Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has always been a very strong and firm advocate for housing for all. He recognises, as we all do, that everyone aspires to having a safe and secure home. Our home is our castle. It is where we can feel safe, which is extremely important. The Minister, through this Bill, will ensure that tenants have that security during this time of crisis. It is good that the legislation includes provisions to allow the measure to be used again if necessary.That means we would not have to come back to debate the matter again and the provisions could be introduced immediately. That is very important.

We all remember from school the lines in the Padraic Colum poem:

O, to have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

That is certainly something that resonates with many people. The Minister's commitment to providing affordable and social housing is commendable and an unprecedented €3.3 billion spend was announced for housing in the budget. It is just phenomenal and a 24% increase on 2020 alone. I can see the number of people in Kildare on the housing list who are absolutely relying on this Government to deliver, so that funding is very important.

I will mention a few issues in the short time I have. It is important we build communities and not just homes. We must ensure, with the almost 13,000 homes we expect to be built over the next 12 months, there is appropriate leisure, education and other amenities around these developments. The antisocial behaviour aspect has been mentioned. Over the past two to three years, this has reached a crisis level and the fact that people in their homes are subject to antisocial behaviour from neighbours is appalling. We must absolutely deal with that between the Departments with responsibility for housing and justice.

In respect of co-operative housing, there is an anomaly where tenants in social housing can buy their homes, which is really important in the context of all of us aspiring to home ownership, but those who are in co-operative housing do not have this opportunity. Legislation must introduced to ensure this can happen. There is a problem with housing lists. I understand why local authorities need to ensure they have accurate information but this does not always happen because tenants do not get required correspondence. This is how some people realise they have been knocked from a list. Something should be done about that.

I wish the Minister well. The plans are ambitious and he deserves all our help and support in this effort.