Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 6 Jul 2022

I'll tell you, Minister, what people are asking themselves day and daily is how is it after a decade of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael botched policy that favoured private developers and landlords, how is it that in the face of a crisis like no other in housing that we are subjected to the same banal rhetoric that we've had to listen to for the last 10 or 15 years? ask yourself this ask yourself how is it that we have record house prices record rent levels and record homelessness for families for singles and for children ask yourself despite your research into the country that we find ourselves almost in this quicksand and people made beggars of you are making beggars of people of our young of our families of our for older people for the honour and glory of a roof over their heads and yet we come in here week in week out and listen to this rubbish from a government that is failing can I ask the Minister the direct question in the face of this ESRI report which is just the latest evidence of this catastrophe do you still contend that you are getting it right because you very clearly are not deputy please I have to say the deputies that won't adhere to the time limit are being disorderly minister deputy perhaps if you adopted a more supportive and a less obstructive position when it comes to the initiatives the government is bringing forward to provide homes for our people then perhaps we might be in a better place every single major initiative that this government has brought forward you have sought to block frustrate and obstruct you don't want people to be in a position to buy homes it suits you politically for the for the housing crisis to continue it does and you will seek to make maximum political advantage out of it that's the only logical reason why you come into this house consistently to oppose every positive measure the government is looking to bring in to ease the housing challenge that's there that's the only conclusion I can reach thank you very much