I have been raising the issue of mould in public council housing for a while. I have brought it up in Questions on Policy and Legislation and Topical Issues. It has been indicated to me the Government will look at it.

I have a young mother in north Kildare who has to bring her new baby home to a house where she and her first child have already developed respiratory conditions due to exposure to black mould. I have another young woman who has lost 21% lung capacity in her home in Naas because of blue mould. Blue mould is highly toxic, especially to people with asthma and other allergies. Ireland has one of the highest rates of respiratory diseases in the OECD. Given a coroner in England, which has a similar climate to ours, has cited mould as a cause of death in a young child, what is the plan State-wide to audit and tackle this health emergency in housing?

In my view, local authority housing is fundamentally an issue for the local authority to deal with. It should have sufficient capacity to get in early to repair, refurbish or eliminate issues that give rise to mould developing in the first place.

What is the Government doing?

In this Dáil and Oireachtas, we constantly talk about local autonomy and local government, but every time something happens, we want to say the Government must do it. Local authorities have responsibility for their housing stock. It is interesting; in the affordable housing schemes, they maintain their housing schemes and their houses. Local authorities need to do the same. Maybe, historically, there was a certain attitude when someone came in looking for basic repairs or whatever. People who are tenants are entitled to rights, whether they are in a local authority scheme or any other scheme. Mould should not be tolerated. The local authorities really need to get at it.