Results 1-20 of 32 for and segment:7371811

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: That is not the context in which it was said and the Deputy knows that. Come on.

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Mick Wallace: .... Acquisitions solve no problems. They are just eating into another aspect of the market. The next time the Minister of State gets a chance to address this, could he explain to me why State land is not used? If the local authorities are not fit to build or provide housing, why does the Government not create an entity to do so? It does not have to be a big quango. Somebody should be...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Mick Wallace: ...Arrow to Cerberus at a par value of over €6 billion. NAMA was allowed to sell it for €800 million although it had a par value of over €6 billion. It was all residential property in Ireland. I begged Fine Gael and the Labour Party not to sell the portfolio to Cerberus, which is obviously making mad money on it now. Where is the logic in that? It is gone. Why do...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Tommy Broughan: We all listened very carefully to the speeches of the Minister of State, Deputy English, and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. I agree with the Minister that supply is key to breaking the logjam. The point, however, is that for most of the past eight years, there has been no supply. I agree very much with my colleague Deputy Wallace that the Government had a choice either to empower the...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: It is unfair to those providing services, including NGOs, local authorities and AHBs, for Members to give the impression that nothing is improving. It is not true. It has been repeatedly alleged that the Government only wishes to use private housing but that is not true either. A building programme is in place to increase the stock of social housing by 50,000 over the next three or four...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Mick Wallace: The Minister of State and I are probably tired of listening to each other at this stage.

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Mick Wallace: We would not have to go over this issue again and again if the problems were going away. Sadly, they are not. The homelessness crisis is linked to housing, Government policy, landbanking and many other issues. The Minister of State accused the Opposition of not coming up with new solutions. Has it dawned on him that perhaps we have come up with solutions and recommendations but the...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Mick Wallace: The last time I checked, approximately 9% of housing was local authority stock. The current figures indicate that local authorities built 2,022 houses and AHBs built 1,388, giving a total of 4,251. However, there are 70,000 people on the waiting list. Approximately 20 social houses Wexford were built in 2018. That does not come close to dealing with the problem. As I stated...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Clare Daly: I thank Deputy Broughan for tabling this motion. It is a debate we appear to have every month, but as we talk, the situation is unravelling for thousands of people because of the failure of the Government to build social housing. Announcing that it has solved the problem by placing some people in the private rental market through HAP, apart from the enormous waste of resources at...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the motion and to outline the facts of the situation. They are not lies. I listened to many speakers saying we come to the House every month to debate this. I mean no offence to Members, but I have not seen any new solutions emerging from the different motions that have been discussed. In fairness, Deputy Fitzmaurice gets down to the details...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: I did not interrupt anybody, and I did not come here for a row. I am referring to what Members have said about inaction, just talking and no delivery. That is just not true. The facts do not support Deputy Clare Daly. We accept that there is not a house for everybody. We accept the supply issues. We are not saying that the issue is solved in any shape or form. However, it is also...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: Please, the Minister did not interrupt anybody. He is entitled to speak. Every Member was entitled to have their say and nobody intervened with anybody else.

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: I will go through every Member's query. I have no problem with that. Deputy Curran raised rapid build housing and I will return to that shortly. However, he also gave the impression that nothing has happened since the housing committee met here three years ago.

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Damien English: I sat here and listened to what the Deputy said. Deputy Paul Murphy wants to hold a big march in a few weeks. That is fine. He should hold the march, but be honest with people. The last time there was a big march I listened to the message from the campaign, which was to deliver 10,000 social houses. That is what we are doing. Deputy Joan Collins nodded her head. She wants that, and it...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Before the house is built, planning is needed, roads and sewers must be put in and there is an awful problem in this country in that we do not do a bit of planning ahead of building a house. We think it will just fall down out of the sky. Right around this country the State owns a lot of land and it has never pursued an objective of putting in sewage treatment plants, having the water...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Catherine Connolly: ...although we will always have a small minority. They certainly did not create the housing crisis however: it is a deliberate crisis caused as a result of the policies of successive Governments and we know that. The Government is picking up the pieces and I appreciate that but it is also part of the problem. The Minister of State and the Government believe that the market will provide and...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Thomas Pringle: I congratulate my colleague, if congratulations is a word that can be used on an issue such as this, on preparing this motion and putting it before the House because it is vitally important. The focus on solutions to homelessness has largely been a city wide perspective. While this is warranted, it is important to focus on the rise of rural homelessness, for example, in my constituency of...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The reason we have a housing crisis is the Government, and the two major parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, believe that housing is a means to make money for certain people in society. The Irish rich have always got rich through property. The property owners who see property as a means to make money are disproportionately represented in this House and the Irish rich...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Carol Nolan: ...time to me. Tá 13,000 duine gan dídean sa Stát seo. Tá sé soiléir go bhfuil an géarchéim ag éirí i bhfad níos measa ná mar a bhí sé. Homelessness is becoming all too prevalent and, to our shame in this State, it is becoming normalised. Homelessness is not just confined to urban regions. Its prevalence is now very...

Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2019)

Jan O'Sullivan: I would like to thank Deputy Broughan and his colleagues for tabling this motion. It gives us an opportunity to talk about homelessness again. We have not seen any of the real and substantial progress we need to address it from the Government. This morning the Minister said the social housing delivery figures for 2018 were good news and talked them up. The changes are minimal and are...