It is very much to the credit of many of the tens of thousands of people who are affected by defective apartments and the consequences of cowboy builders who were allowed to run amok in this country that, finally, we have a redress scheme. I welcome that fact, that assurances are being given it will be 100% redress and that it will be retrospective. However, the devil is always in the detail in these things. I would like and, more importantly, tens of thousands affected by this would like to see the details of the …

The proposed deal between Coillte, the State forestry company, and Gresham House, a UK-based investment fund, is an absolute disgrace on a par with the previous, utterly shameful plan first signed off by Fianna Fáil and the Greens in 2010, and followed through on by the Fine Gael-Labour Government, to sell off the harvesting rights of Coillte in 2013 to pay off the bankers' debts. I am thankful that shameful proposal was defeated through mass protests but now we essentially have a continuation of that attempt by th…

I do not wish to be ungracious, but this is not a time for standing ovations or self-congratulation. We are living in one of the richest countries in the world and yet, one in five of our population is living at risk of poverty. As we head into Christmas, there are 3,400 children who are going to go through Christmas in emergency accommodation. There are a total of 11,000 people who are homeless and in emergency accommodation, many of whom are children who will suffer their second, third or fourth Christmas in such…

Up to 100,000 families and individuals are living in dangerously defective homes that are fire hazards, have water ingress, chronic damp, structural defects and cracks everywhere, all because of the disgusting greed of property developers who were facilitated every step of the way by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in the feeding frenzy that was the Celtic tiger. These people have been left with the bitter consequences. Of course, the mica and pyrite families and households had to fight every step of the way and are stil…

There have been 886 to date this year.

Buy some as well.

I wish everybody in the House a good Christmas, particularly the service officers, ushers, all the staff in the Oireachtas, the Bills Office, the people who work in the canteens and restaurants, the cleaners and everybody else who helps us operate this place. I thank you all and hope you have a good Christmas. A young mother with a teenaged son is watching this debate. She is four years in emergency accommodation. She works as an agency worker for a State agency looking after vulnerable children, which is ironic as…

It is a matter of urgency and necessity that we re-nationalise our energy sector and put it back on a not-for-profit footing. I say this from the perspective of people who, when we are faced with the sort of energy crisis we are now witnessing, are being crucified by a market, for-profit system which has no capacity to control the price of heating, energy and hot water that human beings need to sustain themselves through periods like this cold snap we are experiencing. I wish to bring the argument down to the core …

They are always ignored.

Try growing a few trees.

I thank the Minister of State. I agree with him there.

Why does the Government continue to repeat the false mantra that objections by residents groups to planning applications, rather than the speculation of property investors are the cause of the housing crisis and the slow delivery of housing and residential development, particularly when a Government report says that it is speculation? The report, published in July, shows 75,000 planning permission applications for apartments, but only 5,000 apartments are being built annually. It explains that this "could indicate …

There is no evidence in that document - not a single mention of planning.

To say this is a mess would be understating the situation. It is difficult to know where to begin. I cannot really see credible justifications for some of the provisions in this Bill. It is being rammed through Second, Committee and Remaining Stages in one day, although it is dealing with such serious matters. This is being done without proper scrutiny or any real evidence or justification for what the Minister is trying to do. In the brief time allowed to me, I will summarise the rationale behind what I have just …

We recognise the board has to function. However, the idea that the Minister will appoint the chair and board for a year and then have the option to do so for another year is a difficulty for us.

We accept there needs to be an interim process, but the period involved does not need to be a year. We want the whole thing scrutinised and discussed in detail in here in terms of how all of this will work and to ensure it is genuinely open, transparent and diverse and not subject to untoward influences from particular industry stakeholders, interests or political influence. Therefore, there should not be carte blanche for the Minister over an extended period. The matter should be discussed in detail in the House s…

On Thursday, Jacqueline, a mother of two teenage children and wife to Richard, a man who has worked all his life - both of them are in their late 50s - rang me in tears to tell me they are going to be in court in the first week of February to face eviction from the home where they have lived all their lives. This is despite claims by the Government that it has brought in an eviction ban.

They have both written to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage-----

What is the Government going to do to protect people who have done absolutely nothing wrong from being evicted from their homes? Will it finally bring in an eviction ban that actually prevents people who have done nothing wrong from being thrown out of their homes like this family?

Nobody else did.