Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Leader is wrong when he says it is not about ideology. It actually is and I will give a couple of examples. We know Fine Gael is a right-wing party and, in fairness to the Minister, he has never had any qualms about showing his devotion to the free market in interviews. There is a problem when we have a party that always takes the side of the landlord. I can tell the Minister from first-hand experience in Limerick that one of the matters that is really driving this problem is the fact that tenants do not have rights to stay in houses when those houses are put up for sale. The lack of tenancy rights is a major problem which is forcing people into homelessness and the Minister's Government refuses to give tenants rights. That is a problem, and it is ideological because I think the Minister perhaps genuinely believes that is the wrong thing to do. Those of us on the left know that it is the right thing to do and it should be addressed. A bigger statistic tells us more. Of the 130,000 families that one wants to help in social housing, only 37,000 will be housed through real social housing. The remaining 93,000 will be housed through the private sector. To answer Senator Buttimer's question as to whether we are spending the money wisely, we are not because we throw too much money at private sector landlords.It is not the most efficient way to deal with this crisis.

I was looking at the record of this House and the Leader mentioned at one point that the former Minister, Deputy Coveney, would be held accountable to his promises. We might remember he promised there would be no homelessness after July. He has not been held accountable. He has gained a promotion and skipped out, delivering only broken promises. Let us be clear about that. Let us also be clear that this is not getting better, it is getting worse. Fine Gael has supplied social housing and I think the Leader wanted a medal for that. However, it has not been delivered in numbers. I remind the Minister that under his plan, the Government will still be spending less in the area than what was being spent when Fine Gael came into office.

We have some simple requests and they really come from the deliberations of the Oireachtas joint committee dealing with housing. We want the Government to deliver 10,000 social homes per year. That is not what we have said but rather what all the parties indicated that must be delivered. We want direct funding for affordable renting and purchase. We want greater tenancy rights, which the Government refuses to give. I ask the Minister for a direct answer on the next request. We want a commitment that no family will be in emergency accommodation for more than six months. If the Government is serious about housing, the Minister could give us that commitment. He has said money is no object but if that is the case, he should ensure no family would have to go through living in emergency accommodation for longer than six months. I assure the Minister that when one sees desperation in people's faces, looking towards Christmas living in one room in a hotel, it is a matter of shame for this Government. We should be clear about that.

We proposed rent certainty and linking rents to the consumer price index, which demonstrates an ideological difference as the Government refused to do it. As a result, we have seen horrendous rent hikes in Limerick and the Government is letting it continue. We need greater rights for tenants and a greater commitment to public housing than the Government has made to date. We need it to recognise, first and foremost, that this is the responsibility of the Government. Fine Gael has been in government for six and a half years and it has failed. The Minister's predecessor completely failed and was not held accountable.