Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to highlight the horrific murder of Shireen Abu Akleh last night in the West Bank. She was an Al Jazeera journalist aged 51 years. She was shot down by Israeli forces. I know there are many people who feel passionately about Palestine in this Chamber. We need to figure out what else we can do as a country about this.

I will have the privilege of chairing a session with Amnesty International in the audiovisual room today at 1.30 p.m. It will highlight its report on why Israel is an apartheid state. Crucially, we will also have representatives from the Jewish Voice for Just Peace there. That is important because whenever we raise the issue of apartheid in Israel somebody accuses us of being antisemitic. It is so important to hear the voices of Jewish activists such as those who are going to be in the audiovisual room today. I really hope that it is not just the left that turns up today.I really hope we see representatives of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil there to listen to and, if they want to, challenge our colleague, Colm O'Gorman from Amnesty International, in that regard.

The second topic I will raise today is that of housing. Last Friday, I was shocked to see someone I know who works in this building at Heuston Station. I asked him what he was doing there and he told me that he no longer lives in Dublin. He and his girlfriend now live in Thurles. These are two professionals working in Dublin who cannot afford to live here. They have no choice but to commute each day. They spend two hours on the train from Thurles and then get the bus. It shows the reality of how the marketplace has been failed by successive Governments when two people with good jobs choose to live in Tipperary and commute each day rather than live in the city.

This week, I discovered that the Government's target for affordable housing in Limerick is 264 houses. That is 53 houses a year. There is a massive problem whereby, if you earn more than €32,500 a year, you do not qualify for social housing. The Government's response to a city and county the size of Limerick is to say "Do not worry, we are going to build 53 affordable houses this year." Of course, it is not actually going to build them. The reality is that it will buy most of them from the marketplace, further crowding out private buyers. There is a fundamental disconnect between what we hear from this Government in respect of housing and delivery on the ground. The figures I am quoting are Government figures. Indeed, I could quote figures for a whole series of counties. Perhaps the most shocking is that, over the next five years, there are to be just 450 affordable houses here in Dublin. The Government is failing. Its targets are too unambitious. The housing policy is not fit for purpose. Sinn Féin has consistently called for a doubling of investment in that regard. I once again call for an urgent debate on housing.