Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Seanadóir Norris fá choinne chuid dá am a roinnt liom. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil go leor le rá aige ar an ábhar seo agus tá mé iontach buíoch dó.

Having listened intently to the Minister of State's comments, I have to say I disagree with his outlook on the Government's housing policy. It needs to change because it is fundamentally inequitable and unbalanced in a number of respects. There has been an excessive emphasis on the financial gains to be made from housing at the expense of its social role, which is central to the well-being of the nation. The private property speculator, developer and rental sectors are being hugely subsidised by the State at the taxpayer's expense. The decrease in social and affordable housing is pushing people into the private rental sector, where they lack security of tenure, compelling them to engage in dangerously excessive mortgaging so they can buy, requiring them to live with their extended families in crowded accommodation, or in the worst case scenario forcing them onto the streets.

The Government has reneged on its commitment to eradicate homelessness by 2010. This problem is being exacerbated by increased rents and inadequate social housing provision. There is a severe lack of emergency accommodation. The Simon Community in Cork has to turn people away every night. Adequate shelter is one of the most basic human needs and, consequently, one of the most important human rights. Homelessness is the most acute form of denial of housing rights encountered in our society. It is, to a large degree, a manifestation of social exclusion, poverty and the failure to supply an adequate amount of secure and appropriate social housing. In this Celtic tiger economy, we should not accept any level of homelessness.

Sinn Féin believes in the development of an equitable, balanced and fairly regulated housing market led by the social or public sector. This requires a strategic approach which should be co-ordinated on an all-Ireland basis. It involves the expansion of the social sector until it can meet the needs of those on the housing waiting list and offer a valuable and attractive alternative to private home ownership. Measures are also needed to tackle excessive land cost and speculation if we are to contribute to the stabilisation of house price inflation.

In 2005, more than 40,000 households in the Twenty-six Counties were on the waiting list for social housing. Almost 40% of them had spent over two years on the waiting list, while one in seven had been on the list for more than four years. Approximately 30,000 households in the Six Counties were on the waiting list in 2005. Although house-building activity in this jurisdiction increased in 2006, just 719 of the 21,894 houses which were built in the first three months of that year were local authority houses. That demonstrates that the Government's priority is to ensure the private sector makes a profit while those in need of social housing are left in dire straits.

The Government needs to change the direction of its housing policy. It cannot leave it at the whim of the market as it did when it provided for privatisation in the cases of Aer Lingus and the hospitals. The Government, and Fianna Fáil in particular, needs to adopt Sinn Féin's view that having a roof over one's head is a basic human right.