Fr. Peter McVerry:

Keeping families or individuals in their homes is an absolute priority for me. To be evicted from one's home and to go into homelessness is a life-changing experience. I meet many such people. Many of those who are becoming homeless today never for one moment in their lives thought they would be in this situation. Parents tell me there is a stigma attached to being homeless. The general perception is that if one is homeless there must be something wrong with one and that stigma descends on everybody who becomes homeless. Parents tell me they feel ashamed at having to admit they are homeless. Schoolchildren will not admit to their friends that they are homeless for fear they are going to be slagged. Parents tell me they feel they are bad parents, that they have failed their children.

To become homeless is an extraordinary life-changing event for many people. It has permanent repercussions on the children. If children are left homeless and living in an hotel room, which many of them are for 12 or 18 months, they are damaged psychologically, emotionally and educationally. That educational damage may never be repaired. They are damaged educationally because they are stressed out and one cannot go into school stressed out and give one's attention to studying. For me, this is the issue of the next decade.

Homelessness is already out of control. The Government does not know what to do about it. The only plan in town is Rebuilding Ireland and it clearly is not working. It is 11 months since Rebuilding Ireland was launched and every single month the number of homeless people has gone up. Last year, 2016, there were approximately 1,000 extra homeless households compared with the number at the beginning of the year but that masks the reality because last year, 3,000 homeless households exited out of homelessness. In reality, therefore, 4,000 households became homeless last year. I agree that if these repossessions take place we are going to have a tsunami of homelessness.

That is going to come down the road and it is going to be extraordinarily damaging to those people who have to face the prospect of becoming homeless. The State will not be able to cope. We will see whole families living on the street if these repossessions take place. I understand that there are 50,000 mortgages in arrears of more than two years. That number has barely shifted over the last few years. The banks themselves estimate that many of those will be repossessed under the present conditions. We will see whole families on the streets because the State will simply not be able to cope.