An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-18 ============================================================ Mary Fitzpatrick (FF), Industrial and Commercial Panel I welcome the ambassador and congratulate her, her country and her community on their national day. I hope they enjoy the celebrations, which are well-deserved. The media is dominated consistently by negative stories when it comes to housing and it is important for people to recognise the challenge but also recognise the progress being made. On that basis, I welcome the announcement from Government this week of additional funding to unlock more homes through the housing infrastructure investment fund. This €1 billion fund is dedicated solely to unlocking lands suitable for housing, which, for various reasons, be they related to water or roads infrastructure, are not being used. Dublin is part of the much bigger nationwide programme of 82 projects with over 200,000 homes. In Dublin city, this will result in more than 5,000 additional homes on land in Ballyfermot, Balbutcher and St. Teresa's Gardens. It is really welcome investment and builds on the progress made since Fianna Fáil took over in 2020. There have been more than 170,000 new homes built. We see real momentum. In the first quarter of this year alone, more than 8,000 homes commenced. The second issue I will raise is one I have raised multiple times here: retail crime. The Deputy Leader and everybody else in the House will have heard reports in the news yesterday of multiple individuals on multiple charges in one court in Dublin. There were 81 arrests in Dún Laoghaire for shoplifting. I commend the Garda. It has had a targeted approach to this, is using intelligence and is supporting businesses. However, this is a national issue. It costs more than €1.6 billion per year. There are direct links to organised crime. This is not just casual, opportunistic shoplifting any more; it is an organised activity. The people being hit hardest are small retailers in our villages and towns. I was nominated to the House by the Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Trades Association, RGDATA. I have called for a debate in this House. I have met with the Minister for justice. He is taking the issue seriously. He has a retail crime strategy and task force in place. I would appreciate if the Deputy Leader could arrange at the earliest opportunity for the Seanad to debate the issue. My hometown of Dublin is our capital city and it pains me to raise this but it falls far short of what we should be able to expect in terms of cleanliness in the public domain. I have raised the issue many times. Dublin City Council needs to step up to the plate; it needs to stop stepping back from the issue and creating more problems. Today we hear of compactors being overloaded and unavailable, and of the doubling of costs for businesses. I presume all Senators are familiar with Stoneybatter. It is one of the oldest villages in the city. These are small artisan two-terraced houses, two-up, two-down - not even two-up, two-down in some cases - and they are expected to use wheelie bins. Dublin City Council needs to tackle street cleaning and waste management more effectively. Our capital deserves better. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-18