Rory Hearne

I also wish happy Christmas to all the staff, the Ceann Comhairle and the Ministers. Nollaig Shona. I look forward to continuing our engagement in the new year. I will refer to one case in particular in my constituency but I wish to raise the broader issue affecting people which we are being inundated about. It is the issue of people facing eviction. They are being evicted from the private rental…

I want to highlight the issue and to really push the Minister of State on it. Could he take it back to the Minister as well? There needs to be a step-change in how this Government approaches the tenant in situ scheme. When we look at the funding that has been allocated, it is €22 million to enable the purchase of homes for those who are in long-term homelessness, but at €400,000 per home, that is …

Why is the Taoiseach not doing an emergency eviction ban?

At least acknowledge the Government's failure.

The Government can stop families from being homeless now.

It is a disaster.

We will not be opposing these measures. I want to make some general points, particularly on the issue of tackling vacancy and dereliction. The grants the Minister announced this week are quite frustrating in many ways because there is no guarantee the public funding that is given out will actually go to ensuring the delivery of affordable homes. It is very frustrating because we are now seeing up …

I ask for time this week to debate child homelessness. This Christmas we will have a record number of homeless children in emergency accommodation - 5,274. I ask for time to be put aside this week to debate the issue and to discuss emergency measures that could be brought in to stop the number of families and children being evicted into homelessness.

I support the motion. I highlight the issue of the cost-of-living crisis that is affecting a great many people across this country. In my own constituency, in areas of severe disadvantage like Ballymun and Finglas, people are literally living hand to mouth. Last week, we heard people with disabilities say that they are choosing between eating and heating. That is not just a phrase and it does not …

I think the lack of seriousness of the Minister of State's response was incredible. I have to say it was quite shocking. He did not even take any significant amount of his allocated time for the response. I am a cat owner, not a dog owner, but I know that many of my fellow cat owners will be very supportive. I was sitting this morning with my cat, listening to Deputy Whitmore on "Morning Ireland",…

I also welcome the young people from the Finglas Youth Service in my constituency who are visiting tonight. It is wonderful to have them in and it is interesting because it makes me reflect on this. I have looked at it and I am concerned, as others have expressed, by its rushed nature and the fact that we have not been given the time to go through it in detail. It connects with young people coming…

I support Deputy Ward in the points he made. The number of amendments that were ruled out of order, particularly in relation to the public inquiry, is disappointing. There is much that we need to learn from what has happened and from what is going on. There is a real lack of accountability in the whole response that we have seen so far. It is very interesting. The Oireachtas Library and Research S…

I want to speak to and support the amendments. The starting point is that, as I have said before in this Chamber, housing is a fundamental human right. I do not think it is a coincidence that there is no mention of housing being a human right in the Government's new housing plan, because what is going on in Donegal, Mayo and other counties, including Limerick, Sligo and Clare, shows why housing is…

I support the comments made on this. Given that the previous Minister and Government had essentially encouraged people to apply and they did that in good faith, it seems deeply unfair that they are now being disadvantaged. I think that is unfair and the Minister should explain why that is the situation.

Coming from the committees, it is hard. Deputy Quaide has outlined our many concerns in relation to CETA. Today, my inbox has been flooded with messages from constituents encouraging me to vote against amending the Arbitration Act. As pointed out, there is no EU deadline that requires this Government to ratify the Act. The Government is jumping the gun and no one is asking it to do so. It is anoth…

I want to talk about a number of people from my constituency with whom I have been working. While changes are happening, we need to be careful. Parents and their children have been suffering. They have been neglected and there is a huge issue with trust. In these changes, there will be a real need to bring parents and families along. The big concern is that the changes are another way to avoid tak…

I raise the issue of bus services and Bus Connects in Dublin North-West. For the public in Finglas and Glasnevin, it feels like BusConnects is more like bus disconnects. It has disconnected them from their schools, access to the city centre and work. I had a public meeting last week that was packed out. People are furious. Their lives have been turned upside down. They are completely reliant on pu…

There is a meeting tomorrow.

We have engaged with the NTA.

We hope they will listen.

The housing disaster, as the Minister is well aware, is worsening by the day. Unfortunately, the housing plan he and his Government have developed offers very little hope that they are willing to accept the utter failure of this and successive Governments. This housing plan is no radical reset. It is no radical transformation and, in particular, it offers nothing but words to the thousands who are…

To echo what my colleague has said, there is a need for a very clear plain language explanation of what is the rationale behind these changes. I was at the committee last week and while there is clearly a need to make changes they need to be explained. It is very frustrating for us as new TDs to come in here when we had heard from the previous Government, which the Minister was part of, that essen…

It is deeply disappointing that the Bill was just published today. That did not give us sufficient time to go through it. While we did go through it in the housing committee, I do not think it is good practice to issue legislation on the day it is to be debated in the Dáil. I ask the Minister to reconsider how legislation is put through in the future. It is not sufficient time for us to go through…

I thank Deputy Murphy and People Before Profit for bringing forward this Bill. When we look at housing conditions in the private rental sector, we see that there is an absolute tsunami of situations where people are living in substandard accommodation. I have met people living in the private rental sector who are living with mould and damp. As the Minister of State will know, this is significant b…

One of the most frustrating aspects of this is that the Irish people have shown leadership where the Government has failed. No other country has seen the level of protests, mobilisation and community action there has been in every one of our cities, towns and villages. We have seen Irish people take action on a daily basis in support of and in solidarity with Palestine. The Irish people gave the G…