Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Senator Clifford-Lee called into question the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, and I have called him into question numerous times. At the beginning of this term, I spoke about collective Cabinet responsibility and the Minister was not very good at following that concept. In considering what has happened in recent days, it is the Cabinet that is responsible rather than individual Ministers. There is a collective responsibility and those decisions are made collectively. There has been a change with the structures in Cabinet. In looking at accountability for this, we must consider why this problem occurred and how we can ensure it does not happen again. A previous Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform challenged all spending, as Senator Reilly, a former Minister for Health, will attest. It was a challenging environment in the previous five-year Government term when it came to expenditure matters, and each item of spending was put under a magnifying glass to ensure we could get full value for money for the taxpayer.

There has been a change in the structure of the Department of Finance and it has caused cost overruns, including with the children's hospital. When we speak of accountability, we must understand the reasons. We cannot lay this at the door of one person as there is collective Cabinet responsibility. This must be taken seriously as too often, under every Government, there have been overruns. We must examine the people getting the contracts and how they legally challenge those contracts if they do not win them. We must consider how they enlarge their cost base when they get those contracts.I want to raise a very serious issue which was on the front page ofThe Irish Timestoday. The article said that families who turn down offers of social housing are to face a five-year wait. To be honest, I believe this is spin. This is about blaming people who are on the housing list for the housing crisis. I know of very few people on the housing waiting list who have refused housing units. I deal with a huge number of applicants week in and week out and the vast majority are delighted when they get an offer.

There have been some refusals. I accept that. Sometimes there have been very good reasons and sometimes there have been poor reasons, but we should not blame people who are on the housing list. The issue should not be spun on the front page of The Irish Times and it should not be suggested that all those poor people on the waiting list are refusing housing, which is the subliminal message. They are not. I am only aware of one person who refused an offer of housing from Dublin City Council in the last six months and that was because the person would have had to give up their job because they would have had to surrender the support of their family in minding their children, which allowed them to go out to work. The person would have then been caught in an unemployment-based poverty trap and housed well aware from their family. I was disappointed. The headline was spin rather than substance and blamed the people who are on the housing list. It gave the message that they get loads of offers and keep saying "No". A tiny percentage refuse.