Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government to the House to debate this very important matter. I shall begin by discussing the last point made by Senator Humphreys and his claim that there is not just one solution but many solutions to this problem, which is what this Government is committed to.

I am not a landlord and own my house. Senator Grace O'Sullivan claimed 36.9% of Fine Gael Members are landlords. There is nothing wrong with being a landlord or owning property. We need to adopt a multiplicity approach to the housing crisis and landlords are not the problem. I ask her to please not attribute the problem to the 36.9% of Fine Gael Deputies and Senators who are landlords.

Let me give the backdrop. We had a dysfunctional housing market where the banks were gone, the developers folded, local authorities did not have money to build and the previous Fianna Fáil Government changed the criteria and took money off developers rather then build social housing. There is a call for action and it is called Rebuilding Ireland.

I commend the Minister on his work and for being proactive since he came into office. However, I want to know the following. Are we getting value for money from the amount of money we have spent on housing supports in his Department, in the Department of Health and in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection? Has the Government spent taxpayers' money wisely?

Nobody in this House that I know of wants to see young children, their families or their mums or dads in a hotel or housing shelter. We have all met desperate people in our constituencies and heard the human stories behind the statistics. These people deserve to have a house and this Government is about solutions. It is not about posturing, political points scoring and abdicating responsibility. It is about delivering. It is why we have allocated €1.2 billion to social housing out of the overall sum of €5.5 billion that was allocated to the Rebuilding Ireland programme. It is not about ideology.

I want to challenge the myth that the Fine Gael Party is not in favour of building social housing. That myth has been propagated by the people who know the truth and that Fine Gael is committed to delivering. We have a record of building when in government, which we will continue. It is not about money. It is not about bricks and mortar. It is about people. I shall return to the fundamental core point. Are we spending our money wisely as a State?

In my constituency of Cork South-Central as much as €15.9 million has been set aside to build 65 housing units in Deanrock Estate, Togher. The project at Sheridan Park, Tramore Road, has been opened and people are living in the houses. Tomorrow the Minister will visit Cork to open social housing projects - social housing projects under a Fine Gael Government.