Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

-----from Goleen all the way up, so there is no need to panic or worry. I jest. I know what a good worker the Minister of State is.

I praise the Sinn Féin organisation for tabling this motion. The tenant in situ scheme has been a great success but the changes the Government is proposing mean it is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It is working very well, but since last October we have had no movement on tenants in situ in Cork city. This is affecting 40 families. Why do people want to be in the tenant in situ scheme? It is very simple. Their children are based in the community, they have sports clubs and all the necessities and supports around them. They are expected to vacate their house when their landlord is selling it. It is a case of "Off you go, abscond to somewhere else or go into homeless services".

I want to make the Minister aware of one particular couple who lost their house in 2008, through no fault of their own. They lost their house because of the mismanagement of the Fianna Fáil Administration at the time. They are now renting accommodation but were recently told they will have to vacate their property or else come to a tenant in situ arrangement. Cork City Council cannot engage because it does not know what is happening in the Department. Nobody is making a decision. A cheque has not been signed since October. We are looking at a situation where civil servants do not particularly like this scheme and they are influencing the Minister. It really is a case of Sir Humphrey in the Department and a bumbling Minister or Minister of State who is not capable of making a decision. They are not capable of realising that something works. It is something that is good. Indeed, it is one of the few things that is good coming out of the housing Department. It is one of the few things that is good and the response is to get rid of that too. We might as well be a complete failure. Absolute complete failure seems to be the rhetoric of this Government. It is simply not good enough.

The Ministers are not listening to their own elected representatives. Have they heard the people on their backbenches talking? Have they listened to them or have they been concentrating on their phones for most of the debate? Will the Minister listen to what those in his own party are saying, what backbenchers are saying and what they are telling us in the corridors? We are all telling the Minister the truth. We are telling him what is working and what is not working but he is not listening, nor does he have any interest in being in this House listening to what is being said tonight or in listening to his own TDs. It is a disgrace; a joke.

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