Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I do not know how many times I have come in here and spoken about housing. It is almost a single transferable speech although previously I might have said that things were not getting better but now it is very obvious for anyone to see that things are getting a lot worse. I have no doubt that the Minister and his Government colleagues have the same types of cases as those coming to my constituency office and are meeting the same types of people on the street, people would previously have been able to rent or buy a house or find some other solution that suited but that does not exist at this point. I will not do what I have done over the last number of months which is go through the Daft.ie figures. They are absolutely ridiculous. Had the Government told people in Dundalk, Drogheda or anywhere else in this State that we would be talking about rents of €1,400, €1,600, €2,000 or €2500 and more, they would have been laughed out of the place but that is what the Government has delivered at this point.

In fairness to Deputy Gould, who tabled this motion, we are talking about 2,656 vacant council homes. We talk about the complex issue that is housing but this is not very complex. There are 2,656 vacant council houses, 776 of which have been vacant for longer than 12 months. That is a simple solution. The solution is there in front of the Government and it is about ensuring that the money is delivered and the capacity to deliver happens. Then we could have at least 776 families that should have already been housed being housed how. If we get our act together, 2,656 houses could be made available. We should not allow these delays, which create other problems.

It looks like renters are paying the price for the failures of Government. I do not see any solutions in the dismantling of the rent pressure zones. We could talk about rising homelessness, the homeless services that are under severe pressure-----

See this speech in context