Last November, the Taoiseach came to Clongriffin in Dublin Bay North with the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to lay the foundation stone for an 84-unit social housing development for the Iveagh Trust. Unfortunately these 84 welcome new homes we spoke of on that happy occasion will not be delivered until quarter 2 of 2019. Probably like the Taoiseach and many other Deputies, I meet dozens of citizens and families every weekend who are in great anxiety and distress over the Government's continuing failure to deliver social and affordable housing. I meet constituents who have spent 12, 14, 16 and even up to 20 years on housing and transfer lists and some of these are facing eviction from rental accommodation scheme, housing assistance payment and rent supplement supported tenancies, sometimes on foot of a court order. Other desperate families are approaching two years or more in emergency homeless accommodation. It is also very depressing that homeless families with young children are still being allocated hotel-type accommodation, eight months after the Tánaiste promised me that that practice would cease. Recently, I came across two young people who were living in a car during the current dreadfully cold weather.

Dublin Bay North, as the Taoiseach may know, comprises the largest Dublin City Council housing area, area B, and the southern part of the Howth-Malahide housing area of Fingal county. The social housing statistics prepared by our city and county managers, Mr. Owen Keegan and Mr. Paul Reid, confirm the sense of hopelessness felt by my constituents in dire need of housing. On the last Dublin city waiting lists and allocations report, there were an astonishing 7,114 families and individuals on homeless, housing and transfer lists in area B out of 27,000 citywide. In the 2017 Housing Agency Rebuilding Ireland report, even before the numbers of households on the Howth-Malahide list are added to the city total, Dublin Bay North had the highest housing waiting list in Ireland, even bigger than the whole of Fingal and South Dublin. It is much more shocking that almost 700 of these individuals and families are homeless and nearly 900 have been waiting for more than ten years with a further almost 2,500 waiting more than five years. This is not just a problem for Dublin Bay North, as we have heard again today.

I do not doubt the sincerity of the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and national and local housing officials but the above data clearly show that Rebuilding Ireland is not working for our constituents. Over the past decade, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have done everything possible to support a dysfunctional, rigged property market. At the same time, it was the Taoiseach's Government and Fianna Fáil which cut Dublin and local authorities' staff by 20% to 35% since 2008. Is it not time to abandon the ideological posturing and commit to a massive emergency programme of public, social and affordable housing as advocated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and its Charter for Housing Rights? Besides the declaration of a national housing and homelessness emergency, that charter demands a referendum to put the right to housing into the Constitution, robust legislation on tenants' rights, rents and standards of accommodation, a ban on evictions of citizens, families and children into homelessness and a land management policy based on the Kenny report and necessary compulsory purchase orders, CPOs. These demands are echoed by the Campaign for Public Housing which I also support. As part of this programme, will the Taoiseach now establish a national social and affordable housing development and construction company, even initially in the Dublin and other urban regions? I know the Taoiseach was discussing an amendment of the National Asset Management Agency legislation to permit NAMA to have this function. That seems impossible but we need a national effort because these figures are disgraceful.

I do not think anyone in this House doubts the scale of the challenge we face with regard to housing and homelessness. I certainly acknowledge the scale of the challenge that we face. We see some limited progress. The number of people sleeping rough in the past couple of weeks has gone down as a consequence of the additional bedrooms put in by the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, before Christmas. The number of families living in bed and breakfast accommodation and hotels is down from the peak. In the last month for which we have records, the number of families in emergency accommodation is down, but that may well just be a seasonal blip and I would not read too much into it at this stage. It indicates some progress in some areas.

We should not forget where we are coming from with regard to the crisis we face with housing. We had a seven-year period after a severe economic crisis during which very few homes were built at all. The banks were bust, the construction industry collapsed and the Government was not in a position to build new housing because of the fiscal crisis. In that period, however, the population continued to grow and many new households were formed. We are now playing catch-up and we are catching up. The amount of social housing built by local authorities is being ramped up. There were only 657 direct builds in 2016 and there were 2,045 last year.

The number of social homes built directly by the councils and approved housing bodies has trebled and we are also seeing an increased uptake in construction in the private housing sector. It will take some time before things stabilise and further time before we get on top of things.

In regard to cutbacks in Dublin City Council and the Deputy's reference to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as best as I can recall, Dublin City Council is controlled not by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael but by a coalition of left-wing groups which have the ability to vary local property tax and commercial rates. Any decision to cut back staffing in the local authority could have been mitigated by decisions taken by the left-wing councillors on the city council, but they chose not to do so.

The Government slashed the councils' funding and on many occasions voted to keep the funding for Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council low. Councillors had no choice. We need more than empathy; we need action. There is no credible delivery pipeline of social and affordable housing in Dublin Bay North or the rest of the country. The statistics in the reports we received recently show that only 322 direct build homes were delivered by Dublin City Council across the city of Dublin in the period 2015 to 2017 and that only seven homes were built by Fingal County Council in the period 2010 to 2015 and only 76 in 2016-17. There are well over 7,000 applicants on the housing list in Fingal County Council, as well as over 400 homeless families. It is no wonder that the European Commission, in its latest post-programme surveillance report, has severely criticised the Government's flimsy and lethargic housing policies. The Commission highlights the almost 20% increase in rents since the crash-era peaks and the pathetic trickle of social and affordable housing. The daft.ie report published today shows that rents in Dublin 13, a key postal district in Dublin Bay North, are in the territory of €1,800 to €2,000 per month. What chance does a person in receipt of the housing assistance payment have of finding a house? The Government proposes to spend €1 billion per year from 2019 on the housing assistance payment. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have spent approximately €7 billion on rent support payments in recent years. Why not just build houses?

Rebuilding Ireland was never supposed to be a plan that would work in six months, nine months or one year. It is a multiannual plan to be funded in a five to six-year timeframe. The nature of a five or ten-year plan is such that it will not work after five or six months or one year. The Deputy asked why the Government does not just get building. That is exactly what we are doing. The number of direct builds by local authorities and approved housing bodies increased from 650 in 2016 to 2,245 last year and that number will increase again this year. The number of voids brought back into use last year was 1,757. The number of houses acquired by local authorities last year was 2,266, an increase on the less than 2,000 acquired the previous year. It sometimes makes sense for local authorities to acquire houses rather than build them because it is quicker and helps to develop more integrated communities. In addition, another 798 houses were delivered through leasing arrangements. Through different mechanisms over 7,000 homes were added to the social housing stock last year, which made a real difference. It should not be forgotten that every working day the Government, through local authorities and approved housing bodies, houses 100 individuals and families. We will continue to ramp up provision until we get to the point of stability and then get ahead of it too.