I call Deputy McNamara.

Is Deputy Pringle not next?

I have a different name down here.

I understood I was to speak. In Donegal, 7,700 properties are lying vacant while 2,646 families are on the housing list in the county. There is no doubt that there is a direct link between dereliction and the current housing crisis. There is also no doubt that the whole us-versus-them narrative is one that has been fuelled by this Government unfortunately. For this, it should be ashamed. There is no reason we cannot house all those on the housing list in Donegal, displaced refugees and all those affected by the mica crisis, who are required to live elsewhere while their houses are being rebuilt. I have been saying this for a while now but we need to figure out what we are going to do about the many families who will be displaced due to mica. As time ticks on and the redress scheme is put in place, I am anxious that hundreds of families in Donegal will be displaced over the coming years. I have been contacted by one family with a seven-year-old child with a disability. They say:

I am sure you are aware of the shortage of rental properties in our country, never mind our county. The possibility of us finding a rental property with wheelchair accessibility is going to be non-existent and a mobile home is going to be completely out of the question for us in our situation. Our existing home may not be in great shape but is accessible for our son [at the moment]. We are a young normal family from Donegal that seem to be stuck in this unfortunate situation like so many others.

Unfortunately, this is only one of many mica families who have contacted me regarding their anxiety about finding rental accommodation while dealing with the mica crisis during a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. The Government is literally forcing people to endure crisis after crisis and doing absolutely nothing to help them. This issue will only continue to get worse. The Government needs to pull the finger out and put a plan in place. I know of many people in Donegal who have offered their accommodation to Ukrainian refugees and were refused. Is there no way we could set up a system to allow these people to offer their accommodation to mica families who need temporary accommodation while their houses are rebuilt? We have shown that these systems can be put in place. Why then are we not using them to help Donegal families? What is the Government going to do to address the rental crisis faced by displaced mica families in Donegal?

As I said, huge activity has been under way on the housing front, notwithstanding Covid-19 and the inflationary cycle that has come as a result of the war in Ukraine, which affected house construction. We will exceed our targets on the Housing for All plan this year. We will get more than 24,600 houses but that is not enough. We need to get to 33,000 houses per annum. Next year’s target is 29,000, as per the plan. That needs a collective approach from everybody in this House and from society.

Our planning system will be overhauled but it needs to be overhauled because we do not have the luxury of opposing housing projects here, there and everywhere, on an ongoing basis or in a serial manner, because that just slows down the process whereby people who need houses get houses. The younger generation needs houses and access to houses.

In regard to Donegal, the Minister will meet the chief executive officer of Donegal County Council next week to discuss a range of issues. The mica scheme is one for the long haul in the sense that a set number of homes is coming forward. I think about 300 have been identified as needing major works.

One area we are looking at is rapid build. That has to be considered in addition to what we are doing already in regard to house building. New technologies in house construction emerge all the time, which means we can shorten the time for constructing a house. Last week, I had good discussions with Fingal County Council. I was on a site where 1,000 houses will be built. It can at least do this within 12 months, from sanction to people moving into the houses. We use terminology incorrectly about this. Much of it is new manufacturing technology and new models of delivery in terms of steel frame and factory sites doing much of the work off-site, which means people are in a position to accelerate the construction of a house. We will see greater use of rapid build to deal with all of the issues we have, including the social housing waiting list, and to deal with situations that arise in terms of mica or whatever else.

We have taken measures. I met mica group representatives in Donegal more than a year and a half ago with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien. The Minister then engaged on the cost of rent in advance, which had not been allowed in the previous scheme. We rectified that. The financial wherewithal is there now under the new legislation and new scheme to assist people in securing rental accommodation. Deputy Pringle is pointing out that there is an issue.

There is no rental accommodation.

We have to build it. We have to get more supply into the market. It is as simple as that at the end of the day. We cannot magic up houses but they can be built. We have to work on getting them built as fast as we possibly can. We will work with the representatives of the residents and the county council to see what can be done.

Maybe the Taoiseach does not recognise the urgency of the situation. Even if the mica scheme works well and 300 mica houses are done every year, where will the 300 affected families be housed? If 300 houses are done every year, it will take many years to get through all the houses affected by mica. We should be earmarking, buying and servicing sites now for temporary accommodation for people because when this scheme starts it will be too late to look for housing as it will take a year to deliver the houses. We cannot have families waiting. The problem is that families cannot get anywhere to rent.

In my end of the county, one cannot get a house to rent. There are families on the housing list that cannot get a house to rent. It is not possible. Yet, there are loads – thousands – of Airbnbs all over the place. Why not target those? If the accommodation is made available and can be done quickly for Ukrainian families, and rightly so, why has it not been done for Donegal families as well? The Government needs to be pulling out all the stops. I am glad that the Minister is meeting the chief executive next week and I hope he addresses these issues, which are vitally important and need to be addressed urgently. We will end up with a scheme starting to repair houses where families will have nowhere to go to get their house repaired and that is just not on.

In terms of Ukrainians who fled war, the vast majority are being housed in hotels and various collective accommodation. They are not in houses right now, but they are in pledged houses that individuals who, having seen what was happening in the war, decided to make their homes or vacant houses available to Ukrainians. Therefore, Ukrainians have not affected the social housing market and that impression should not go out there - they have not and that is as clear as night follows day.

The Taoiseach is not representing what I said properly.

I just want to make the point that the rapid build is only started. In terms of Ukrainians, we developed a new scheme. I told the Deputy that we have to consider rapid build for social housing and the housing issue more generally to get the numbers of houses that we can build up significantly. We need to build more houses than we are building. The past two and a half years have seen very significant progress on the housing front. The foundations have been built now legislatively as a whole range of schemes have been introduced in terms of affordability. The Croí Cónaithe scheme is there to get vacant, derelict houses rebuilt for people to own and occupy. There is a lot there now, to be fair. The first home scheme is there as well, which will help many young first-time buyers.