Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

I welcome transition year students from Ballyhaunis Community School in County Mayo, and their teachers, Bernie Osgood and Mairead Conway. It is great to have them here with us. I thank them for making the journey. I have no doubt some of the next politicians and leaders of the country are here today.

I very much welcome the motion before us, brought forward by the Labour Party. I also welcome the housing Minister here today. Housing is fundamental when it comes to child poverty. The rates of child poverty have doubled in the past year. One in five children across Ireland is below the poverty line. The rate is increasing every year. The Minister is no doubt aware that housing is one of the biggest contributors to this. The knock-on consequences for children waking up in a hotel room and going to school are immense.

As of July, 5,000 children are homeless, a 14% increase in the past year. What has the Minister done about it? I will tell him what happened in my constituency. The tenant in situ scheme was removed. A family was seeking to stay in a property and the council was willing to engage on this when the landlord wanted to sell, but because the scheme was removed the family ultimately entered homelessness. One tangible and practical thing that could be done would be to reinstate the tenant in situ scheme.

I also want to raise issues relating to housing in Mayo. There were only 103 housing commencements in Mayo in the first six months of this year. We must go back to 2016 figures, essentially recession-time levels, to see such a low number of commencements. The number of housing commencements was greater during the Covid years, when the construction sector was in and out of lockdown. This is a major issue. One of the biggest issues in my constituency at the moment is the residential development fee for construction. Families have to pay the local authority more than €4,000 to build their own home. What services do they get for it in rural Ireland? Nothing. That is the truth. Approximately one third of the cost of construction goes in tax in any case. That is one measure affecting home building that the Minister has also increased in the past year.

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