Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We will support this Bill which, while limited, is nonetheless a step forward. I would like to speak about cases I have dealt with over the past three months and how the Bill might affect them or raise questions in terms of how they might be affected. The case of Ms Keely Jones in Cork is well known. Ms Jones chose to go public to highlight her situation. She has nine children. She was living in private rented accommodation but she received notice to quit, leaving her and her children homeless. She spent much of the time over the summer camped in tents on the beach in Youghal with six of her children. They slept in travel cots and on air mattresses. Ms Jones then chose to go public to highlight her case. As I understand it, this Bill would not guarantee Ms Jones accommodation but it would mean that the authorities would have to take into account her nine children when assessing what happens next. If this is an additional point of pressure on the authorities, however small, I welcome it. It is also the main reason for supporting the Bill.

My questions are about people who are already in emergency accommodation and the local authorities' approach to these people. I will give two examples. First, on a Monday afternoon a couple of months ago, a man walked into my clinic. He had been staying with his wife and children in emergency accommodation - I think it was bed and breakfast accommodation - funded by the State and during that time he had been offered accommodation under the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. The HAP accommodation was unsuitable from the point of view of location. It is a long story but it was a totally unsuitable location for the family. Nobody in authority told him that there was a penalty for refusing an offer of accommodation, so he refused in the hope of getting something better. He was then told by homeless services that he would have to vacate the emergency accommodation because the State would no longer pay for it as he had refused HAP accommodation. He appealed that decision and lost. He then showed up at my clinic. On the afternoon of the day he was due to vacate the bed and breakfast accommodation, the State financial support for the accommodation was to cease, affecting him, his wife and their two children. The children are twins aged ten months old. At this point, the choice for this family was to spend a night sleeping on the streets of Cork or in a Garda station. Thankfully, following some engagement with homeless services the family got a stay of execution, so to speak. Will this Bill deter homeless services making a decision to cut off financial support for accommodation? I presume it does not bar them from making the type of decision made in this case, which was a bad decision in my opinion. Does it apply to this scenario as opposed to a scenario in which emergency accommodation is sought but has not yet been acquired?

The second example is a case brought to my attention this week involving a woman who has been homeless since March 2017 and living in emergency accommodation for 11 months. She has a husband and four children, including a baby girl aged one and a child with autism. She has been told that she can only remain in emergency accommodation for 12 months. She has one month before she faces eviction form emergency accommodation with her children if the council, or she, does not find other suitable accommodation in the interim, which will be difficult owing to the housing crisis and the size of the family. What impact will this Bill have on this woman's rights and her children's rights?