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

Last week, I was contacted by a lady who received notification last week from Cork City Council that there was no emergency accommodation available. The advice was to overstay or find somewhere else to stay in the short term. We now have a crisis. In the first three months of this year, 544 notices to quit were issued in Cork. The tenant in situ scheme has addressed part of that, which is welcome, but it is only a fraction of the 544 notices to quit. We do not have the figures for the next number of months but the current situation in Cork is that there is no emergency accommodation available or, if there is, it is under tremendous pressure. What action is being taken to support Cork City Council and people who are entering homelessness? This all goes back to people not having security of tenure. Some of these cases involve families where one or both parents are working. When people became homeless before, it was often thought it involved the most vulnerable. Now, we see right across all demographics that people are becoming homeless. What additional work is the Department doing to support these people?