Eoin Ó Broin
Dublin Mid-West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“It is disappointing that, when several journalists have contacted the Government and the Department looking to confirm on the record that HAP and RAS tenants are not included - we know that they are not - and set out why and if that will be reconsidered, instead of giving a straight answer that, yes, they have been excluded, and explainin…”
“Will it try to remove survivors when they chain themselves to the gates in protest, as they have said they will, or will it finally listen to them and hear their calls for respect, justice and truth? Will it buy the Bessborough site and stop this outrage from happening?”
“According to the latest summary of social housing needs assessments, 61,000 households are on council waiting lists, although we know a large number of them are single people. About 49,000 households at the end of last year were on HAP, while there were about 7,500 private sector RAS recipients of the 14,000.”
“We are setting out five specific sets of circumstances where that would be permissible. Under our scheme, the person moving from Youghal to Clonakilty would have to have a specific reason like taking up a job or education in Clonakilty or accessing long-term medical treatment, etc.”
“First, importantly it would be for both people on the list and people in receipt of social housing support, such as HAP and RAS. It is not just the 61,000 households on our council lists but also the 55,000 or so households in HAP or private sector RAS.”
“Sure. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My natural disposition as a person is to treat people at face value, but ten years in this House has made a bit of a cynic of me.”
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“What the Minister is proposing is that instead of having an adequate mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes in these large flat complexes, these will have to be scaled down to a large volume of studios, one-beds and some two-beds. That is going to fundamentally undermine the coherence of those housing estates. The Minister will not be able to do that across all of the blocks in Pearse House or in Oliver Bond flats. It is a fundamentally flawed approach. This policy says fewer people will live there. The units will be maintained - this fictional target - but fewer people will live there.”
“The approach of the Minister to inner-city flat complex regeneration is fundamentally flawed. After three long years of consultation with the local community on Oliver Bond Street, Dublin City Council made a very detailed proposal. It would take 74 1930s flats and bring them up to modern standards with a loss of 28 units. It identified a brand-new site, adjacent to Oliver Bond flats, with an additional 43 units. That is a net increase of 15 homes. In addition to that, there would be a community centre. The Minister has refused funding for that. The letter was sent to the council this week. He has refused funding on the most spurious of grounds, namely, that the Department cannot accept a reduction in the number of units.”
“These conditions have to be reversed, the funding has to be provided and the communities in the Public Gallery today need to have the rights of everybody else to live in safe, secure and adequate homes.”
“I had the very good fortune of being at an event earlier last year in which Gayle Cullen, one of the leading figures in Oliver Bond House, was discussing their experience of regeneration. That was before that community received the devastating news yesterday. What she said at the end of her presentation was that as a community, they were worn out, tired, fed up and living in or beside derelict blocks in awful conditions, and that it was no wonder residents did not back regeneration boards. Speaking to Gayle today, she said the news yesterday was like a death in the community. This is on this Government, and I hope we hear at some point today from Deputy Browne, the Minister who has taken the decision to refuse the funding and who is forcing these communities to continue to live in illegal, substandard accommodation.”
“The scheme has a net gain of 15 homes, and the Minister of State's Government is saying "No" to the people of Oliver Bond House. It is utterly disgraceful. What needs to happen? The Government needs to accept it has got this wrong. It is adding insult to injury to the hardworking, rent-paying tenants in these communities. It needs to reverse its policy decision of opposing amalgamation. It needs to fully fund the adequate regeneration of these estates, and it needs to do it at a more accelerated pace than was originally agreed. What will that take? A dedicated team of staff in Dublin City Council, led by a senior official at assistant director of service grade, and a proper multimillion euro budget provided annually to deal with these issues.”
“From my own conversations with Dublin City Council, it is not clear at all that it will be able to proceed fully with the regeneration of these estates, based on the policy of the Department. What is also without doubt is that the letter from Government to Dublin City Council yesterday was deeply dishonest. It said the reason the Department cannot accept it is that there is a 38% reduction in the number of homes. However, it fails to mention is that in the Dublin City Council plan, which I have here, in order to deal with the fact there would be a reduction of units when you amalgamated two flats into one or three into two, Dublin City Council identified a brand new vacant site opposite Oliver Bond House where it would deliver an additional 43 homes.”
“Then, yesterday, the second application for Oliver Bond Street flats was also rejected by a Minister who clearly does not understand the realities in these communities. I want to make it clear the false economy the Government is imposing on these communities. It is saying you cannot reduce the number of units to meet legally required minimum standards, so you have to retrofit the units as they are. However, fewer people will be allowed to live in them. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In fact, this is going to lead to even greater delay. When Pearse House was knocked back last April, it took until March of this year for a revised proposal to be accepted.”
“It was failing to protect the rights of families to social, legal and economic protection, including the right to provision of adequate family housing by the State. That decision in 2017 finally meant Dublin City Council started to take action, with a report in 2018 and another report in 2020. In 2021, intensive negotiations began, led by residents of these communities and Dublin City Council. Over three years of enormous effort, a regeneration and deep retrofit plan was agreed. What did Government do then? In 2025, the first application for the retrofit of Pearse House was rejected on the grounds that it would see a reduction of units because you had to amalgamate homes to meet legally required minimum standards.”
“For decades, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have neglected Dublin city's and county's flat communities. I am talking about inner-city flat complexes like Pearse House, Oliver Bond House, St. Michan's House and Dolphin House but also suburban schemes like Cromcastle Court in Coolock and Balgaddy in my constituency. These are strong, vibrant and resilient communities that have been utterly failed by successive Governments. So bad were the failures that in 2014, residents from 20 council housing estates supported by the Community Action Network and others took the Irish Government to the European Committee of Social Rights. After listening to all the evidence and hearing the weasel words of Government, that committee found the Government and State were in breach of Article 16.”
“It is an insult to families affected for the Minister to say that he is listening. He is not. We are not opposing the motion but we will continue to demand that the Minister change the scheme to do what the Government promised six years ago, namely 100% redress for all of those affected. That is not available today, either to folks already in the scheme or included in it. Until that changes, we will continue to campaign for further reforms.”
“While I welcome the inclusion of these two counties, it has to be said that the scheme is not fit for purpose. It has been in operation for six years and fewer than 500 homes have been mediated. Despite the Minister's comment to the effect that so-called significant changes were made to the scheme to improve in 2022, fewer families in Donegal and Mayo have applied for the scheme under the new rules rather than the old. It is not 100% and it is not 80%. In fact, tens of thousands of euro are required by homeowners. Stage payments are not available and the processing is far too slow. The underpinning statutory instrument is still not based on the science and not a single social home in any county has been included in any scheme. This scheme is not fit for purpose.”
“He said governments here and elsewhere are faced with a trilemma in that they are trying to reconcile three irreconcilables: a model of economic growth that is deeply unfair and unsustainable, and a climate policy focused on carbon taxes and pricing, heaping the burden on workers and families, all the while undermining public confidence in democracy. He makes an appeal for a change and for progressive politicians to build an alternative alliance, one that focuses climate mitigation costs on the very wealthy corporations and individuals, provides a just green transition for workers and families and restores proper democracy. That is the solution to this crisis.”
“That is front-loading investment in critical renewable energy, in public transport and in a retrofit programme that meets people's needs, not one based on their ability to pay, and prioritises energy for households, employers and workers, not data centres. There is a relationship between this and the protests that have taken place across the State in recent times. While they are primarily about the failure of the Government to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, they are being exacerbated by its climate policies: overdependence on fossil fuels, failure to provide adequate green transport infrastructure or public transport infrastructure, and just not listening to communities. Aidan Regan, a political economist from UCD, made a very interesting observation recently.”
“To make matters worse, the Government is pursuing a policy that is heaping the majority of the cost of emissions reductions on families, workers, and small and medium-sized businesses. That is imposing enormous pain, particularly at a time of a cost-of-living crisis. Then, of course, there are others in this House and outside it who want to minimise, if not outright deny, the fact that climate change is real. They want to simply continue as things are. The consequence of Government failure and climate denial by others is that public confidence in meaningful climate action is being undermined. The solution, of course, and what people are calling for, is the just transition outlined by my colleagues and others.”
“As the Minister of State knows, housing is the number one social crisis currently affecting the State and the cost-of-living crisis is the most immediate economic challenge. However, climate change represents an existential challenge, not just in this country but across the entire planet. We can see every single day the impacts in urban and rural Ireland as well as elsewhere in the world of the failure of governments, particularly those in wealthy countries, to meet their emissions reductions targets. As others have said before, this Government is on course to miss its targets. They are not just legally binding targets; they are scientifically established targets for emissions reductions to deal with the threat of climate change.”
“I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government is not simply saying "Yes" to this and that it will work with Sinn Féin because what is needed by the people we represent and the people the Government represents, and whose best interests it says it has in mind, is action, and they need it now. This motion would make a huge difference in these issues impacting on those families and single people. I urge the Government to rethink its position and support the motion.”
“There has been a very dramatic increase in the price of petrol, diesel and home heating oil that is impacting on huge numbers of working people, including working people on low incomes or those on modest or low pensions. We have given the Government a very simple, straightforward and immediate way of alleviating for an emergency period that enormous cost burden at a time when every other set of costs people have are rising. We come into these Private Members' motion and legislation debates week after week and we are accused of not having alternatives or solutions. This is one that is based on a similar intervention squeezed out of Government following Russia's unjust invasion of Ukraine.”
“Those renters, as well as those people struggling to or who will eventually be able to buy homes, have to heat those homes. They have to feed their children. They have to access childcare and education. On every one of those indicators, the cost of living is getting increasingly unbearable. We hear in our constituency clinics, as I am sure the impressive number of the Government's own backbenchers behind the Tánaiste today also hear in their constituency clinics, that the scale of the cost-of-living crisis is having an impact on people that we are finding impossible to cope with because solutions are simply not being offered by the Government to address them. What my colleagues have done today is something very simple.”
“Today, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, published its latest property price index. I am sure the Tánaiste has seen the headlines. House prices have risen yet again quite significantly, but one of the interesting details in the CSO report is that the price of apartments has skyrocketed. The price of apartments in January was up 9% State-wide on the same period last year. Excluding Dublin, they were up an astonishing 12%. What that means, of course, is that for the people who invariably end up renting many of those apartments, rents are going to be higher. Tomorrow, the Residential Tenancies Board will publish its latest quarterly report and we are going to see, again, very significant impacts on rising rents. That is before we start to see the real impact of the Government's market rent reset.”
“Government and Opposition can see a very sensible, reasonable proposal that was in fact put to me by somebody who was in this situation and who, when they went to apply for the local authority home loan, was told that they could not do so but that their partner or ex-partner who was divesting their interest in the family home was able to access that source of finance. It is a simple, practical step. It could be transformative for the lives of people for whom it would open up an avenue to secure full ownership of the family home. On that basis, I commend it to the House.”
“It is one of those Bills I cannot see why anybody would oppose it. It does not give anybody an automatic right to the mortgage finance. They would still have to apply and still have to meet all the other lending criteria as per the Housing Agency and the local authority's risk assessment. It would simply ensure, however, that both sides to a relationship breakdown could access the fresh start principle in the context of the local authority home loan. On that basis, I hope that when I move the Bill on Second Stage, it will not only get Government support but also speedy enactment. This is one of those occasions where Deputies can just do the right thing.”
“The whole point of fresh start was to allow people to make a fresh start in life when there were significant changes. Therefore, there is a very compelling argument for the Government to amend the statutory instrument underpinning the local authority home loan to ensure that both parties to a relationship breakdown can access the fresh start principle: the former partner who is divesting their interest in what was their family home and the partner who wants to remain. Very often, it is women with children. If we cannot provide them with some avenue to access appropriate mortgage finance to buy out their former partner or husband's interest, then, unfortunately, they are forced to sell the property, which is in neither their nor their children's best interests. The legislation I am introducing today is very simple.”
“As the Minister also knows, the fresh start principle, equally a very important intervention, allows people who have given up an interest in the family home following relationship breakdown or insolvency to access Government schemes such as the home loan. One of the anomalies in the system at the moment is that you can access the home loan if you are leaving the family home but if you are the person remaining in the family home, you cannot. The situation is one I am sure many TDs in the House have come across. A relationship breaks down, a marriage or a partnership results in separation or divorce and the person who remains in the family home and who wants to buy out their former partner simply has no access to mortgage credit. Typically speaking, their income or their age will prohibit them from it.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Housing Loans Regulations 2021 so as to allow applications to local authorities for housing loans by persons who are remaining in the family home following a divorce or legal separation and who need mortgage finance to buyout their former partner’s share of the family home. As the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, knows, the local authority home loan is a very valuable and long-standing support for people looking to buy their own home. A number of years ago, the Government extended the fresh start principle to this product.”
“Right now, because of what the Minister has just said, because he has admitted what the barrier is, we are forcing social housing tenants, council tenants and working and rent-paying tenants to live in substandard and what are effectively illegal properties. When will the Minister wake up and realise the scale of the problem and release the funding to do one thing and one thing only, which is to bring these homes up to modern standards?”
“The only surprise that will be expressed following this debate is the surprise of the residents in the inner-city flat complexes listening to a Minister who clearly does not understand the scale of the problems. Someone living in an overcrowded flat that was built to 1930s or 1940s standards, which is riddled with damp, stinks of sewage and has a range of problems from rats to crumbling façades, needs to have that apartment fixed. This is not a question of density; it is a question of providing the funding so the State's own social rental homes meet minimum standards. If the properties were in the private rental sector, the local authorities would inspect and enforce. If these properties were in the AHB sector, the tenants would take their landlord to the Residential Tenancies Board.”
“Michan's House, Pearse House and others get 21st-century minimum standards for rental accommodation without reducing density. There is no urgency or understanding, in my view, of the scale of the problem. What we want to know is when funding will be released so that the State, the largest landlord in the country, has the highest possible standards for its rental accommodation when, right now today in Dublin, the worst rental accommodation in our city is rental accommodation the State owns and the Minister is refusing to fund.”
“The Minister is developing a terrible habit of spending most of his time talking about everything other than the actual question, which relates to the currently tenanted flat complexes, such as Oliver Bond House, St. Michan's House and Pearse House, where the Department is preventing, blocking and delaying the approval of funding. Initially it was because the national planning framework required that density be increased, and following the intervention of Dublin City Council and many of us on this side of the House that policy shifted. The current policy is that there can be no decrease in density as part of bringing these older flat complexes up to standard. That is simply not possible. We cannot ensure that the hard-working, rent-paying residents in Oliver Bond House, St.”
“As the Minister knows, some of the worst quality rental accommodation in the State is the inner-city flat complexes owned by Dublin City Council built in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. There is widespread damp, sewage problems, overcrowding and decades of poor maintenance. While Dublin City Council has a comprehensive and ambitious plan to address those issues, the Department continues to put far too many barriers in its way. Will the Minister provide an update on funding applications and approvals specifically for the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s inner-city flat complex regeneration proposals?”
“Does he accept this is a policy problem his Department needs to examine? Does he accept, for example, that solutions such as passing on the corporation tax reduction and discouraging cost-rental landlords from increasing the rent would assist in tackling the genuine affordability problem for thousands of working people?”
“The Minister's response is genuinely remarkable. He does not even accept there is a problem despite the fact that the data from the AHBs and the LDA confirms it. What is worse, LDA tenants are effectively paying corporation tax as part of the rent. That amounts to 15% of the rent they pay. Although the LDA has been given an exemption from corporation tax for new developments, that will not be passed on as an affordability measure, as per the Government. Worse, the LDA has just hit almost 500 of its tenants with rent increases that are entirely unjustified and those increases will range between 2% and 5%. This is at a time when rents should be coming down. I will give the Minister a third opportunity to respond. There is a growing number of people who earn too much to qualify for social housing and not enough to qualify for cost rental.”
“If the Government had listened to us or to such organisations as NESC and the ESRI in the past, we would have been doing this a decade or more ago. However, right now, there are thousands upon thousands of working people who cannot access social housing, do not earn enough for cost rental and have no housing options. Does the Minister accept there is a problem? What will he do to address it?”
“Earlier this week the Minister visited Oscar Traynor Road, where there are two- and three- bedroom cost-rental units. The two-bedroom units cost almost €1,600 per month and the three-bedroom units cost almost €1,800 per month. That means people need a net income of €54,000 to be able to access the two-bedroom units and €64,000 for the three-bedroom units. This tells us that a huge group of people who are not eligible for social housing, but whose incomes are below those levels, are locked out. Approximately 26% of applicants to the LDA's cost-rental stock are excluded on affordability grounds. For three-bedroom schemes run by local authorities and AHBs, it can be as high as 50%. The Minister has not even acknowledged there is a problem. We are all strong supporters of cost rental.”
“The price of cost-rental accommodation is far too high. There is a growing number of working people, singles and couples, who earn too much to access social housing but because of the application of the affordability rule, they are not able to access cost rental. Can the Minister confirm that he shares my concern with respect to this matter and set out what he is going to do to assist the Land Development Agency, LDA, and approved housing bodies to bring down the cost of cost rental so it is affordable for all those people seeking to access it?”
“It is reducing the funding to prevent people from becoming homeless. What it gains in exits, it will lose in preventions and more people will become homeless. None of what the Minister has said is new. Is he going to take any new different measures to get a grip on this crisis that he and his party colleagues are making worse?”
“Yet the numbers of adults, children, families, singles and pensioners continues to rise almost every single month. By pushing up market rents, this is going to get worse. When we published our analysis based on RTB data of the cost of the market rent reset, the Minister rubbished it. He said it was not true. Yet, we already have evidence. A few days after the introduction of the new change, a tenant renting a one-bedroom apartment in Leopardstown moved out. The apartment was being rented for just over €2,000 until the middle of February. The property went back on the market on 1 March and the rent increased by 15%. That is almost an extra €4,000 in rent being charged, exactly in line with the RTB data and our analysis. The Government is allowing additional funding to be used for homeless exits but it is robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“The Government has introduced a set of changes to rent setting in the private rental sector that is going to widen the gap between what people can afford and the market rents. Given that we have 20,000 or so eviction notices a year, more families and singles are going to end up homeless. I asked the Minister what new or additional measures he is going to take but he has not given any. For the second time, I invite him to tell us what he is going to do differently this year than last year to get a grip on this crisis he is making worse.”
“The Minister's party and Fine Gael have effectively been in government together since 2016 and since then the total number of adults who have been forced into emergency accommodation because of their failed housing policies numbers 55,000. I ask the Minister to think about that for a moment. That is more than a capacity crowd at the Aviva Stadium. It is greater than the population of Longford or, indeed, of Drogheda. Rather than this being the Government's priority, the policies it is implementing are making this crisis worse. It is not delivering a sufficient volume of social and affordable homes. It slashed funding for vital homelessness prevention schemes last year, and this year it has reduced funding further and further restricted its use for tenant in situ.”
“On Friday, the Minister's Department published the latest homelessness figures. They show record highs of homelessness, with more than 17,000 people, including more than 5,000 children, homeless. Since Deputy Browne has been Minister, homelessness has increased by 12% and child homelessness has increased by a significant 16%. Will the Minister set out what additional actions he intends to take to reduce the flow of adults and children into homelessness and get people into emergency accommodation more quickly?”
“First it was Covid, then it was the war in Ukraine, then it was net migration and now it is the councils, the communities or the Opposition. Everybody else is to blame for year-on-year rising homelessness but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I repeat that in ten years, 55,000 adults have been made homeless by these parties. The question I want to end with is: how many more people have to become homeless? How many more adults, children, singles, families and pensioners have to become homeless before the Government accepts that the problem is its failed housing plan? It should start to implement the alternatives we all know would work but it simply will not listen to us. Is it 65,000 or 75,000 or will the Government let it go to 100,000? If the Government does not make a change, that is where these numbers are going.”
“It means more homes for people with disabilities and, crucially, an increase in allocation of council homes for those in emergency accommodation. There also needs to be a far greater focus on child and youth homelessness. The strategy ends in 2026 and most of the commitments have not been implemented and we do not know what is going to happen after that. When I hear the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, talk about progress, it confirms to me that this Government is in complete denial. The claim that tackling housing and homelessness is the number 1 priority is not only dishonest but it is an insult to the people being forced into emergency accommodation. When the Government is not insulting them, it is blaming everybody else.”
“Sinn Féin made a specific proposal to introduce emergency planning and procurement and new building technologies to provide a dedicated stream of additional social housing to end homelessness for the over 55s in a single year and dramatically reduce adult and child homelessness year on year. Crucially, we need to see a doubling of investment in delivery of social and affordable homes. We need to see a removal of the red tape imposed by central government to accelerate that delivery. In real terms, we need about 25,000 public homes to be delivered each year comprising social, affordable rentable and affordable purchase. Those homes need to meet need. They need to be based on an objective assessment of what is required. That means more one-bed homes and more larger homes.”
“It tells us that with the Government continuing with the same failed policies that have pushed 55,000 adults into emergency accommodation over a decade, those numbers are going to continue to increase. That is what has been admitted to through the omissions here today. Crucially, it does not have to be this way. It is possible to end long-term homelessness. The solutions are all around us. We need an emergency package of measures to reduce presentations and increase exits, an emergency ban on no-fault evictions, increased funding for tenant in situ and a doubling of Housing First tenancies.”
“That was the only programme where if somebody on a social housing waiting list, or who was eligible for cost rental, and was at risk of eviction, it could be prevented. Yet the Government pulled the rug from under our local authorities, undermined the scheme and introduced restrictions to cut the funding. As a consequence, there are people today who are in emergency accommodation and at imminent risk of homelessness because the Government took the funding away. I just cannot understand how the Minister of State could countenance that. On top of all that, I did not hear either Minister of State mention the programme for Government commitment to end homelessness by 2030. I did not hear either one outline any new initiative to prevent homelessness or to get people out of emergency accommodation more quickly. What does that tell us?”
“In fact, based on its figures, its tenants, captured by the Government's reset, will be paying almost an extra €6,000 a year in rent. What this report actually says is that we, in Sinn Féin, were conservative in our estimate of the impact of this on renters, starting from Sunday. Simon Harris had the brass neck to come into this Chamber earlier and say he was on the side of renters. How does hitting renters with an extra €6,000 per year for IRES REIT tenants from March square with that claim? We are also seeing a Minister whose first act this time last year was to slash funding for the one homeless prevention programme that was actually working, namely, tenant in situ. We finally got the figures and we now know last year there were just over 700 social housing acquisitions. This is half what it was the year before.”
“That is the potential scope of new tenancies to be captured by the market reset. From the RTB's data on new and existing tenancies, we have shown that the cost of that is somewhere between €3,000 and €5,000 of extra rent every year. When we published these figures the Government told us we were not telling the truth and that we were exaggerating. Thankfully, the largest landlord in the State, IRES REIT, has published its own analysis. It believes the consequence of the market rent reset will be a 25% increase in its rental intake over a number of years, with an extra €21 million. IRES REIT's turnover is about 14% a year. This means that over seven years, if those trends continue, all its tenants will be captured by the market reset.”
“It is remarkable that in the two speeches we have heard, there was not a single acknowledgement of year after year rises in homelessness for a decade. What is worse is the new Minister, the new Government and the new housing plan are making things worse. There is no meaningful increase in new-build social and affordable homes in the new Government's housing plan. It is nowhere close to what is required. The Government has just introduced probably the most controversial reform of rent regulation, which is going to bring us back to double-digit inflation and that is going to drive even higher levels of homelessness. We published an analysis, based on Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, figures, showing that 25% of all tenancies registered every year are new tenancies. That is approximately 60,000 households.”
“If the Government was serious about matching 1970s output, it would be delivering twice the volume of social homes delivered last year. Not only is the Government underdelivering on social affordable homes, it has also completely botched the regulation of the private rental sector, making it even more dysfunctional than it was in the beginning. There is a virtual absence of spending or programmes on homeless prevention. Just 5% of the annual budget that goes into homelessness is directed towards prevention programmes. The previous Government failed to use the breathing space of the emergency ban on no-fault evictions from 2022 to 2023 to do anything different. It ended that ban in 2023 with no proper contingency measures in place. That is why homelessness is rising year on year.”
“In a country awash with surpluses and filled with talent and capacity, tens of thousands of people have been made homeless. There is a very simple reason. It is the failure of Government housing policy and successive Government plans by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It is not rocket science. The fundamental problem, of course, is a chronic underinvestment and underdelivery in social and genuinely affordable homes. If I hear a Government Minister once again telling us that they built more social homes in 2024 than in the 1970s, I will pull my hair out. The population in the 1970s was half what it is today. We had a surplus of public housing. A person on a council list would be housed within two to three years in the 1970s. Today it is more like ten to 15 years, depending on the local authority.”
“It does not include rough sleepers or women and children in Department of justice-funded domestic violence refuges, people with refugee status trapped in direct provision or the hidden homeless. Fifty five thousand adults have been forced into homelessness during the ten years Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in Government. That is a truly scandalous figure. On Friday, we will get the latest Department of housing homelessness report. The last report we got told us that at that point in time, 17,000 adults, including 5,000 children, were in emergency accommodation. The number of adults homelessness was up 13% on the year and the number of children up 15%. Every single category of homelessness was up; adults, families, singles, children and pensioners.”