Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I forgot to congratulate the Minister and Minister of State on their appointments to their positions. I wish them well going forward. I hope we can work closely together. One of them is from my own constituency so we should be able to work closely together. I think this is the second or third time I have spoken about housing today in the Dáil. It is a huge crisis and a huge issue. It does not matter if it is a young person looking for planning permission, which seems to be blocked, or if you are trying to grow your local town or village and bring people into your community, which cannot be done because the infrastructure is wrong.

This is one of the schemes that the Government reopened under pressure but it is now failing to fund it properly. Homelessness is exploding, with 15,000 people in emergency accommodation, and yet the Government pauses a scheme that keeps families housed. The housing crisis is turning into housing chaos as more people are pushed out of their homes each year while the Government drags its feet. The tenant in situ scheme was working effectively, saving more than 2,500 households, so why shut it down? This is about priorities and the Government has got it all wrong. It can find billions for overspending but claims there are no funds for housing solutions. Landlords want certainty, not red tape as overcomplicated rules discourage them from engaging with the scheme. Approved housing bodies, which can manage social housing well, are being locked out of the scheme. The Government is also failing rural tenants, with local councils in smaller towns needing the scheme but being underfunded. We need a Minister for housing who will act and not make excuses. The Minister must take responsibility and ensure there is adequate housing funding. The solution is simple: fund it, fix it and stop playing politics. The Government needs to provide proper funding and allow local councils to act.

It is not just this problem alone, as I have been saying all day today. There are so many issues here that have not been tackled over recent years. This has led to people being very angry and frustrated. My last two phone calls, and I accept that it may be coincidental, were on planning permission. People were concerned about their planning, were worried about it and were getting negative vibes from the planners. I said earlier today that the rural planning guidelines need to be changed. The planners are only going through what is before them. They cannot give permission if the guidelines tell them they cannot give it. There is this negative vibe in relation to housing and homes for people who are desperate to get a start in life, whether in a new house or not. I do not know about Deputy Browne but Deputy O'Sullivan knows and understands the situation that is going on in Dunmanway, Shannonvale, Ballydehob, Goleen and Rosscarbery. Some of those towns and villages are waiting 27 years for their wastewater treatment plants to be upgraded so they can build new houses. The Deputy was at a meeting I attended through Zoom in Dunmanway recently on the wastewater treatment plant. Houses cannot be built there and there is no future. It may be 2030, 2035 or 2040. We will be at workshops every day of the week. I do not want to hear any more of that old palaver coming out of their mouths. The bottom line is the money is not there or is not going there. That is the problem with Dunmanway, Shannonvale, Rosscarbery, Goleen and Ballydehob. Uisce Éireann is walking away, scot free.

I have called continually at the past five meetings of the Business committee, and will do so again tomorrow morning, for time to discuss Uisce Éireann and the problems that exist with Irish Water, including the fact there is no proper delivery of services. We have to really look into this matter to determine why the funding is not being made available. Why can we not consider getting a developer to deliver the wastewater treatment plants, seeing as Uisce Éireann cannot deliver them? I would love for the Minister to say I am dead right, that we are not going to be able to do Dunmanway, Shannonvale, Ballydehob, Goleen and Rosscarbery in the next 12 months but we can put a deadline on when it is going to happen. Is it going to happen in 2030, 2040 or 2050? Good God, these people deserve to know where they are going with their towns and villages while raw sewage is pouring down into a local play park in Shannonvale. It is astonishing. It is astonishing that the EPA and Uisce Éireann are turning a blind eye and the people are left with no homes. I cannot go back to Dunmanway this weekend and tell them that maybe in 2032 or maybe in 2040 they are guaranteed to have proper infrastructure in their towns so they can develop them further.

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