Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of housing once again. Last week I spoke to a really impressive a young woman working for an NGO that engages with all of us here in the Oireachtas. She had returned from Europe where she had completed a PhD. She has been living at home with her parents for the last eight months because even on a decent salary, she could find nowhere to rent. What she said to me was very stark. She said that she knew she would not be living in this country in five years' time. She said there was no future for her here. That is how stark it was.

The second example is of a young woman living quite close to where I live in Limerick who currently has to live at home with her parents. I think the phrase the council uses is "involuntary sharing". She shares her bedroom with two young children, aged two and six. She has absolutely no prospect of a home. There is huge damage being done to these people and to a whole generation of the best people who are facing emigration at this point and telling us that they have no chance of making a life for themselves here in Ireland. Then I reflect on the stark facts in Limerick. Right now, in Limerick there are 230 vacant council homes. We put this beside the fact that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has underspent his budget by €1.5 billion. I want to be very clear that the council does not have the funds approved to get that work done. The council has told me this explicitly. We have a Government underspending to the tune of €1.5 billion, 230 vacant council homes in Limerick and we have thousands of homeless people. This Government has failed and it has not got the ingenuity, the enterprise or the wit to deliver on housing. I ask for a debate on this.