Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House for this very important debate on housing. Housing is a key priority for Fianna Fáil. It is the biggest issue in the country. Whether one is in Dublin or outside Dublin, in rural or urban areas, housing is a key priority and a key issue. The Government has been out of touch on this issue. Numerous strategies have been proffered by the Government but delivery has been sorely lacking. It is the people who are suffering as a result of Government inaction and the inability to grapple with the issue in a coherent fashion. We have had numerous strategies but none has delivered. Fianna Fáil has put forward a number of Bills over recent years in an attempt to help the Government deal with the issue. The Vacant Housing Refurbishment Bill put forward a strategy to deal with vacant units over commercial premises which would have delivered 4,000 units in a quick manner, but the Government has not seen fit to act on it.

The Government is out of touch. There were comments as recently as last week from Ministers saying rents are okay if one goes to the north side of Dublin or outside the more fashionable parts of the capital. Rents are not okay. They are completely unaffordable. People are living in desperate conditions to keep a roof over their heads. The Taoiseach suggested people get gifts from their parents to afford a deposit for a house. He also said our rates of homelessness are low by international standards and that has been shown to be completely false.

Ordinary people cannot afford to put a roof over their heads, whether it is people who want to buy their own homes and who traditionally would have been in a position to do so or people who want to rent in the private market or from the council. Council housing is virtually non-existent. The population of the country is increasing rapidly and we do not have enough private rented housing, social and affordable housing, or council housing to meet this demand. People come to my office daily and into my constituency clinics right across north County Dublin who are living in desperate situations. It is back to tenement times with people living in overcrowded, dangerous houses. They are afraid to say anything to their landlords for fear they will be given an eviction notice and would have no place to go.

I have been speaking to families who are rearing their children in hotel rooms and it is having a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of children. Their developmental outcomes are being seriously hampered and they will not be able to make it up as time goes on if their housing situation is not addressed. There is a vital gap in children's development, and if certain milestones are not hit when they should be, they will never be hit. The result is seriously to stunt a whole generation. I call on the Minister of State to look seriously at this and to redouble his efforts. The efforts the Government has been making have not been making an impact.

I will refer to the proposed sale of the Permanent TSB loan book to vulture funds. In the proposed sale, 20,000 loans will go into vulture funds. It is not fair to say they are people who are not engaging. Many people have engaged and they have split mortgages. The people who have not engaged are perhaps unable to engage because they are suffering from severe mental health issues and are not able to cope with their situations and the homeless situations their families are facing. I call on the Minister of State to look at this and work with Fianna Fáil and other parties in the Houses to ensure 20,000 families are not plunged into further homelessness which would add to the problem.