I want to return to the issue of social housing, which has rightly been raised frequently in this House over the past number of years. There are currently around 100,000 social housing applicants on local authority lists across the country. Many of these people would never have envisaged having to add their names to such lists and their failure to find housing sees them sleeping in cars and staying in bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation. They sleep on friends' sofas, floors and mattresses and families have been splintered by the failure to provide social housing. A man held in high esteem in Ireland and internationally, Fr. Peter McVerry, summed up the situation last May when he said that in his 40 years of dealing with homelessness he had never seen things so bad. He described a tsunami of homelessness relating to the housing shortage and said the situation was beyond crisis.

Does the Government agree with the Labour Party suggestion on introducing rent control? A cap has been placed on social housing rents and this has caused real difficulties, particularly in the greater Dublin area. Why has the Government not used the strategic investment fund to deliver social housing?

I thank the Deputy for his questions. When Deputy Jan O'Sullivan was Minister of State with responsibility for housing she made significant progress on this but everyone appreciates that problems emerge as an economy comes out of recession and they must be addressed. Ireland has quickly gone from having no housing market to having problems on the supply side. The supply side affects the availability of both private housing and social housing. There is a new Minister at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and a new Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey. They are working assiduously to develop plans to meet the need for social housing. Suggestions such as those made by the Deputy will be considered because we all know there is a problem.

The Deputy will recall that when his party was in Government policy changed from the direct provision of houses by construction by local authorities to the use of local authority housing budgets to purchase private houses in private housing estates. That is one way to address supply but there are other ways and they will all be considered in the context of the budget.

I have much regard for the Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and we were told some time ago that she would engage with the Department of Social Protection to deal with the crisis in rent allowance but this problem has not been addressed. My main concern relating to the delivery of social housing is that we cannot wait for the implementation of another plan - we need a direct construction programme. The Minister and his colleagues in Government have spoken of a solution that is off-balance sheet. The Minister of State with responsibility for housing has spoken of the voluntary sector providing housing. The Minister recently suggested the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, should provide housing. The Government is standing back from a burning crisis that is affecting the day-to-day lives of people, suggesting another entity, be it the voluntary sector or NAMA, should solve the problem. I suggest the Minister and the Government must solve the problem by directly building local authority housing. I suggest the National Pensions Reserve Fund be used as €1 billion would construct around 6,000 local authority houses, which would generate huge employment across the country. Funding from the National Pensions Reserve Fund could leverage other funding into the housing market. Will the Government take immediate action in these areas?

The disaster caused by Deputy Ó Fearghaíl's party in government was so cataclysmic that every sector of the economy was affected.

Answer the question.

Freagair an cheist.

Please wait for the reply.

It totally fractured the capacity of the construction industry to provide either public or private houses.

Hear, hear.

The recovery is now under way. Before Deputy Jan O'Sullivan was promoted to the office of Minister for Education and Skills she prevailed on local authorities to repair houses that were locked up as many such houses were around the country. That was the first step and then she held talks with NAMA that still continue. NAMA notified the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government several months ago that it has over 4,000 houses available for the purposes of social housing and local authorities indicate that they will take up around 2,000 of these.

The direct provision of housing is an option but it requires finance. The suggestion made by the Deputy is being considered but at this time of year Ministers are involved in negotiating Estimates for their Departments. When departmental budgets are set announcements will be made on all problems, including that identified by the Deputy.