I acknowledge that the housing crisis has reached more than 10,000 homeless. On the other hand, Tipperary County Council has spent €371,000 per unit on houses in Cabra in Thurles for Traveller families that have been lying idle since last October. The Minister of State, Deputy English, might answer this question. The average price of a house in Tipperary is €167,000. These have cost a staggering €371,000 per house and the families are refusing to move into them. They have horses grazing on the lawns. Are we going to review the Traveller accommodation plan? A councillor had a motion down at a meeting yesterday and the director of services refused to attend to deal with it. This is causing great anger and angst all over Tipperary and beyond. If we give in to a set of preconditions for people to move into state-of-the-art houses, built at enormous cost and which are almost three times the cost of normal houses, we will set a very bad precedent in Tipperary and I do not want that. It is time this was resolved and I ask the Minister of State to intervene with the county council. This is the cost to date, not the full cost. The reply I have got says it is the cost to date. There is subterfuge going on here. There is a €500,000 increase on what we knew at first. I want to know if this will be allowed to continue. It is farcical when people throughout the country are waiting for houses and sleeping on the streets.

The Tánaiste will answer the Deputy.

We need to be careful with how we speak about and debate issues around Traveller accommodation when it comes to social housing because it is easy to move into dog whistle territory here if we are not careful-----

It is not a dog whistle.

-----with the kind of questioning that the Deputy is posing here today.

It is not a dog whistle. It is an honest question and the sooner we deal with it the better.

Dealing with the housing demands of the Traveller community in Ireland is complex, difficult and at times very political. Local authorities have difficult challenges to meet in this regard without us making it more difficult for them.

There is no accountability.

To be singling out a small number of houses-----

It is public money and there is no accountability.

-----and specifically painting a picture of a problem with the Traveller community is something that the Deputy should reflect on.

I resent that lecture. I resent it totally. We are in a housing crisis.

It is true.

I resent that lecture from an arrogant Tánaiste who cannot build a henhouse not to mind build a doghouse for people.