Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to express condolences and sympathies on behalf of the Fianna Fáil group to the families and individuals who lost their lives in the English Channel. It was a really tragic event and all our thoughts are with the individuals. We ask the acting Leader to write to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and our MEPs in Europe to emphasise again to them the desire of this House and all the citizens of Ireland for the EU to take a strong role in providing safe routes to security for those who desperately need them.

Today is UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It marks the start of 16 days of activism, which Senator Sharon Keogan referenced earlier this week. Over the next 16 days, it would be appropriate if this House could facilitate a debate with the Minister for Justice on efforts to eliminate violence against women.

I also want to raise the issue of housing and homelessness. There are more than 8,000 people homeless today in Ireland and more than 2,300 of them are under 18 years of age. Housing for All, the Government's action plan, commits to eliminating homelessness by 2030. It commits to greater targets in Housing First and €20 billion in a State-led provision of 300,000 homes. Some 90,000 of those homes will be social homes and almost 60,000 of them affordable homes, using State-owned land to reduce the cost of provision of housing.

Focus Ireland has a radio ad that Members may have heard. In that ad, a little girl talks about how she is living in a hotel and her little brother cannot stop crying because he wants to go home. Anybody who has heard that ad has to have been touched. Far too many children are being born into homelessness. That is why the Government has made the unprecedented €20 billion commitment to invest in the provision of housing for our people.

Today, I would like to ask every Member, and in particular those in opposition, to put politics aside and to do the right thing, not just by people who are homeless, but people who are at risk of homelessness and people who desperately want to own their own home. This week, we saw Dublin City Council finally, after more than 30 years, approve a plan for 850 public homes and social and affordable homes on State-owned land, and it was opposed by Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and Labour. This hypocrisy is morally bankrupt at a time many of our citizens desperately need housing. When the State is committing €20 billion and State-owned lands are being used and being provided to deliver public housing, it is wrong for any politician of any party or none to oppose the provision of housing, to object to it, to lake legal cases against it or to block it. I ask them to stop.