2. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach his plans for the implementation of the programme for Government. [4512/25]
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Normally, the Taoiseach reads the response first and then we speak.
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The programme for Government refers to reforming the triple lock legislation. It was reported last Friday that a draft law to end the triple lock will shortly be brought to Cabinet. Will the Taoiseach provide some detail on this? In what way is the triple lock going to be ended or reformed? Back in 2013, the Taoiseach, who was not then Taoiseach, hit the nail on the head when he said that the triple lock was at the core of our neutrality and described the attempt to remove it as an out-of-touch ideological obsession by Fine Gael. That is, unfortunately, an obsession the Taoiseach has now adopted, and it seems with even more gusto than Fine Gael. The Taoiseach might clarify, but I think he was in government when the invasion of Iraq took place. I was on the streets protesting against the invasion of Iraq. I see some other people in the Chamber who were also on the streets protesting. I think the Taoiseach was in government and that Government of course, while not sending troops - because it could not do so under the triple lock - to participate in that invasion, did facilitate the invasion by allowing US troops to go through Shannon Airport. Some 4 million have gone through the airport at this stage. The triple lock was the one thing that meant the Government could not send troops abroad to participate in the US-led war of invasion and occupation for oil and profit. This attack on neutrality is being done in a very misleading way, so I want to challenge the Taoiseach on a couple of assertions, in particular on one he has made repeatedly. He talks about this being about getting rid of the veto the Security Council powers have on the deployment of our forces. Does the Taoiseach accept that no such veto exists because of the Defence (Amendment) Act introduced in 2006, which makes clear that it is not only peacekeeping missions endorsed or agreed by the Security Council that unlock the third element of the triple lock but that resolutions of the General Assembly of the UN would also do so? The Taoiseach has a duty to tell people which missions he wants to send Irish troops on that he cannot currently do. The triple lock is currently in place. Where would he like to send Irish troops that he cannot because of the existence of the triple lock? He has a duty to inform people about that.
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You believed it in 2013.
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No. It does not.
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The Taoiseach is the last man standing from the Fianna Fáil Governments that blew up the property bubble and then saw the whole thing come crashing down and ordinary people paid the price for a decade or so. It seems the Taoiseach is committed to going back to the future. He is resurrecting the same policies that caused the 2008 financial crash. At the weekend, it was tax breaks for developers, whom the banking inquiry, the Housing Commission and many others found to be instrumental in blowing up that bubble. There was also a proposal to lift the rent pressure zones. This morning, in the Government's countermotion on housing, it states it is engaging "with domestic lenders to ensure that the banking sector is appropriately using its lending capacity to support the development of new housing nationwide" and developing "new financing sources, especially for brownfield sites and small builders with support from ... domestic banks as well as State support of equity investment". This is a long-winded way of saying that the Government wants the banks to lend more to property developers. The Taoiseach has suffered badly from amnesia in the past. He claimed that there was no bank bailout, for example. Has he also forgotten that the banks were bailed out because of billions of euro of bad loans to private developers? When will he learn the lessons of his own history and stop relying on the failing private market?
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Why did you not say this during the election?
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The quickest, easiest and most immediate response to the housing crisis is to deal with the scourge of vacancy and dereliction. In almost every estate in Dublin South-West one will find vacant houses. These are perfectly good homes or they were at one stage. They could be used to house families. Instead, they are a blight on the community. We got figures recently that 14,500 of the more than 100,000 vacant properties in the country are located in Dublin. There are more than 10,000 families in emergency accommodation in Dublin. This is the easy answer. We recently put a motion before South Dublin County Council calling on it to use its powers to bring these properties into public ownership by means of compulsory purchase orders and use them for social housing. Fianna Fáil abstained and Fine Gael voted against. Does the Taoiseach agree that this is what needs to be done nationwide, namely to use these vacant homes?
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