Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - speech from 3 Dec 2019

Les Cane Coeurle, Taoiseach. Workers and families delivered a damning verdict on your government's housing failures in the by-elections last weekend. And today Sinn Fein has welcomed our newest TD, Mark Ward, to the Dáil. A TD who understands the impact that your policy failure is having on the lives of ordinary people. And his first job of work today would be to vote no confidence in your housing minister. That's the mandate that he has been given. Taoiseach, the people deserve better. People right across the state have told us daily of their suffering under Owen Murphy's housing failures. And they must be listened to. They tell us of rents reaching highs of €2,000 per month, of years on waiting lists for a council house, of working every hour of the day with no prospect of ever owning their own home, of scrimping, of saving every last penny and still barely getting by. Every day our newspapers are filled with the real human impact of the failures of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to tackle the housing crisis. And today is no different. Today, Peter Macfairy writes to the Irish Times. He tells of attending court with a young homeless boy who was charged with the theft of a bottle of orange, valued €1. He tells also of a homeless man charged with the theft of four bars of chocolate, valued €3. He tells of another charged with the theft of two packets of silk-cut cigarettes. And then Taoiseach he contrasts that with the TD on his way to or from a very highly paid double job in Brussels who stops by at the Dáil to sign in so that he can collect his full €51,600 of expenses for attendance at a Dáil that he does not, in fact, attend. Doesn't that Taoiseach just illustrate how absolutely out of touch your government is? How glaringly cut off you are from the realities facing ordinary people's lives? I understand that the deputy in question will make a guest appearance today. He will be here, it seems, to save the bacon of your failed housing minister, to save his bacon. I think people deserve better than that. They deserve better than the nod and wing politics of jobs for the boys. They certainly deserve better than a housing minister who lacks the ability or even the humility to admit and accept that his housing policy has failed. That policy, Taoiseach, is now in its fourth year and it's simply not delivering. In fact, the problem has gotten worse. And for the many families, young people and pensioners who may be listening to proceedings in this Dáil, their housing situation is grimmer than ever. And it's not good enough to keep spinning, to try and explain things, or to ignore the problem that is evident. Business, as usual, will not suffice. We need solutions. Taoiseach, people want affordable homes to rent and buy. They want measures to deal with out-of-control rents. They want radical solutions to these very real problems. And the Minister doesn't have these solutions and he won't listen to those of us who are offering them for him. So can I ask on Taoiseach, do you accept that the Minister for Housing, Owen Murphy, is simply not up to the job and must go? Taoiseach to respond. No, Deputy, I don't accept that. And obviously the House will have their opportunity to make that decision on behalf of the Irish people this evening. And I do once again want to congratulate you on your by-election success. You had a fabulous get-out-the-vote operation. We will not be caught off guard on that on the next occasion. But I would... It's not a begrudgery at all. A get-out-the-vote operation is a great thing to do and all parties do it. You just did it much better and it is a genuine compliment, actually. But I do think you shouldn't overanalyse your success or congratulate yourself too much. Across the four by-elections, my party won many more votes than yours did and Fianna Fáil more still. So there was certainly no endorsement of your party's policies. In relation to Deputy Darren Murphy, I spoke to him over the weekend. He is willing to cooperate with any investigation by any statutory body into his attendance in Dáil Éireann, whether it's the Ethics Committee, the Member's Interest Committee or the Standards and Office Commission. And I think it's right and proper that he should do that and he's willing to answer any questions they may ask or provide any documents that may be necessary. But one thing it does show up in my view is that our expenses system in this house, while it hasn't proved much, hasn't proved significantly from 10 years ago, with expenses now being largely vouched or verified, it is far too lax. We have a system in this house that is essentially designed by politicians for politicians and that should change. And I'll be writing to the Count Corlea and writing to all the party leaders to suggest that this whole issue should not be one that we run for ourselves, by ourselves. It should be one handed over to the Standards Commission and that the next Dáil should have a different regime when it comes to expenses and a different regime when it comes to verifying attendance. And that should be done independently and separately of this house. The time we make rules for ourselves should end. John, one minute for a supplementary. Thank you. Teasheak, I'm not interested in a self-congratulation or any congratulation. I have raised with you the real experiences of people who cannot get housed, who don't have a home. I'm raising with you a scenario where children will wait for Santa Claus in B&Bs and hotels and family hubs. I'm raising with you a situation where people live in the box rooms of their parents' homes, including in cases that I know, children with very severe health conditions and very, very significant disabilities, some of whom are waiting for surgeries. I've raised with you the reality of what is a human misery. I'm raising with you the fact that an entire generation of our people have no real hope that they'll ever own their own home. In fact, those same people understand that they're going to struggle from month to month just to make the rent. And you have failed again to address those realities. Because you see, Teasheak, if you were to admit out loud, to say out loud that these things are rife across our society, then you could land on no other conclusion than your policy is failing, we need to change in policy and we need a change in minister. That's the logical outcome of the reality that we face. So can I put the question to you again, Teasheak? Your housing policy has failed. That is manifestly the case. We need to change in policy. We need to change in minister. When are you going to deliver that? Teashe to respond. Deputy, the housing crisis is very real and affects many of our citizens and our constituents and people we know in many different ways. Whether it's high rents or unaffordable rents in some cases, whether it's the struggle to secure a mortgage and raise a deposit to buy your own home, or whether it's the sharpest end of the housing crisis, which is, of course, rough sleeping and family homelessness. Rebuilding Ireland, our housing plan, is a five-year plan. We're now three and a half years into that five-year plan and it is reasonable to ask the question as to whether it is delivering. And you've asked that question. So let me give you a few examples of how it is delivering. In 2015, there were only 7,000 new homes built in all of Ireland. That was the year before rebuilding Ireland. This year, over 20,000 new homes will be built in Ireland. Roughly a trebling of housing supply since Rebuilding Ireland, our housing plan was launched. House prices were rising at 7 or 8% a year. They have now leveled off. And we know that before Rebuilding Ireland was introduced in 2015, the social housing stock was only being increased by about 6,000 a year. It's going to be 10,000 this year, the largest increase in any year this century during boom and during bust. And we'll see from the figures that will come out today if they haven't come out already, while overall homelessness levels continue to rise, we see a fall in child homelessness, a fall in family homelessness, and numbers of people rough sleeping to the lowest level in many different years. Thank you, Tishan.