Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to praise the demonstrators who protested outside Leinster House yesterday as part of the Raise the Roof campaign. I hope the Government and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, will take heed and acknowledge the seriousness of our housing crisis. I do not think I have ever seen such a large group outside Leinster House. There are 10,000 families, including 4,000 children, in emergency accommodation. There are almost 100,000 people on social housing lists. What we have seen in recent years are failed policies put forward by this Government. I refer to the failed rapid-build programme. We were promised 1,500 houses and we got 208. There is the failed repair-and-lease scheme, a failed local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, scheme and now we are supposed to believe that the announcement of the Land Development Agency is going to be the panacea. In the same week as that announcement, the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, announced the sale of the John Player site on the South Circular Road. That should be halted and the Government should intervene.

Another matter I would like to raise relates to a meeting the Minister attended in the constituency in which I live in August. The subject under discussion at the meeting was the land at St. Michael's Estate. Many of us have been reading about that meeting, at which I was also in attendance, recently. During the meeting in question, the Minister announced the launch of a cost-rental model. I welcome that. It is a fantastic model, it will be a pilot and I it will be replicated in other schemes throughout the country. When I did more research, I discovered that no planning applications have been submitted in respect of this model and that no drawings have been created. In late September, I also discovered from Dublin City Council that there is going to be a further consultation process. It will not be finished until 26 November. I agree with the consultation process but it should have started before any announcement was made on a definitive model. If the process is not going to be finished until 26 November, we will not have plans until, perhaps, January. They might be submitted at that stage but we all know how long processes of this nature take within councils.

We are talking about plans not even going in until 2019 for a massive site with huge potential to resolve the housing crisis within our city. When the Minister feels he is under pressure, he seems to decide that he is going to come up with another new plan. It is a plan that he is never going to implement. It is just an idea. He finds himself in a corner and decides he is going to come up with another idea to get his critics off his back for a few weeks. Time is up on that now. We need action. NAMA's sale of the John Player site cannot be allowed to go ahead. The Minister has to intervene and show a proper willingness to tackle this housing process. On the issue relating to St. Michael's Estate, the consultation should happen but the Minister needs to provide a firm commitment regarding when the plans will be submitted and when this is going to happen. I hope I can get a proper response from the acting Leader.