Dáil debates

Tuesday, 30 May 2023

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

2:00 pm

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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A few weeks ago, a young family in Dublin saw their lives unravel. They were renters living with their two small children and like anyone else, they just want a secure home for their kids to grow up in and to build their lives as a family. Their nightmare began when they were evicted. Their lives were turned upside down. They now sleep in emergency accommodation. It is hard to imagine the trauma for this young family and their two small children. It is hard to imagine how to even begin to explain to a child why they are being uprooted from their home and placed in emergency accommodation with their parents unable to answer their questions about what will happen next because they, themselves, do not know.

Another family in Bray are also homeless. The mother, Lauren, is a nurse. She now lives in a car because she cannot find anywhere remotely affordable to rent. She has had to send her two children to live with relatives because she cannot find a home for them. Can the Taoiseach imagine how heartbroken that mother felt as she was forced to make that decision and how confused the children must be? These families' experiences are not unique; in fact, they are, sadly, all to common in modern Ireland because of Government's failure to get to grips with the housing crisis.

Figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage last Friday revealed that 12,259 people in the State now live in emergency accommodation, a new record on the Taoiseach's watch. It is a staggering figure and a figure that should never be normalised. It includes 3,594 children living in emergency accommodation. Let me say that again. As we speak, there are 3,594 children in emergency accommodation in this State. Of course, we know the real homeless figure is much higher as these numbers do not include people sleeping on sofas, in family spare rooms or, indeed, in their cars.

Children are being uprooted from their schools and uprooted from their routine. They are wondering why they can no longer play with friends in their neighbourhood. Tá na mílte páiste ag fulaingt ó thráma na heaspa dídine, an saol acu millte agus iompaithe bun os cionn toisc nach bhfuil áit acu gur féidir a dteach féin a thabhairt air. Tá sé seo ag tarlú ag ráta níos airde agus leanfaidh sé ag méadú faoin Rialtas mar níl an Rialtas ag dul i ngleic leis an ngéarchéim thithíochta.

Homelessness is increasing. The Government decided to end the eviction ban without a safety net in place to protect renters. It was warned time and again that this was a bad decision, but despite this, it went ahead with it. It rejected Sinn Féin's plan to extend the eviction ban and put in place protections for renters. The sad reality now is that, despite how shocking the current figures are, we are not even at the peak yet. There is now a real risk that hundreds more children and their families will add to these heartbreaking figures in the course of the summer. What interventions is the Government making today, tomorrow and next week to prevent more children becoming homeless?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this very important question. I acknowledge that we have a real and serious problem of rising homelessness in Ireland. More than 12,000 people today are in State-provided emergency accommodation.

Emergency accommodation is available for almost everyone who needs it but emergency accommodation is not the solution. We seek to avoid people having to use emergency accommodation in the first place. If they have to, we seek to get them out of emergency accommodation into a secure tenancy as soon as possible. Approximately half will spend six months in emergency accommodation and most will spend less than a year. In the life of a child that can be a very long time and I acknowledge that. It is important to point out that it is not the same 12,000 people all the time. People might spend a few weeks or a few months in emergency accommodation and sometimes, unfortunately, longer but we do our best to avoid them becoming homeless in the first place and we then get them out of homelessness into a secure tenancy as soon as we can thereafter.

In terms of solutions, the main solution is to prevent homelessness happening in the first place and the second is to continue to increase the amount of social housing we are building all the time, in order to increase the social housing stock we have so that people and families can be in more secure, State-provided social housing rather than the private rental sector. As for what we are doing to prevent homelessness, we are continuing to fund NGOs and charities such as Threshold that will give people advice on their rights and work with them to prevent homelessness happening in the first place. We do that through the local authorities as well. We have allocated funding for 1,500 additional social homes to be leased. With roughly two or three people in each house, that is maybe 3,000 to 4,000 people prevented from becoming homeless in the first place. There is also the tenant in situ scheme, which is now working very well. We have given authorisation for local authorities to buy 1,500 homes off landlords who are selling up. Again, with two or three people in each house, approximately 4,500 people will be prevented from going into homelessness in that way. Of course, we are also continuing to ramp up the supply of social housing. Last year more social housing was built in the State than any year since 1975. We intend to improve on that again this year and the year after but we have a long way to go before we make up for the deficit that built up over the years.

On the eviction ban, as I have said before, two eviction bans have been imposed on a temporary basis. Both happened while I was in government. I certainly have no ideological objection to bringing in an eviction ban. I have done it twice. The problem is that it does not work. As we saw from the most recent eviction ban, the number of people in emergency accommodation continued to rise pretty much every month when it was in place. All it does is make the problem worse in the medium and long term. It is made worse in the medium term because eviction notices build up and there is a bigger problem to deal with when it is lifted. In the long term, most significantly, it reduces the supply of homes to rent. That makes the problem worse in the long term. I can see the attraction of it as a short-term policy but we know from experience now, from the two eviction bans that happened, that it makes the problem worse in the medium to long term. That is why it is not a wise policy.

2:05 pm

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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While the Taoiseach acknowledges the scale of this crisis, and that is perhaps welcome, I hear no urgency or real sense of purpose from him in dealing with this issue. He lists off the things that he envisages as solutions to this crisis but the reality is that the number of homeless people and homeless children continues to rise. Let me ask him again. Faced with this crisis, what does he propose to do now to put pace on this, to give urgency and to ensure we avoid the calamity of more children becoming homeless in the course of this summer? An approach that says, "mañana, mañana, we will get it done at some stage", is not good enough, particularly when dealing with the lives of young children. The Taoiseach has been in government for a very considerable time.

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Thank you, Deputy, time is up.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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He sat around the Cabinet table and designed the policies that have led to this calamity. Let me ask again. What will he do now to change direction, to enhance things and to give a real emergency response to these families who find themselves in crisis?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy asked what we are doing now and what we are doing today. First, we are providing additional funding for local authorities and NGOs this year to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. Second, additional emergency accommodation is being provided so there is emergency accommodation for almost everyone who needs it, if they do need it. Of course, emergency accommodation is not a solution; it is a stopgap. Some 1,500 extra social homes are being leased this year, ahead of what was planned.

That can prevent maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people becoming homeless. The tenantin situscheme, which is really starting to work now, allows local authorities to buy the house or apartment if the landlord is selling up thus making sure the people in that house or apartment do not lose their tenancy and become homeless in the first place. Those are the things we are doing today, tomorrow and yesterday and every day until we start seeing these numbers fall again and I believe they will fall again.

2:15 pm

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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At the weekend, the Taoiseach said that when it comes to housing policy, his highest priority is home ownership. I think lots of people, especially people of my generation, find that literally impossible to believe. Fine Gael in government has literally done the opposite to increasing home ownership. Not that anyone needed any more evidence of this but today, we have more of it from the census. The rate of home ownership fell from nearly 70% in 2016 to just 66% last year.

We know this inability to buy a home is not spread evenly among the population. People in their 20s, 30s and 40s are disproportionately locked out of home ownership. Does the Taoiseach know that in 2006, which is the year before he was elected to the Dáil, the average age of a first-time buyer in Ireland was 29? Last year, the average age of young people who finally managed to move out of their parents' home was 28 and, therefore, we have gone from young people aspiring to home ownership to people finding it increasingly difficult to even move out of their childhood bedrooms at the same age, yet the Taoiseach still claims with a straight face that Fine Gael is somehow the party of home ownership. I do not honestly know who he thinks he is kidding but I can tell him that people have had enough of that kind of spin. Fine Gael has been in office for 12 years. At what point does he think the party will take some responsibility for the fact that its approach is not working? It is difficult to know when it has yet to even acknowledge the fact that its approach is not working. Meanwhile the share of 25 to 34-year-olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019 plummeting from just 60% to 27%.

The fact is Fine Gael cannot blame anybody else for this miserable record. The best it can maybe do is blame its coalition partners Fianna Fáil. The saddest part is that it is not the Government that is paying the price for this failure. Tens of thousands of people all over the country regularly wonder, "What if?" What if they had been able to buy a modest home at the same their parents were able to? What would their lives look like now? What kind of opportunities could they have availed of? Would relationships have lasted? Would they have children now? Would their mental health be better? Would they have been able to save for their retirement?

I regularly speak to young people whose anger has now become weariness. They have witnessed so much failure and have been so angry for so long that they are now weary and exhausted. They are tired of broken promises and the ridiculous spin that the Government can fix this housing disaster. They now wonder what will become of them when they are older and cannot afford to pay rent on their pensions. All the while, the Taoiseach is trying to frame its party as the party of home ownership. Does he accept that he has presided over a continuing collapse in home ownership rates? Is he going to continue trying to frame Fine Gael as the party of home ownership when all of the evidence points to the opposite? Does he think people fall for that spin?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am somebody who believes in home ownership. I believe no form of housing security is better than home ownership. Not only does home ownership give people the security of owning their own home, it means they do not have to pay rent when they retire. It also gives them financial freedom such as the option of borrowing against the value of the home to return to education. It gives them so many options that they just do not have if they do not own their own home.

Yes, I acknowledge that home ownership has fallen in the period of the census between 2016 and 2022 but at 66%, it is still the case that two thirds of people in Ireland own their own home. I want that figure to go back up again. I would like to see it going back up towards 70%. I know that there is a generational divide and that many people in their 20s and 30s and even their 40s are unable to purchase their own home at the moment. What we have seen in the past couple of months, and it should be borne in mind that the census was done last summer, is a very major uptake in the number of people buying their first home.

We see in or around 400 or 500 people every week buying their first home. It should be borne in mind that there is probably an underestimate because couples are counted as one when it comes to these figures. They are from the CSO and from the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland. In the past six months, there has been a significant uptick in the number of people buying their first home. It is the highest we have seen since the Celtic tiger period. This gives me hope and it indicates that the policies that have been introduced by this Government are starting to work. It is about increased supply. It is also about the help-to-buy scheme, which helps people to get their deposit. It is also about the first home scheme, which helps people to bridge the gap between the mortgage they can get and the house they want to buy. It is also about vacancies and the vacant property grants we are giving people to breathe life into old buildings and turn them back into new homes.

The Social Democrats have tabled a motion and they claim to be the party of home ownership. They are against all of these things. They regularly object to new housing. They are against the help-to-buy and first home scheme. How can it say it is the party of home ownership?

2:25 pm

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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It was Fine Gael that said it was the party of home ownership.

Photo of Martin HeydonMartin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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You are not.

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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Excuse me?

Photo of Martin HeydonMartin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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You are not.

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Please, Deputy Cairns is speaking.

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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The reality is, and everybody knows it as the facts are clear; rents have never been higher, house prices has never been higher, homelessness has never been higher and the number of young adults living in their bedrooms in their parents' homes has never been higher. Rates of home ownership have fallen, especially among the younger population. A further collapse in home ownership was not inevitable nor was it an accident. It is the Government continuing to pursue exactly the same policies over and over again.

I am glad the Taoiseach mentioned the Social Democrats' motion tomorrow because we have suggestions in that. I regularly hear the Taoiseach ask in the House that we come forward with suggestions. Part of the motion proposes redirecting funds from the Department to buyers to bring down the price of housing for homeownership rather than putting it into the pockets of developers. That strategy has been failing for years. We have suggested alternatives and we are tabling a motion in the Dáil tomorrow. Will the Taoiseach consider any of them? Given that he has acknowledged that all of the facts I raised are true, will he consider any of the proposals in the Social Democrats' motion tomorrow?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We will consider them and she will see our response to the motion when the debate occurs. The Deputy can list statistics and that is fair enough. There are other statistics that I could mention. House prices have been falling for several months. They have fallen for nearly six months in a row In Dublin. They have peaked and they are falling. The number of people buying their first home is almost 400 a week now. This is the highest since the Celtic tiger era. The Deputy cannot deny that reality. It is a fact.

What are we doing? We have reduced development levies to increase supply. We have put in place the help-to-buy scheme, which has helped tens of thousands of people raise a deposit for their first home. We have the first home scheme in place, which bridges the gap between the mortgage people can get from the banks and the cost of the home they want to buy. We also have local authority home loans. By and large the Deputy's party do not support these policies. They would take them away and that would make it harder for people to buy their first home.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We warned the Government when it decided to go through with the cold-hearted decision to lift the no fault eviction ban on 1 April that it would lead to a spike in homelessness. The figures that came out last Friday, conveniently enough for the Government before the weekend but we need to consider them, show a significant rise in the rate of homelessness in the first month after that no fault eviction ban was lifted. Worst of all, it shows a dramatic jump in the number of families and children who are homeless. We now have the shocking record number of 12,259 people homeless, and 3,594 of them are children. In the past month, the number of families going into homelessness increased by 94 with 122 children among them. These are children who have been put through the trauma and hardship of being made homeless because, in many cases, of an eviction where the families have done absolutely nothing wrong. They have been thrown into emergency accommodation. Will the Taoiseach not accept this has been a disastrous decision? This is just the beginning because the Government staggered the end of the eviction ban, which means this will escalate.

All the signs are that this already disastrous situation of record numbers of individuals, families and, worst of all, children, will increase and increase. The Government needs to reinstate the eviction ban.

I know what the Taoiseach will say. He will say we have the tenant in situ scheme and that is what the Government is doing to stop evictions. I remind the Taoiseach it was the Opposition that proposed that scheme. We had to fight with the Government for two years for it to introduce it but in many cases, although we are getting some success, it is not working because big investors in particular, as well as corporate landlords, even though they are evicting people on the grounds they are selling a property, when the local authority approaches them to say it wants to buy those properties, they are just saying, "No". Something needs to be done about that. That is what is happening in Tathony House, where 35 families and households are threatened with eviction. The landlord is just ignoring the council. He wants to go through with the eviction and is refusing to engage on the issue of purchase. I have raised other similar cases with the Taoiseach in recent times.

The Government's policies are not working. It is not rational to say it will be worse in a few months' time if we reinstate the eviction ban because, in a sense, that suggests the Government's plans to deliver more affordable and public housing will not actually be realised. Will the Government reinstate the no-fault eviction ban? Will it ensure there is first refusal for local authorities and approved housing bodies that are trying to buy properties to prevent families and children being made homeless?

2:35 pm

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As I indicated to Deputy McDonald, we have had two temporary eviction bans in Ireland. One was introduced by the previous Government, which I led during the pandemic, and the other was introduced by this Government last year. What did we learn from those two eviction bans? At best, they reduce the number of people who are homeless in the short term. The most recent eviction ban did not even do that. Homelessness and the number of people in emergency accommodation continued to rise almost every month that the second eviction ban was in place. At best, an eviction ban reduces homelessness in the short term but probably does not even do that. What does it do? It makes the situation worse in the medium term. When the ban is lifted, there is a glut of eviction notices that then get affected. In the long term, it makes it even worse again because fewer people are willing to offer properties for rent on the private rental market. It is a policy that, at best, might work in the short term but does not always, and it make things worse in the medium and long term. For those reasons, it does not make sense for the Government to do that a third time.

What we can do is support the tenant in situ scheme, through which 1,500 homes are being bought from landlords who are selling up; provide resources for homelessness prevention to local authorities and NGOs to make sure people get the advice they need, especially if an invalid notice to quit has been served on them, which is very common; and continue to ramp up the supply of social housing. More such housing was built last year than any year since the 1970s. We will build even more this year.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Once people enter into homelessness, it is very hard to get out of it. I will respond to something the Taoiseach said earlier. I have raised multiple cases, including that of a woman who is working, ironically, looking after vulnerable children, who has been in homeless accommodation and sharing a bedroom with her son for four years. That is what happens when people enter homelessness, in many cases. It is very hard to get out of it. It is absolutely imperative that the Government stops as many people ending up in that situation as possible, when they have done nothing wrong.

Let us be clear. While the eviction ban was in place, homelessness continued to increase but at a much slower rate. There was a 0.4% increase in children going into homelessness in November, but it was 2.9% last month. In other words, it had more than quadrupled in the first month the Government lifted the eviction ban. To add to that, as I said, there are now landlords who are refusing tenant in situpurchases. Even though they are getting the right to evict on the grounds they are selling, when the council asks whether they will sell to prevent a family getting evicted they say, "No", because they can make more money by evicting people. It is absolute greed.

Will the Government recognise that lifting the ban has made the situation worse and give teeth to purchases under the tenant in situ scheme to prevent people going into homelessness?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The truth is any time a temporary measure is introduced, there comes a point where that measure has to end. There is then a snapback, bounce-back or an effect where numbers rise. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, made it very clear, on the week he proposed we have a temporary eviction ban, that there would be an uptick once it was lifted.

That is inevitable and is one of the problems, of course. We had a short-term ban, which did not reduce the numbers in emergency accommodation, and the inevitable happened when it was lifted. It does not work in the medium or long term and barely works in the short term. That is what we have learned from the second eviction ban. For the first one, the circumstances were different. Pandemic restrictions were in place and that is what actually reduced the numbers then, rather than the ban being in place.

I agree with the Deputy on one thing, which is that the best thing we can do is prevent people from ending up in homelessness in the first place. That is why we are going to power and repower the tenant in situscheme to make sure it works. That is why we are continuing to build more social housing and are funding local authorities and NGOs to engage with people in order that they know their rights and we can prevent them becoming homeless in the first place.

2:45 pm

Photo of Thomas PringleThomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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We have had an ongoing crisis for a long time in this country and it is one that has underpinned all other crises, that of inequality. Ireland is renowned for its wealth inequality and new data for 2022 show Ireland maintaining its status as the most unequal country in the EU by market income. The most recent EUROSTAT data show that Ireland's top 20% have about 15.5 times the income of the bottom 20%. High rates of income inequality and poverty have sadly become the norm in Irish society. This is an issue that affects the entire county. Recent Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures, for example, show earnings in my constituency of Donegal are still the lowest in the country.

It is time that we finally addressed this. However, addressing it is far from simple because all aspects of Irish life, from employment and healthcare to accommodation and education are rife with inequality. The capitalist system under which we live promotes greed, selfishness and the production of social harms such as income inequality, which then results in significant social divides. It is no wonder we are seeing an incredibly fragmented and divided society of late. The root cause of these social divides, the rise of the far right and the unrest we are seeing among communities, is most definitely inequality. Homelessness figures have reached over 12,000 for the first time in our State’s history, while over 166,000 houses in Ireland are vacant, 62,000 houses are second homes and over 15,000 entire homes or apartments in Ireland are listed on Airbnb. This is quite clearly an issue of inequality and it is time for the Government to acknowledge this.

People deserve to live a life with dignity. They deserve to have a roof over their head and food on the table. We have the resources and the wealth to provide that for every single person who lives here and every single person who comes to live here seeking a better life, but the Government chooses not to provide it. Why? Is it ideology? An estimated 13.1% of people in Ireland are living in poverty, of whom over 188,000 are children. If we do not tackle this now, these divisions will persist and most likely widen for future generations. Is this the legacy the Taoiseach wants to leave? I ask him to become more open minded in the way he addresses inequality. Just because we have had the same societal and economic systems in place for years does not make them better or right. We need to look beyond systems that have so obviously failed us and strive for a better way of living for everyone in our society. Tackling inequality properly requires a complete overhaul of these systems but there are also steps we can take in the meantime. Future Government policy must prioritise those at the bottom of the income distribution chain. I support Social Justice Ireland’s call for the Government to increase social welfare payments, ensure equity of social welfare rates and adequate payments for children and to provide a universal State pension, a cost-of-disability payment and decent rates of pay for low-paid workers. What will the Taoiseach do to address inequality in this country and stop the increasing social divide that ongoing failure of Government policy has caused?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, there are many different ways of measuring inequality but the measure that is most commonly used is the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality. That shows that Ireland is one of the more equal countries in the European Union and the OECD. While it is not the case every year, it does show that over the period of the last five to seven years, inequality in Ireland has narrowed, whereas in other countries it has widened. On other measures you mention such as, for example, life expectancy, we now have one of the highest levels of life expectancy in the EU, if not the highest. That is down to the good patient outcomes that our health service delivers, notwithstanding the major issues that we face around access. If you look at educational outcomes, for example, Ireland performs very well in terms of literacy and numeracy, as well as progression to further and higher education.

If you look at the UN's human development index, Ireland is always in the top ten countries in the world. There are different ways to measure these things. Certainly, when it comes to those two measures, the UN's human development index and the Gini coefficient used by the CSO, we compare well with other countries. Most the time we are moving up, not down, the league tables.

I think the figure the Deputy used, which was 13%, includes people who are at risk of poverty as well as those who are in consistent poverty. What can we do about it? Employment. We know that one of the best ways to get people out of poverty is through employment. We now have record numbers of people at work in Ireland. That employment has to come with decent pay and conditions. That is why we increased the minimum wage this year by more than the rate of inflation, and we will see the move towards a living wage over the coming years, something I led in my previous job in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Finally, we know that Ireland's social welfare system and our tax system are among the most efficient in the world at redistributing wealth. That is set out in Social Justice Ireland reports and other reports. We had a significant welfare package in the last budget and, of course, there will be a welfare package in the budget in October as well.

2:55 pm

Photo of Thomas PringleThomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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Yes, except that the welfare package in the last budget did not meet people's needs. That is the reality of the situation. The Taoiseach can cherry-pick what he wants out of the various measures across the country or across the world, but if we are doing so well on all those measures, why are we doing so badly and why are there more than 12,000 people homeless in this country? The reality is that it could be a lot better, and that is what the Government is failing to achieve. According to Social Justice Ireland, without the social transfers the Taoiseach talks about, which, obviously, are easing the burden, 36.7% of our population would live in poverty. Surely the Taoiseach has to see that there is something wrong and not right with that. The reality is that if the State could step in properly, we could reduce those figures entirely. We do not need a homelessness crisis. We have billions of euro sitting there. It is money that has been raised and that the Government is refusing and has refused to spend - not only the windfall tax money but €10 billion in current expenditure as well - to ease the burden on people across the country. The reality is that the Government has made a decision to continue with this situation and with the housing crisis. That is why we need to see a change that will deal with people properly.

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I accept that the country has a lot of problems and we have a lot of work still to do as a Government, and there will always be work to do, no matter who is in government, but I do not accept the Deputy's premise that we are doing so badly. This is a country that has full employment. It is a country that has among the highest life expectancies, if not the highest, in the European Union. It is a country that has among the best educational outcomes, with more people going on to further and higher education than ever was the case before. This is a country into which people want to migrate because of the opportunities we offer. It is a country which, thankfully, has low levels of crime relative to other developed countries.

The Deputy mentioned the social transfers as if somehow they just happen. Yes, it is the case that were it not for social transfers in Ireland, there would be many more people living in poverty. Who does the Deputy think does the social transfers? It is the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, in her Department. It is this Government. It is the budget Deputy Pringle votes against every year and the Appropriation Bill he votes against every year that enable those social transfers to happen. That is the point the Deputy seems to be missing. The social transfers are done by this Government in legislation he votes against and they are paid for by an economy this Government has built up.