We know he has exceeded his time. He has to go.

I have to be honest and say I am sick and tired of hearing the Taoiseach or representatives of the Government say it takes time to fix the homelessness and housing emergency. I came into the Dáil in 2011 and brought in with me, probably for the first time, dozens of families and individuals, including children, who were facing housing emergencies at that time. I warned the Taoiseach that his policy of moving away from direct council housing construction towards reliance on the private sector would generate a crisis. Today, again, there are approximately 25 households, individuals, families and children in the Visitors Gallery. They are just the tip of a very dire and desperate iceberg of misery, anxiety, insecurity and suffering because of the abject and total failure of the Government's policies on housing and homelessness.

I want the Taoiseach to look those people in the eye and tell them that his housing policies are working. Tell Sinead and her three year old daughter, who was told a few weeks ago to go 12 km into town with her children to a hostel where there are active drug users. She then had to fight to get into a hotel and last week was taken into hospital with stress because she is still homeless. Tell James and his family - a mother and their five children - who have been homeless for the past six months, whose daughter has special needs and who are being pushed from one hotel or emergency accommodation to another. Tell Richard, who is recovering from addiction and who is only offered hostels where drug use is rampant despite letters from his doctors about his mental health issues. Tell Peter, who is drug free but who is in emergency accommodation with active drug users, whose mental health is seriously at stake and who was recently hospitalised. Tell Carrie, who has been homeless for a year and is forced to share a room with three people who are smoking heroin. Tell Tom, who has been homeless for five years and who had to lodge court papers against South Dublin County Council because it took him off the housing list and took away his time. Tell Amanda and her two children, Sarah and Eamon and their four children, Samantha and her three children, all of whom had HAP tenancies - the Government's great solution and the centrepiece of its housing policy - and who are all now being evicted by landlords who want to pull out of the HAP arrangements.

I thank the Deputy

Tell Antonia, whose father has motor neurone disease and who - along with her father - is about to be evicted at the end of this month and has nowhere to go.

I thank the Deputy and I call the Taoiseach.

Tell Anna, who is living in a boxroom at her parents' house, sharing with her 14 year old niece, her two year old daughter and a three year old son. The list goes on. I will be writing to the Taoiseach with all of these cases.

I have to call the Taoiseach. We want to get an answer.

The Taoiseach should please tell them what he is going to do for them and that his housing solutions are working for them.

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett. The very reasons the Deputy outlined for the people who are faced with this situation are the result of an economy that collapsed and a construction sector that vanished. This Government and that which preceded it have set about rectifying matters. We have done a lot of things in terms of having an engine to drive the economy. The people who are going into the 38 houses that are being completed in September of this year in Belcamp have the same stories. The people who are going to occupy the 24 houses in Cherry Orchard in July of this year have the same stories.

The people who are going into the 30 houses on Mourne Road in Drimnagh in June of this year have the same stories. The people who are going into the 39 houses in St. Helena's in Finglas have the same stories. I could give the Deputy their names and their details also. I feel sorry for those in the situation the Deputy has described. I do not know about the situation whereby a housing officer or an individual in a local council would send somebody ten or 12 miles away, as the Deputy has described. He mentioned that particular case before.

There are lists of houses that are currently under construction and for which taxpayers' money has been put up. Money has been given to local authorities to get on with building. Quite recently, €200 million was allocated by this House to obtain access to sites so houses could be built for people such as those the Deputy describes. Nobody wants to see the situation continue. This Government is working very actively on this. That is why there is a senior Ministry for housing and a special unit in the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. That is why an unprecedented amount has been provided to all local authorities to buy, renovate or build houses. We will not have this solved until the people the Deputy mentions and those who come after them, or those who find themselves in particular difficulties, are housed in proper accommodation. That is the intention and ambition of the Government.

I am afraid the Taoiseach is in denial. This is not about the collapse in 2008; it is about a policy decision the Taoiseach's Government made in 2011 at which time he said the new policy represents a fundamental reconfiguration of the landscape of housing support in Ireland. The statement went into detail. The Government was to stop building council housing and rely on leasing arrangements with the private sector. That is the root of the problem. It has been a disastrous failure. The plan of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, has not broken from that. It has, in fact, expanded that misguided, disastrously-failing policy, which is resulting in people in HAP tenancies – the centrepiece of the Taoiseach's strategy – now being evicted from the supposedly secure social housing the Taoiseach said the policy would provide for them. There is ridiculous box-ticking with the objective of getting everybody out of hotels by July. Does the Taoiseach know where they go? They go onto the street or into hubs in town that are full of addiction and drug use. The strategy is failing disastrously and the Taoiseach will not admit it.

Will the Taoiseach do what Mr. Edmund Honohan advocated and start a compulsory purchase programme to buy empty properties and buildings to house the people in these circumstances? Will he order NAMA to immediately stop selling off land and property-----

If the Deputy wants to get a response-----

-----and use all its resources to provide social housing?

The Deputy may not circumvent a rule.

Will he ensure that people in the HAP programme have secure accommodation and that local authorities will be obliged to keep them in permanent and secure housing?

I will move on to the next question. I call Deputy Thomas Pringle.

Otherwise, the weasel words mean nothing.

I ask Deputy Thomas Pringle to put his question. If Deputy Boyd Barrett is going to try to circumvent the rules, he should note it is wrong to abuse them.

I went a few seconds over.

I have warned the Deputy.

Deputy Micheál Martin went eight minutes over.

He did not go eight minutes over; nobody went eight minutes over.

Calm down.

I will give the Taoiseach 60 seconds.

Could I have a response?

All the things Deputy Boyd Barrett mentions are available to local authorities now.

They are not.

They have been given money to buy houses. They have been provided with money by the taxpayer to build houses. They have been given incentives to get into sites that have been inaccessible for building. They have the opportunity to provide public land that they have in their possession in order that builders may come and build houses for them.

The Government is selling the land.

The root cause of the problem is not what Deputy Boyd Barrett says but a lack of supply of houses. I do not know where the Deputy lives but-----

It is a lack of supply of council houses.

-----he cannot wave his wand out in Dún Laoghaire and build houses like that. It takes blocks, concrete foundations, planning permission and all the rest of it. That is what is happening.

Six years.

That is why the Government put €5.3 billion on the table for the period between now and 2021 to build those houses so that the people with difficulties to whom the Deputy referred and their children can be housed in proper and fit accommodation.

Go raibh maith agat, a Thaoisigh.

That is the kind of accommodation that is now being provided in the areas I have outlined for the Deputy for the very same kind of people who have the very same kinds of problems. We cannot deal with them all right away.

The Taoiseach has to observe the rules as well. I call Deputy Thomas Pringle.

Work on all of these issues, including rent pressure zones and HAP, is in full flow in the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and is receiving the attention of the Minister.

The Taoiseach has not answered the question for the people in the Gallery. He should tell them how his solutions work for them.

I call Deputy Pringle.

Of course.

The question was from Deputy Boyd Barrett and the Taoiseach has answered it. Deputy Pringle has three minutes.