Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach.

The issue I want to raise this afternoon is the Raise the Roof protest, which will take place on Saturday. I urge as many people as possible to come out onto the streets at 1 p.m. on Saturday to call out this Government for its housing failure. It was truly shocking to see the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, last week declare that in fact there was no housing emergency. I think that is a statement that will come back to haunt him for some considerable time to come. Perhaps the same Minister might be able to explain why last week in Limerick, a four to five-bedroom house was advertised on Wolfe Tone Street for a rent of €3,250 per month, with the suggestion that perhaps between five and ten people could inhabit the house. I do not know what Government Senators would describe that as, but I would describe it as greed. It is important to also point out the impact that the housing crisis is having on other key areas of our economy. There is a story about the Psychiatric Nurses Association of Ireland, PNA, today in The Irish Timeswhich states that there are 700 staff vacancies. The head of the PNA union makes it very clear that the issue is that a number of their members are emigrating because they cannot afford to live here. He has called for housing supports. I notice that Phil Ní Sheaghdha of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, wrote to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage two weeks ago again calling for accommodation supports because again, people are voting with their feet and they are leaving. I have asked for figures relating to University Hospital Limerick on the number of vacancies it has at the moment. The hospital has not been able to confirm this to me yet but I note that one maternity ward in Limerick Hospital has already closed because they simply cannot staff it. The extent of the crisis is horrendous and the fact that the Government has an underspend of €500,000 for the first nine months of this year is frankly disgraceful. The fact it has finally admitted it will not meet its affordable or social housing targets this year is simply failure. We must do better and I believe this rally this weekend will be particularly important. I want to salute the trade unions, which have played such an important role in bringing this together.

In the few seconds that I have left, I will take a moment to congratulate Sally Hayden on her award at the Irish Books Awards, which were held last night, for her fantastic book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned,which details the horrors that human beings trying to access Europe have to face. It details in particular with the horrors of the Libyan Coast Guard. The Deputy Leader will know that I have raised the issue of the Libyan Coast Guard on a number of occasions. There is a failure on behalf of the Government to call out the Libyan Coast Guard, which is a bunch of gangsters who are involved in rape, torture, murder and imprisonment. The European Union continues to fund them. When I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, at the Council of Europe about it, he had nothing to say. When I asked the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, he had nothing to say. How this Government can be silent in the face of the horrors that human beings are experiencing trying to access Europe is frankly beyond me.