Decent housing is enshrined as a human right in Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It should also be enshrined in Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Irish Constitution. A referendum to that effect should be called immediately. The policy of successive Governments has been and continues to be an abysmal failure. Target after target has been missed. There are well over 17,000 families who are now homeless, including well over 5,500 children. Thousands more are living in substandard council houses and flats all over the country. Housing rents, including council rents, have skyrocketed and are being further substantially increased by the new rents regime introduced by the Minister. Billions of euro every year are being paid to landlords in respect of HAP payments. Over 140,000 households are on council waiting lists and thousands more are being locked out of the housing market because they are earning slightly over the council housing income limit but not enough to secure a mortgage while they cannot save for a deposit. This housing emergency has broken the social contract between the State and its citizens. Successive Governments have paid lip service to this situation by calling it a priority, a crisis and even an emergency while failing to take any housing emergency action. To deal with this housing emergency, the Government must enact a housing emergency measure in the public interest law. Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Irish Constitution, provides for such an emergency action in Article 43.2.2°. The new law must provide for a massive construction programme for social and affordable houses on public land by local authorities. Local authorities must be funded to carry out this programme, which includes building houses as well as retrofitting and upgrading existing houses. Tipperary County Council must be commended on delivering 180 social houses in 2024. Despite this, and due to the failure to provide capital funding to the council, the council's waiting list is, at best, static with 3,400 on the list. This waiting list significantly underestimates the real demand because large numbers of households are being excluded from the waiting list on income grounds. I will give an example. An applicant in receipt of one-parent family payment who is working part time and in receipt of the working family payment is deemed to be over the limit. These applicants are condemned to long-term renting at exorbitant levels, with no hope of a council house or a mortgage. The income limits for housing applicants for local authorities must be increased by at least €10,000. To address the country's dependence on fossil fuels, the retrofitting of council houses must be hugely increased. The illegal US-Israeli war on Iran shows how important this is. Tipperary County Council has a social housing stock of 5,210 units, but works on just 71 of those houses were completed under the energy retrofit programme in 2024. This is a snail's pace and is totally unacceptable but it is the best that could be done with the funds available to the council. The Government needs to significantly increase funding to local authorities on this scheme, with a target of completing all council houses in a four- to five-year period.

Sentiment score: -0.04