Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome our esteemed guests to the House.

I wish to draw attention to the daft.iereport, which was published this morning and which shows an increase in rents throughout the city. Rents in Dublin alone have gone up by an average of €380 a month. Let us be clear, wages are not going up as fast as rents and people in receipt of the housing assistance payment, HAP, are struggling to keep up with rising rents. The idea of matching HAP payments with these increases provides no solution. I have discussed this issue at length in this House. We know that the real issue is the lack of supply. I call once again for a State-wide social housing construction programme like the one in the years after the foundation of this State. I am familiar with an estate in my own local area, called the Tenters. This estate was one of the first social housing programmes built by the first Irish Government. These houses are almost 100 years old and are considered some of the finest homes in the city. We need to look back at what we were able to do in the past with little or no capital budgets.

We now have 9,000 people living in emergency accommodation and there are 85,000 people on social housing lists yet we do not seem to have any solution. There seems to be no urgency on this huge issue. House prices are increasing weekly and there is a lack of supply. Young couples cannot afford to save at the same rate that the house prices are increasing. I do not trust Rebuilding Ireland. We need to see local authorities or some State arm taking control and building the houses we urgently need.

I also wish to raise the matter of Versatis pain relieving patches. Like many Senators, I have received many calls to my office by people who have been denied affordable access to these patches on either the drugs payment scheme or the medical card. These people are vulnerable and often bedridden with excruciating pain. They do not have the strength or energy to attend and protest outside Leinster House like other groups. Fortunately, through "Liveline", RTÉ has given these vulnerable people a platform to air their grievance. They have been unfairly targeted in an effort by the HSE to shave money off the drugs budget. It is one of the cruellest acts of this Government and shows its contempt and disregard for those on the margins who do not have a strong voice. I call on the Minister to attend the House to explain the rationale for culling the budget for Versatis patches and call on him to direct his staff to reinstate the patches on the drug refund and medical card schemes without delay.