Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat a Thaoiseach. I want to deal with the eviction ban. We see the number of people who are homeless at the moment and we see in particular people of my age group, people in their early 30s who work full-time and whose partner or husband might work full-time but who are living with their parents. I went to a number of weddings over the summer where people who had got married had to go home to their parents' house. They have not been able to move out because of this failure in housing.

I want to focus now on the eviction ban, which has no doubt been an issue under consideration at the Cabinet committee on housing, which is supported by the Taoiseach's Department. The emergency ban on evictions ends in a few weeks' time and a very large number of eviction notices will fall due in April and May. If the Government does not extend the emergency ban, which I genuinely believe it needs to do, we will see a significant increase in homelessness into the summer. I have been in the Dáil for the past three years but before that I was on the council for five years and I have to say that I have never seen homelessness or housing to be as bad as it is right now in Galway city. Without question, the number of rough sleepers and families with children being referred to Garda stations will increase as overnight emergency accommodation is completely at capacity in many areas.

Can the Taoiseach outline the number of available emergency accommodation units by local authority? I assume that when the Taoiseach made the decision to not extend the eviction ban, he did that because he had empirical evidence to suggest there was somewhere for those people who will become homeless as a result of the lifting of this eviction ban to go. I do not see that is my community. I know many Deputies across this State do not see that in their communities. I ask the Taoiseach to outline the number of available emergency units by local authority.