Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. During my three years as a Deputy, the issue that has come back to haunt us has been the complete failure to get to grips with this country's child homelessness problem. There has been a 90% increase in family homelessness and a 102% increase in child homelessness over that time.

As I have said previously, I have witnessed child homelessness in my own hotel, which is located in a very remote part of County Wicklow. I have seen families arriving late at night and getting up exceptionally early the following morning so that the children can go back to school in Dublin city. In many cases, I have received a phone call later that day to say the same family is coming back that night even though they packed up their bags that morning. I have witnessed the horrendous experiences that such families are going through. The effect of child homelessness on children is the greatest scar on this country at the moment.

I do not want to get into the figures with Mr. Allen because I agree that we need to move beyond them. I was concerned to read in the Focus Ireland report that 94 families and 137 children presented as homeless in April of this year. According to the Department, the homelessness figures decreased by 13 families and 37 children in the same month. If both figures are accurate, there were substantial new child and family homelessness presentations in the month of April. This shows that we are nowhere close to getting on top of the crisis that exists.

We know that the long-term solution is to build more houses, but we do not seem to be able to get there at the moment. Mr. Allen mentioned this week's Irish Fiscal Advisory Council report and the target of 48,000 housing completions by 2023. Is 48,000 the magic figure we need to reach to prevent child and family homelessness? Do we need to go beyond that? What happens with the historical stuff? We are failing to reach the targets we have set for the delivery of social housing. Is there a historical build-up? Would the provision of 48,000 houses deal with the historical build-up as well?

Ms Quinn spoke about the impact of homelessness on schools. It was suggested in a recent debate - I do not know whether it was at this committee - that schools with DEIS status are better able to deal with these problems than schools without such status. Schools with DEIS status probably have more funding to deal with child homelessness from an educational perspective and to put in place measures to help their pupils to deal with the crisis of homelessness.

I have mentioned that I have witnessed child homelessness. My heart goes out to people who have to find accommodation on a night-to-night basis. I cannot understand the simple logic that treats a pregnant woman, whose child is due imminently, on a night-to-night basis. I cannot fathom how this can happen in today's society. It is horrendous and completely unacceptable that such a woman does not know where she will be going that night, regardless of whether it would be a hotel room, a hub or some other type of accommodation.

The delegates referred to refusals of emergency accommodation. I ask them to expand a little to enable us to gain a better understanding of the cohort who are being refused emergency accommodation. I also ask them to explain what "own-door accommodation" actually means. They are anxious that a figure be identified for it.

As we are all aware, there is no immediate solution to the problem. Everyone in this room wants to see the crisis resolved. In the absence of a significant amount of social housing being delivered, we must consider the solutions that are before us. There is no other solution of which I am aware. Is there something we are missing that is better than what is being offered? Reference was made to a constitutional right to housing. I am open to any solution. I do not really care how it arrives, but if there is the political will, we can find a solution. We must take the risk, make the tough decisions and implement the legislation required. I do not think we need to provide for a constitutional right to housing, but in the absence of political will, children and mothers need such a right. What is needed more than anything is the political will to resolve the crisis.

I have ended up making statements rather than asking questions because Deputy Ó Broin has asked most of the relevant questions. What can we do in the next six months to address the problem? We all know the long-term solution, but how can we improve hubs and hotels? What could we do differently tomorrow morning that would improve quality of life for the almost 4,000 children and 1,700 families in emergency accommodation?