James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We shall not touch on that subject.

This is a very serious matter and it is one of the two biggest issues affecting our society - housing and health - both of which have an impact on homelessness. As we saw on last night's programme on RTE, health is a major issue for those who are homeless. I know from experience over many years on health boards that the policy of decanting patients back to the community without proper support led to much difficulty on the homelessness element as well. I know the Government has put in place much money to cater for this. We will need more than just money, we will need action.

I will speak to a few local concerns I know of. We speak about social housing and it is happening. There is affordable housing going up in good numbers in Lusk and other parts of Fingal. Earlier this year I raised with the Minister's predecessor the issue of the Flemish decision in the European court on rural housing policy. The position of the chief executive of Fingal County Council is that the current Fingal development plan and rural housing policy remains in place until he is told otherwise by the Department. The Minister has a working group for this and I implore him to get the group to report as quickly as possible. The current position flies in the face of the reality of the ruling from the European court. The restriction, as we know, is that one must live in a rural area for seven years when constructing a house; it now seems to have been struck down. The exception is if a bank forces a sale.

In a related matter, there are 26 designations of rural clusters of various sizes, from perhaps five to 25 houses, and all are in doubt now because of the European court ruling. We do not know who can get planning permission. The purpose of the rural clusters was to provide sites to avoid ribbon development and have a clustered community. This is a good idea but people are now totally uncertain about the status of those clusters. Planning permissions that may have already been granted may not stand the test of a disgruntled objector or court case. Everything is in disarray so we need certainty as soon as possible. I ask the Minister to give us some indication of when that group will report.

I can relate an anecdote about a family who bought a house in a rural cluster area but a number of years later, the woman has become quite ill and her daughter would like to build near her. They have the land to do that and the daughter could support her parents as they grow older. The parents could support their daughter in raising her children. Nobody can make a move in any direction. We need clarity in these matters.

On the up side, a lot of money has been put aside to address this issue but it is very frustrating for people. Several Senators have mentioned people who find themselves homeless with children trying to attend school, not knowing where they will be living next month and if they will still be able to go to school. I will not rehearse all the difficulties they face and the terrible social damage that could be done to the next generation if we cannot address the matter quickly. The Minister and his Minister of State, Deputy English, have new ideas to put in place and they are working hard to introduce innovation and "out of the box" thinking. That is desperately needed if we are to address the problem. It is the burning issue of our day, as I stated at the outset.