Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)

Aontaím leis an ghlaoch a rinneadh maidir leis an tuarascáil faoi leanaí atá faoi chúram an Stáit ach ba cheart dúinn an tuarascáil a fheiceáil agus a léamh ar dtús sula ndéanfaimid breith iomlán uirthi mar beidh go leor le rá faoi sin.

I was honoured to travel to Lisbon over the weekend to stand shoulder to shoulder with 20,000 trade unionists who were campaigning against the austerity measures introduced in that country. Colleagues spoke about the situation in Greece, Spain, France and Germany, where people are feeling the brunt of austerity measures.

We seem to be preoccupied with the Houses of the Oireachtas this morning. It is ironic that in the week when the Volvo Ocean Race is coming to Galway with great razzmatazz, people in that city are afraid they will be evicted from their houses because of changes to the rent supplement regime. Approximately 96,000 people are on the scheme across the State. The ceiling for rent supplement has been reduced but, instead of the State negotiating with landlords to force down rents, tenants are being forced to renegotiate their rents or find alternative accommodation if they are unable to do so. This issue calls for a broader debate on housing because the link between the functions of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the county councils in terms of providing social housing and the Department of Social Protection's responsibility for the rent supplement, which is supposed to be a short-term solution to accommodation needs, appears to be broken. Local authority RAS schemes are no longer taking applications and the director of services in my own county council has stated that only two local authority houses will be built in County Galway this or next year. Furthermore, we still do not know what is happening to NAMA's housing stock. This is a serious issue and a full debate on housing should also consider social protections and rent supplement payments.