Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - speech from 11 Dec 2019

Last week after you and your partners in Fianna Fáil reasserted your confidence in the Housing Minister, I invited people to share with me their housing stories, and they did, in their hundreds, and nothing frankly could have prepared me for the trauma and the heartache that those stories encapsulated. We've compiled some of those stories in this document, it's called The Humans of the Housing Crisis, and I've sent it to yourself, to Minister Murphy, and to your partner Micheál Martin. So I trust that you've read the document, Taoiseach, but I think it's important to place on the record of the Dáil some of the stories that came to me. You'll have seen maybe Kevin's, Kevin Martin's letter to Santa Claus, covered in one of the papers this morning. He writes to Santa, please come to my hotel again with Batman toys, that's what he wants this year. Kevin is seven, Taoiseach, he lives in emergency accommodation in County Clare with his parents and his little sister. Kevin has developed asthma due to his homelessness because he stayed in so many cold and damp places. Here's another Taoiseach. Hi, my landlord wants to sell her house and myself, husband, and my two small kids have to be out by February. We've nowhere to go. I'm on the housing list over 13 years. Here's another, we both have decent jobs with good incomes, we rent a tiny studio apartment, we pay just over €1,000 for the privilege of tripping over each other and fighting over space. Due to high rent and the cost of living, we live paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings, so saving for a mortgage is simply not possible for us. And our insecure housing situation has forced us to put our lives on hold. Here's another, hi, I'm a student and until recently was living in a converted shed in the back of the landlord's house. I was cramped in there with two others. Rent was €500 and he only took cash. When I gave in my month's notice, he forced me out immediately and kept my deposit. And another Taoiseach. I'm currently living with my partner's parents, four years now, in an attic with our 11-year-old son. We decided to take this step as the rent was absolutely spine-breaking. We both have good jobs. We've both been trying to attain a mortgage for the last four years, but with no success. Taoiseach, this document is a catalogue of heartbreak, of trauma, of shattered dreams. And it's been caused by your government. And what makes matters worse is that it doesn't have to be this way. All of these stories can be heard and answered with the right policy decisions. And I think Taoiseach, at this stage, you need to accept and recognise the real harm, the financial distress, the mental anguish and even the physical illness that is being caused to families and to children. You need to change direction. You need to recognise that there are solutions and adopt those solutions. So I want to ask you Taoiseach, do you now accept that we have a housing crisis that has no equal? Do you accept that we need to start a radical change in policy? Will you accept that we can start by dealing with extortionate rents? Will you commit to supporting the Sinn Féin legislation that has been debated and will come before the House for a vote tomorrow? Thanks, Deputy. We've always accepted that there's a housing crisis and a housing shortage in this country. There's nobody in this House of any party that I think is in denial about that. I haven't had a chance to read your document yet. I don't think I've actually received it, but it may be in my postbag and I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. In relation to the first individual case you raised, there's a complex one and there are individual matters involving that case, which I won't get into in the chamber, but perhaps I can speak to you about it privately afterwards. But we all acknowledge that there are human stories around homelessness and we all acknowledge the appalling impact that homelessness has on parents and also on families. And I share your concern about children in the run-up to Christmas, concerned about whether Santa will be able to find them on Christmas Eve. And he will. And the same goes for kids in hospitals and the same goes for kids in emergency accommodation or in hotels or at home with their parents. But there is a solution, and a solution that we all broadly agree on, and that is to increase dramatically the supply of housing in this country. We have an expanding population, a growing population, and more households are being created every year. And that means we need to build a lot of houses. And the Central Bank is right. We need to be building about 35,000 new homes a year. And we're not there yet. But just in the past two and a half years since I became Taoiseach, the number of new homes being built has trebled. That's significant. It's not enough. It can only be done so quickly. But it is significant that in the past three years, the number of new homes being built has trebled. We need to double them again, get up to about 35,000, 40,000. And we'll do that as soon as we possibly can. We're already in the position this year to add 10,000 homes to the social housing stock. And that's significant because that means that this year there are 10,000 families living in a home that wasn't for social housing this time last year. Santa will arrive in 10,000 houses that were not available for social housing this time last year, but now are. We need to build on that, get up to 11,000 next year, 12,000 the year after, and we'll do that. Well, Taoiseach, what is significant is this. It is significant that you have shirked your responsibilities and failed not just these families, but countless other families. And you have stepped instead behind the shadow of private developers and landlords. What is significant is that you come into this chamber endlessly and recite figures and statistics and pat yourself and Minister Murphy and your partner in government, Micheál Martin, on the back. What is significant is that you are trying to tell an alibi that everything is okay, when very, very clearly your policy is failing and things are not okay. You see, for these families to be heard, for them to have solutions, they have to be listened to. Government has to care and the Taoiseach has to care. And, you know, it's been said to me before by people outside of politics that the problem with housing, and not just homelessness, but the rental crisis, the affordability crisis, is that the government doesn't care. And at times, you know, I've even challenged that assertion, because nobody wants to turn this into a personalised battle. But I have to tell you, when the head of government and the colleagues on your benches, some of whom now are smirking at this matter, when I observe your reaction to the human stories of loss and heartbreak, to the casualties of your failed policies, well, then, it does raise the question as to whether or not the Taoiseach cares. Because if you did, you would not hide behind figures. If you did, you would change policy, and you would start tomorrow evening by backing a rent freeze and a tax credit for renters. Tisha to respond. Thanks. Thanks, Deputy. I don't seek to hide behind facts or figures. I just seek to prevent the facts. And the fact that you don't deny that those facts and figures are true means that there is at least legitimacy in what I'm saying. But, Deputy, you know, in my assessment, I care a lot more about these issues than you do. I care deeply about the housing crisis and the problems that we face in our health service. And that's why I've taken on the mantle of leadership. That's why I've been willing to serve in government. And that's why my party and our colleagues in the Independent Alliance are willing to serve in government, too. Your party is different. You walked out of government in Northern Ireland three years ago. And we see an appalling health crisis unfolding now in Northern Ireland. An appalling health crisis unfolding in Northern Ireland. And we also see a homelessness crisis in Northern Ireland. If you really cared about health and housing, you would have gone into government in Northern Ireland, you would have fixed those problems, shown us how it was done, and then come here and said you would do the same. But you didn't. So the people who care about health and housing and the problems our country faces are the people who try every day, 16, 18 hours a day, to fix them. You don't care. You just come in here twice a day and try and make out that you have some sort of monopoly on compassion. You don't. If you did care, if you did care, you would have stayed in government three years ago in Northern Ireland and you would have solved these problems. Thank you, Tisha. Deputy Brendan.