Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As a new TD, I am truly stunned not only that the housing Minister is not here but that there is only one representative on the Government benches when in the media and in the Dáil Chamber, all we hear is that the Government wants solutions from the Opposition. When we offer concrete, well thought-out, researched, evidence-based solutions, this is the showing we get.

I come from the human rights sector where we talk about housing as one of the fundamental rights without which it is impossible to realise other rights. We have heard from my colleagues the stories of so many people in Irish society whose lives are simply on hold. Their careers, family plans and love lives cannot advance. I have spoken to people on the doors in my constituency and constantly receive emails from people who are frustrated at living at home with their parents way past an appropriate age because of the housing crisis. My constituency has some of the highest house prices in the country. The median house price last August was €635,000. We also have a proliferation of buy-to-let accommodation and very little affordable offering within the constituency.

Even though this crisis reaches into the pockets of every life in Irish society, it is important to remember those groups who are pushed to the fringes of society anyway and who are uniquely impacted by the crisis. I am talking, for example, about lone parents, who have to live in substandard accommodation because of the discrimination they face. I am talking about the overcrowding that migrants experience. I am talking about the fact that our Traveller heritage is being erased because there is no culturally appropriate accommodation available for them. Our Gaeltacht community is under threat because Gaeltacht communities can no longer stay together. We are at risk of losing some of the precious heritage that we all want to keep.

With this motion, we are offering public solutions to a chronic public problem that we in Irish society are facing. These solutions offer to control the market not to inflate it. I urge the Minister of State to listen to us and on behalf of his absent Government colleagues, to listen to what we are offering. We want to work with the Government to resolve this housing crisis on behalf of the people who voted for us, just as the Minister of State says he wishes to solve the housing crisis on behalf of the people who voted for him. I ask the Government to listen to us and work with us. I ask him please to take on board this motion and the solid solutions within it.

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