity and gas to try to keep her children warm. In her own words, she is crippled by the money she is spending to try to keep the house habitable. She is, frankly, depressed and feels she and her children are living in an unhealthy situation. That is a shocking indictment. The only thing Cork City Council has done is that, in 2019, it replaced a toilet that was broken while the walls around her are crumbling, with the plaster crumbling off the walls and mould growing on the surface, which is damp.

In a house in the Glen in Cork, there is no fascia and soffit. I have a photograph which shows the walls of the house in which the people are living. Would we expect anyone to live in a house like this, where the residents cannot even paint the walls because the plaster is coming off the walls? Look at the mould and dampness. That is what the ceilings are like. Ciaran and Mary told me they can see the water dripping down the walls of the house and the mould and dampness it is causing. Mary says she is constantly on antibiotics and steroids and she has no doubt her living conditions are affecting her health.

In Gurranabraher, where I live, a lady contacted me. There was a storm in 2021, three years ago, and there have been many storms since. Elizabeth and George told me that the council said their roof needed replacing given its condition after the storm. Three years later, no one has fixed it. Members can see the situation in this photograph I am holding. They can see the dirt and the mould. Elizabeth and George are painting it and cleaning it but it comes out through the walls again. The photograph shows their windowsills and plug sockets. If someone gets electrocuted or something unforgivable happens to someone, who will be responsible?

This is not just in Gurranabraher, the Glen or Mayfield and we have it in Fair Hill, Farranree, Blackpool, Shannon Street and right across Cork city. It is because of Government cutbacks after the financial crash of 2007, 2008 and 2009, when the Government stripped local authorities of workers and resources. It is damage this Government is continuing to do to ordinary families.

I will leave the House with this last point because my colleagues want to come in. If there is a leak in a house and it is repaired when it happens, it can be done reasonably cost-effectively but if that leak is left for three or four years, it causes extensive damage to the house because the cost of repair work doubles, triples or quadruples when the house has been left to rot. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, takes back to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, that it is unacceptable not to come to the House tonight to listen to solutions for the 176,000 council properties in this State.

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