Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion. We in Aontú support the motion on housing. It is important that we seek to hold this Government to account on housing, particularly in light of the former Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the electioneering and misinformation that went on in respect of housing by the previous Government. In October last year, one month before the election, the Minister said in this House:

I have consistently said we will exceed that target. I still confidently predict ... that it will be the high 30,000s to low 40,000s this year.

This was clearly false. It is clear the Minister was using the election and targets to mislead the people. If this happened in any other parliament in Europe, it would be a resigning matter. In this country and in this Government, it is a reshuffle - you get moved on. There is no accountability. This Government is an accountability-free zone. It is no wonder there is a growing level of cynicism and lack of trust in politicians among the public when politicians clearly mislead them on such important matters. The truth on record breaking, as the Minister referenced, is that records were indeed broken last year when the number of homeless people in Ireland surpassed 15,000 and the number of homeless children surpassed 4,600. That is the only record the previous Government broke last year.

There has been zero affordable housing delivered in my constituency, Mayo, and a total of five units are still promised for Westport after years and the fights councillors in the Westport municipal area had to have to achieve a miserable number of units. In my area, the Claremorris-Swinford municipal district, the people are not even considered for affordable housing. Will the Minister of State please consider an affordable housing scheme for the Claremorris-Swinford municipal area? There is a cohort who do not quality for social housing but cannot afford property on the open market. They need an opportunity to get on the affordable housing scheme. The lack of a scheme for this are of Mayo will drive the concentration of capital and energy in the construction sector to other areas of the county, leaving the east and south of Mayo left behind.

I also wish to touch on the issue of dereliction and vacancy. There is a significant number - 160,000 homes - vacant across this State. That is 11 properties for every homeless person registered in this State. Will the Minister of State work with property owners and developers on vacancy and dereliction? In my town, a site is a listed building. It is causing immense difficulty for the developer in Claremorris to develop the site on Lower James Street. This developer wants to develop the site and should be helped. The Government should proactively engage.

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