I propose to answer questions Nos. 1 to 16, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on housing last met on 2 March. The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for 17 April. This committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of Housing for All. Progress on Housing for All is reported on a quarterly basis. The latest progress report, for quarter 4 of 2022, was published on 7 February. The report for quarter 1 of 2023 will be published in April. Solving the housing crisis is one of the…

The first question came from my colleague, Deputy Durkan. I agree with his basic contention that we need to accelerate the implementation of Housing for All. We have made progress but we need to do a lot more and a lot quicker. I agree with what he said in that regard. There are lots of reasons for hope by the way. We have more house building than at any time since 2008, more first-time buyers than any time since 2010, and more new social housing than any time since the 1970s, yet we need to accelerate that and mak…

We need to increase our efforts, ambition and delivery. Deputy Durkan is absolutely right in that regard - not just to say it or demonstrate it, but to do it. In regard to Deputy Boyd Barrett's question on protests, I have no difficulty at all with protests. They are an important part of democracy. They are not allowed in some countries which he champions, but they are allowed-----

-----in this country, provided the protests are peaceful.

Are protests allowed to take place peacefully in Cuba and Venezuela?

I am glad that it is on the record of the House that the Deputy is not supportive of Cuba. I thank him.

I thank the Deputy. That is a revelation. I do apologise and withdraw-----

I do apologise and withdraw it if I was mistaken in ever thinking that Deputy Smith and Deputy Boyd Barrett were ever supporters of Cuba.

They have confirmed that they have never been supporters of Cuba. It is on the record of the House today. I have no problem or objection and I welcome peaceful protest. A number of Deputies referred to the motion of confidence. I note that we won by a margin of almost 20. We did not need the votes of Independent Deputies, but we had quite a lot of them, which is very welcome, and I thank them for it. Given the margin of victory, it is difficult to understand why some commentators seem to be thinking in the past wee…

I think there are pros and cons. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that when the Government or the public sector builds something that it takes longer and costs more. That may be for very good reasons. It might be because the workers have better pensions or pay and because we have to go through certain public procedures, but it probably is the case that if the Government does something, for lots of good reasons, it is going to cost more and it is going to take longer. We would have to bear that in mind in any …

It might also displace workers and displace development from the private sector at a higher cost and take longer. We need to bear those things in mind too when we make decisions.

I answered twice already in previous sessions.

I am happy to respond to the Deputy's questions. I am at a slight disadvantage here in that it takes much longer to answer a question than to ask it. I may need the entire remainder of this session to do so.

I was asked about emergency accommodation. There is more emergency accommodation coming on stream. As I have always said, emergency accommodation is not a solution. It is only a backstop and it is only a temporary solution that some people need sometimes. In many cases, it is for a few weeks or a few months. It is certainly our objective that if anyone needs emergency accommodation it should not be for a prolonged period.

Sometimes it can be, but it is not usually for years. It is mostly for less than a year.

As Deputy Boyd Barrett knows, it is often the case that when we drill into those individual cases it can be quite a complicated story. In some cases people have been offered social housing and they have not accepted it, perhaps for good reasons, and in other cases they may not be entitled to social housing at all. An increasing feature of people in emergency accommodation is that they do not have an entitlement to social housing. That is something we are going to need to find a solution to, because it is making the…

What happens is a very practical, fair and humanitarian thing. If a case comes before a judge and a person is facing eviction into homelessness, what a judge will often do – it is up to them to hear all sides of the case and do the kind of thing we do not allow ourselves to do in this House – is to say they are not issuing the order for eviction and that they are going to allow some time for a solution to be found. That is what I was referring to. It would be very rare for that not to be the case. It would be usefu…

It would be interesting for them to ask the question of how many eviction orders are issued by the courts every year in Ireland. Thankfully, in Ireland, unlike in many other countries, getting an eviction order from the courts, which is the only place one can get an eviction order from, is not that easy. In regard to how the decision was made by the Cabinet, it was made on the recommendation of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It was made on the advice of his officials, who strongly recommen…

For lots of reasons. That was the basis for the decision.

In regard to the modelling question, which I have answered on numerous occasions, this is an area that is almost impossible to model statistically. First, there are lots of reasons people end up homeless in emergency accommodation, for example, family breakdown. There is no way of statistically modelling how many families are going to break down in the next month or the next six months.