Conor D McGuinness condemns minister's housing plan as 'abomination'
Conor D McGuinness criticised the minister's housing plan in the Dáil, calling it a "blueprint for failure" and an "abomination". He argued the plan ignores rural depopulation, fails to deliver homes and leaves crucial infrastructure gaps unaddressed.
He told the minister the housing plan is a blueprint for failure and offers "more gloss, more spin, nothing new and certainly no delivery." He described the published plan as an abomination and said it compounds government failure in rural areas.
He highlighted missing wastewater capacity, water connections and transport links as concrete barriers that prevent housing delivery, arguing that without enabling infrastructure housing simply cannot be delivered.
He cited Ardmore as a village facing an existential demographic crisis because an affordable housing scheme has been passed between local authority and department for years and remains in limbo, driving young people out and risking the loss of services and the village's demographic core.
He said the housing crisis in Waterford is undermining towns, villages and the city, with rents rising "up 7.6 this year" and affordable and social homes stuck in process and delay, leaving families waiting.
He and his colleagues appealed to the minister to change course but expressed little hope, repeating that the published plan is unacceptable and urging an end to what he called neglect and indifference.
Main critique
He told the minister the housing plan is a blueprint for failure and offers "more gloss, more spin, nothing new and certainly no delivery." He described the published plan as an abomination and said it compounds government failure in rural areas.
Infrastructure barriers
He highlighted missing wastewater capacity, water connections and transport links as concrete barriers that prevent housing delivery, arguing that without enabling infrastructure housing simply cannot be delivered.
Local impact in Ardmore
He cited Ardmore as a village facing an existential demographic crisis because an affordable housing scheme has been passed between local authority and department for years and remains in limbo, driving young people out and risking the loss of services and the village's demographic core.
Wider pressure across Waterford
He said the housing crisis in Waterford is undermining towns, villages and the city, with rents rising "up 7.6 this year" and affordable and social homes stuck in process and delay, leaving families waiting.
Appeal for change
He and his colleagues appealed to the minister to change course but expressed little hope, repeating that the published plan is unacceptable and urging an end to what he called neglect and indifference.
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Transcript
Minister, your housing plan, and thanks for finally coming before the Dáil to speak to it, is a blueprint for failure. And it has next to nothing to say about rural depopulation, because we know that it will take real action if we're to confront that problem. Communities across the state are being slowly hollowed out, and in some cases quite quickly hollowed out, because government has failed to deliver the homes, the services and the opportunities that young people need to stay rooted in their communities and their own places. Once young people are forced out, everything else begins to erode. The school, the post office, community organisations, the GA club. And the failure of government is compounded by barriers to rural planning in the absence of basic enabling infrastructure. Wastewater capacity, water connections and transport links are missing, and without them housing simply cannot be delivered. This is the direct consequence of a government that has turned its back on rural Ireland. And this housing plan offers more gloss, more spin, nothing new and certainly no delivery. That is the steeple plan for theataicke of rural Ireland. This is a large part of theataicke of rural Ireland, and it is the pattern of theataicke of simple things and theaicke of rural Ireland. The new tfam Wastewater study is used by the two parts and many people who have tried to produce this project today. The village has a very good idea, but there is also a very good idea. Theataicke of rural Ireland has been a different place to help from the villages. The housing crisis in Waterford is now undermining the very future of towns, villages and indeed the city. Rents are rising out of control, up 7.6 this year, above average, and while affordable and social homes remain stuck in process and delay, families are left waiting. And nowhere is that failure more stark than in the village of Ardmore, where a community is facing an existential demographic crisis because an affordable housing scheme that has been spoken about and pushed from pillar to post, from local authority to department and department back to local authority for years, because that has been left in limbo. Young people have been driven out and are being driven out still. The demographic core is spinning and the village risks losing the very people who sustain its services, its school and its very identity minister. And that same pressure stretches from Dunmore East till Ismore, from Bonmahan to Waterford City, and this neglect and indifference must end. So like my colleagues have said, we appeal to you to change course, but we hold very little hope because this plan that you've published is an abomination. And it is an abomination.