Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

Throughout the State, families are crying out for housing. If they are not crying out for housing, they are in our clinics crying to us because they are facing eviction or watching their children raise their families crammed into their childhood bedrooms, sometimes multiple families in the one home. They are the hidden homeless who are never counted in the figures and never make it into the headlines but they are homeless nonetheless. Others are only a paycheque or an eviction notice away from becoming homeless. People are in fear. The trauma in this country because of the decisions of this Government and successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments is very real and will be felt for generations.

In my constituency of Waterford, the message going out is on the slow pace of housing delivery and the fact that a sod has still not been turned on applications made six or seven years ago. This will be the legacy of the Government and of the Minister unless he changes and, as Deputy Gould said, unless he admits the policies are not working. I suspect that they are working for some. They are working for those who are speculating, hoarding and profiteering from the housing crisis. That is who they are working for and it is time that people understood this. Out on the streets tonight, including the streets of Cork and Dublin, people are waking up to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lining the pockets of speculators, investment funds and institutional landlords at the expense of Irish people, the future of Irish families and Irish children who are in homelessness or only a minute away from it.

I dtaobh cúrsaí Gaeltachta, tá ár gceantair Ghaeltachta ag fáil bháis mar gheall ar an easpa tithíocht inacmhainne agus shóisialta, agus níl an Rialtas seo ag déanamh faic mar gheall air. Níl sé maith go leor. The Government has turned its back on rural Ireland. The national planning framework is a disgrace of a document. It wants to end rural housing. Let us be honest about this, in that the planning framework the Government has instituted and presided over is doing nothing to address the depopulation crisis in our rural communities

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