Tut-tut.

Respect has to be earned.

I am listening.

Respect is earned.

He is almost an independent.

We had a very large number of Private Members' debates on housing over the past number of years but this is the first time in my memory where neither the senior Minister nor the Minister of State directly responsible for the area being debated were in the Chamber. The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, demanded that we treat him with respect. I would suggest to the first-time Deputy that if he wants Members of this House to treat him with respect he should show the House the respect it deserves and at least sta…

-----of the other political parties that are in the Opposition. I want to thank the Minister of State who is here because at least he had the good grace to come and listen and to defend. I would say, and I made the same point to Deputy Duffy, that at some point the review will end and the Government will have to make a decision. That is the point at which all of us will have to make decisions around what we are willing to support. On this issue, like so many others, that road is running short and all of us will be …

Now that the dust has finally settled on the spin of yesterday's announcements, it is very clear to anybody looking at this objectively that the housing commitments in yesterday's announcements are underwhelming, unclear and wholly inadequate. The key test here is how much additional capital spending the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage secured above that which was already committed to by the outgoing Government, and how many additional homes above the target already set by the former Minister, D…

Tairgim: Go gceadófar go dtabharfar isteach Bille dá ngairtear Acht chun an Bunreacht a leasú. I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Constitution. As Deputies across the House will be aware, the housing crisis has not gone away. Rents are still unsustainably high. In fact, the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, index published last week shows rents have increased 1.8% State-wide in the last 12 months and 3.3% outside of the greater Dublin area. Three counties in particular, n…

Tairgim: "Go dtógfar an Bille in am Comhaltaí Príobháideacha." I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I welcome the opportunity to speak about what is essentially a crisis in the arts, culture and entertainment industries. The Minister is correct that more than 35,000 people are employed across a range of professions. While much of this debate has focused on the front-of-house artists and performers, and rightly so, there is a panoply of people employed in these sectors, including producers, engineers, technicians, teachers, make-up artists, drivers, caterers, cleaners and administration staff. We should never forg…

On five occasions in July after he was appointed, the Minister made a very public commitment to announce both the details, targets and regulations of his new affordable housing scheme in September. That month has come and gone and we are very keen to hear as much about the scheme as possible. When he is going to announce it? Will he give us as much information as is possible at this stage about the scheme he is working on?

We will all judge the Minister by what he does and not what he says, and he would say exactly the same thing if the tables were turned. My question, however, was on when the scheme will be published and whether the Minister could give us more detail than what he has said until now. My concern is that, on the basis of what he has been saying in the media recently, a large portion of what the Minister appears to be working on is not affordable housing. For example, with regard to the comments at the weekend on extend…

The focus has to be on bringing down prices, both to rent and to buy. I have made a number of suggestions to the Minister and his predecessor, including amending the capital advance loan facility, and allowing approved housing bodies to purchase turnkey developments, many of which would be available to purchase now because of the slowdown in Covid-19 private sector supply, to deliver them as affordable homes. It would be much cheaper than those purchased through help-to-buy or shared equity loans. Likewise, increas…

As the Minister knows, we have had a significant increase in the number of tragic and untimely deaths of people accessing emergency accommodation or sleeping rough. By August of this year, we had 39 reported such deaths in Dublin city alone. That is more than the 30-odd people who died last year and the year before in the city. We are also hearing similar reports from Galway and Cork. What is the Government's response to this serious deterioration in the situation for this particular group of homeless people?

I thank the Minister for his response. We need something more and specific on this particular problem. We have had some of the most appalling deaths. We have had rough sleepers beaten to death on the streets, allegedly for their mobile phones. We have had people taking their own lives in emergency accommodation or people dying through overdoses because of an inability to manage their addictions. What connects all of these deaths - the Minister is right that each is an individual tragedy - is that the young people i…

A good place to start would be to establish the number of these deaths annually. The information is based on media reports. While we have some data for Dublin, we do not have data from other cities. I encourage the Minister to look at that. I also encourage the Minister to look specifically at the recent increase in those deaths to see if there is something underlying it and if it requires more specific attention. It is six years since Jonathan Corrie tragically lost his life only a stone's throw from the front of …

It is important to note that on the Shanganagh Castle site, which predates the Land Development Agency, we do not know if the purchase homes will be affordable because the LDA does not yet have a purchase price for them. The LDA has told Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council that the rental units will cost €1,300 a month, which is not affordable for many of the cohorts. On the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum, the original proposition for the LDA was that 60% of the homes would be sold at open market prices.…

On all the line sites.

I am not trying to shout down the Minister of State. It is just-----