Ms Ber Grogan:

I thank committee members for the opportunity to meet with them today. My name is Ber Grogan and I am joined by my colleague, Julia Corey. We are delighted to be here today and very grateful for the invitation to attend because we cannot end homelessness by only talking to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

The Simon Communities in Ireland are a network of independent communities across the country that provide homeless, housing and treatment services to people facing the trauma and stress of homelessness. In the Simon Communities of Ireland national office we campaign for practical and sustainable solutions that tackle homelessness head on locally, nationally and at a European level. Our advocacy and solutions are based on evidence, best practice, and the experiences of the people who use our services. As members will know, at the end of May 2025, 15,747 people, including 4,844 children, were living in emergency accommodation. This is the highest number ever recorded and represents an 11.2% increase, or an additional 1,588 people, in the last year. However, these figures are just for those accessing emergency accommodation. Our Under the Radar research report on hidden homeless estimates that an additional 24,000 persons are experiencing inadequate housing, sleeping rough, couch surfing, or living in overcrowded accommodation. The primary driver of the homelessness crisis remains no-fault evictions from the private rental sector, where already unaffordable market rents are only continuing to grow higher and higher. There is an undeniable link between poverty, social exclusion and the experience of homelessness. There are tens of thousands of households in receipt of a housing assistance payment to help with unaffordable rents. The reality is that if people have enough money, they can avoid the traumatic experience of homelessness. We need targeted measures to prevent people from experiencing homelessness and to lift people out of poverty.

Our pre-budget submission to the committee proposes eight targeted, evidence-based measures within the remit of the Department of Social Protection. We have prepared a wider pre-budget submission that is also directed at the Departments of health and housing. We are so grateful to be engaging with the committee today because some of these measures are within the control of the committee's parent Department. We propose increasing rent supplement rates in line with existing tenancy rates. The rent supplement is a vital short-term financial support for renters who are at high risk of consistent poverty. We also propose increasing core social welfare rates by at least €16 per week. These are quite pragmatic requests and we are not being overly ambitious here. The consistent poverty rate now sits at 5.0%, up from 3.6% in 2023 and social protection payments make a difference in this regard. We would like to see permanent supports benchmarked against the minimum essential standard of living, MESL, index. We suggest increasing child support payments by €15 per week for children over 12, and by €6 per week for children under 12. Single parent families make up the largest cohort of families experiencing homelessness and accessing emergency accommodation, despite representing just 17% of family households nationally. We would also like to see investment in permanent cost-of-living measures for lower income workers and cohorts at risk of, or experiencing, poverty. We echo Social Justice Ireland’s concerns around temporary cost-of-living supports and would like to see more permanent measures being introduced. We made a submission to the successor strategy to the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 and are asking for a commitment to ending consistent poverty and social exclusion by 2030 rather than the current 2% target. A lot of people with disabilities can also experience homelessness, so we are joining colleagues in other sectors in calling for a separate cost-of-disability payment. We urge the Government to ensure that every Intreo office has a disability liaison officer on site and to invest in services for those with mental health difficulties and psycho-social disabilities. Representatives from The Wheel will be touching on the sustainability of on-the-ground services provided by the community and voluntary sector. Progress has been made in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, but issues persist in relation to non-pay related costs, auto-enrolment and so on. Many roles are part-funded by multiple agencies so a more cross-departmental view is needed. I am conscious of time and of the fact that we lost some because of the power cut, so I will finish there. I look forward to our discussions and to answering any questions members have.