Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

The Minister talks about local authorities delivering on target and delivering social housing and cost-rental and affordable housing. Cork City Council is probably one of the best locals authorities in the State for delivering social and cost-rental and affordable housing, and yet the housing list goes up. It is because the Minister's Government has set targets so low that even when local authorities do hit the targets they are supposed to hit, the numbers of people looking for social housing are going up. The homelessness figures are going up every month. I believe the figure we are at now is 4,844 children, off the top of my head. I asked the Minister's predecessor, Darragh O'Brien, how many children must become homeless before he and this Government will accept that the policy has failed. I do not want it to get to 5,000 and I do not think the Minister does either, but 5,000 children will be homeless in the lifetime of this Government. We were in here two weeks ago with a cross-party proposal in relation to the Raise the Roof rally and fixing the housing emergency. This is an emergency and the Minister is not treating it like one. I ask him sincerely to grab this Government and say, "This is a housing emergency, so stand up and deliver the solutions that we need."

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