Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

A proper list of questions should be prepared by the committee and given to the IMMA board and these should be answered in the normal course. There is nothing to be gained by dragging the Minister into the House one more time to seek answers to questions that are better answered at the joint committee with responsibility for IMMA.

Last weekend, Mr. Shay Cody, the general secretary of IMPACT put out a call for rent controls to be introduced, equating it to controls that were put in place by previous Governments on the price of a pint, which was an interesting observation.

SIPTU has also agreed to support rent controls. I have raised this issue previously and do so again because it is a matter of great urgency which merits a serious debate. Some 2,400 people, all of whom are unique cases, presented as homeless in the Dublin region in the second quarter of this year. We are in a major crisis.

I was disappointed with the response of the Irish Property Owners Association to IMPACT's call. It stated interference in the market, including the decision to eliminate bedsit accommodation, was the reason for the increase in the numbers of people presenting as homeless. I do not know if the IPOA is aware that the vast majority of the bedsit units that were closed down were firetraps which were no better than slum accommodation. If the association's attitude to the homeless is to suggest they be placed in such accommodation, it is an absolute disgrace.

I welcome the call made by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, that €250 million be allocated immediately towards the construction of social housing. While we all know such a sum would make little difference in dealing with the problem, it would cross the Rubicon in terms of the destruction of the construction sector and the economy. We need to debate ways in which local authorities can be facilitated to borrow money off balance sheet in order that they can again provide some level of social housing accommodation. I suggest €1 billion will be required in each of the next five to ten years if we are to make inroads into addressing the problem of social housing.