Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their contributions. The figures released by the RTB today show that 525 families in Cork received notices to quit in quarter 1 of 2023. There were 1,000 such notices between quarter 3 and quarter 4 of 2022. This means that in Cork city approximately 1,500 families have received notices to quit. Threshold and the Simon Communities are doing tremendous work but do they have the resources to deal with what is a tsunami? This is on the back a report in the Irish edition of The Mirror today by Louise Burne that family homelessness has risen by over 1,200% in three years.

What I am seeing in my constituency office at the moment is that as homelessness figures continue to go up, more families are couch surfing and staying with family members but that only lasts so long. People might be able to stay with a family member for three to six months but no longer. A family came to me last week. Their child had made their holy communion and the family had to stay overnight in a hotel. They had been staying with the wife's sister. Communion is one of the pivotal events in a child's life and the only place the family could go was to a hotel. They had to borrow money to stay in a hotel in order to give the child their special day. That is only one example. There is no way the family can continue to live with the wife's sister and her family under one roof. I am in fear at the moment for the people who are coming in to me. That lady asked me last week if there was hope. I always tell people there is hope. Cork City Council does brilliant work. I can be critical at times but the council does brilliant work and is doing its very best in the circumstances. I always encourage people. I tell them there is hope and that there are supports available but to be honest, I do not know where all of these families are going to go. We are talking about 1,500 families in Cork. Cork has 10% of the national stock of social housing. How are we going to cope? If we cannot cope in Cork then how are we going to cope across the State?

I firmly believe that if the Government is not going to reinstate the eviction ban right now, it must reintroduce a winter eviction ban. That might give the local authorities and the State the opportunity to put more tenantin situ scheme arrangements in place and to deliver the social housing that has been promised. While I have major doubts about the ability of the Minister to deliver, at least another ban on evictions might give him the opportunity to do so.