Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)

We just had statements on the report of the Housing Commission. We hear all sorts of arguments about how this is complicated, we need to do this and how there are multiple factors at play. We are talking about 2,500 apartments and houses that the State already owns. They are there. They are empty. Of all the low-hanging fruit in terms of the housing crisis, surely the 2,500 houses and flats the State already owns should be first and foremost. Other people have given examples of constituents living in overcrowded accommodation with three generations under one roof, many of them in seriously overcrowded accommodation, people sleeping on couches and people living in poor-quality rental accommodation and poor-quality local authority accommodation. The Minister of State spoke about planned maintenance. There are dozens of council engineers listening in who are laughing and thinking, "Chance would be a fine thing to get planned maintenance". Forget about it. It is just not happening. My constituents are walking past houses every day - two or three very often on streets congregated together in places like Mahon, Ballyphehane, Togher and Greenmount. There are 99 properties in Cork city that have been idle for more than two years. It is a dagger to their heart to walk past these houses. These people have been on the housing list for nine or ten years or might not even have qualified for social housing. They are living in desperate housing conditions and are walking past these idle units. It is a disgrace.

My next comment is for the Minister of State to bring back to his officials. Councils have to go cap in hand to the Department. The message from Ministers seems to be, "Look, spend the money and it'll be sorted afterwards". Look at what happened with the tenant in situ scheme. Is this not a fine lesson for councils? If they spend the money and the Department decides to change its mind later on, the ladder will be kicked out from under them. That is the lesson.

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