Tony Mulcahy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I felt a need to make a contribution because I could not stick hearing terms such as a magic wand and stuff like that being said, and certainly by one of my colleagues in Sinn Féin. We need a magic wand to resolve the issue. However, we need to be realistic about where we have come from and where we want to go. Let us remember that three or four years ago we were borrowing €18 billion. The fact that the Government has put a plan in place to start to correct this problem is a huge initiative in itself. There have been claims that public representatives are unaware of the housing crisis. As public representatives, and I have been an elected representative for over 20 years, we hear about the crisis every day of the week and it is not news to us. The question is how does one resolve the problem. One must get to the stage of getting money in order to invest in housing and we must try to solve the problem in a variety of different ways.

In regard to the homeless issue, I heard a priest in Cork say that he knew 25 to 30 homeless people who unfortunately wanted to live on the street, and irrespective of what accommodation he could provide them he could not get them off the street. That is a challenge. It is a sad situation but it is a fact and is true. When we look at this problem we can see that, historically over a long period, we built no houses. Therefore, it should come as no surprise there is a housing shortage. When we arrived into this crisis in 2011 we did not have any money to build houses and that is a fact.

I welcome the motion that was tabled tonight.

I welcome the initiative by the two Ministers and think they are doing a fine job in a short space of time. We have a lot of work to do to pull this together. I would like to see the housing assistance payment scheme being rolled out in as many counties as possible as quickly as possible. We have a crisis in my town. We have a difficulty with the banks which are not going to give money to builders - I am talking about the ordinary fellow who was building 30 or 40 houses - to start schemes. We have serviced land available - a couple of hundred acres - but an ordinary builder cannot a the loan to start. I am talking about affordable houses worth €140,000 or €150,000. There is, therefore, a need to address the banking side of the issue, as well as the needs of the private builder, if we want him or her to come on board, but it seems the banks just do not want to raise the funds needed to restart development. Many young couples would still buy houses and 25% to 30% would actually come off housing lists. There are working couples who just cannot find a house and have to rent privately, although they would buy, if they could find one.

I fully support the motion and the Minister of State's initiatives.