Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Leader can run quite fast so if someone can find him he might get here before 6 p.m. and we can extend the time. I am pleased, a Chathaoirligh, that the time crisis can be solved more quickly than the housing crisis. It is important that we have this debate and I thank Fianna Fáil for tabling the motion, with which we agree and that we accept, but I do not agree with all of Sinn Féin's amendment.

It is important that this House has the chance to discuss the housing situation and the effects it has on the children and their families in emergency accommodation and the solutions to the problem. I am conscious that the Seanad was not formed in time for Senators to be part of the committee that has been debating the issue in recent weeks, which will produce its much awaited report on Friday that will feed into the action plan for housing. In addition to today's debate perhaps the Seanad could find a mechanism to discuss the issue further before we finalise the action plan for housing. As I said this morning when I spoke at a conference, the only way to solve the housing situation is by all of us working together and coming up with ideas. We might not agree with all the ideas but we need to put them all on the table, talk through them and pick out the best ones. That is what we will do with the action plan for housing, which will be published in July. It will set out the stall for what we hope to do over the next six months, 12 months and two years to tackle the emergency situation and to bring about the changes we need to fast-track planning and social housing provision.

The Seanad might find more time to debate the issue. I will meet with anybody who has ideas and solutions to tackle the issue and I will talk through them as best I can. I was involved in the Action Plan for Jobs and the success of the plan was based on stakeholder engagement and for everyone to have a chance to put forward actions and for us to follow through with the implementation of the plans. The same logic will work for housing if we all work together, step by step and action by action to implement the changes we need in order to solve the problem.

Many of the problems relate to the lack of housing supply. Reference was made to that by various speakers. One speaker referred to zoning more land. I accept that might be required in some areas but the country has the potential to develop 400,000 housing units on land that is already zoned. In Dublin alone enough land is zoned to provide 88,000 housing units and enough planning permission has already been granted for 25,000 units.