Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While this is a short debate, Members should have that discussion in any event. Deputy Ellis and I work in similar communities and I consider the homeless count to be merely an indicator. On a daily basis, homelessness is a far bigger issue than the number of people who are sleeping rough. I have encountered people who are sleeping on their friends' floors and who move around either weekly or daily. As for the complications of even getting onto the homeless list, one will see a queue of people outside Dublin City Council's homeless section. In addition, the hostels are overcrowded. From my experience, homelessness certainly is far more widespread than can be encompassed by counting the number of people who are sleeping rough. This issue must be tackled. I came through the city council and both former councillor Ellis and I probably could wallpaper our homes with the number of reports, strategies and everything else that has been produced. Had the money that was spent on those reports been spent on providing housing units, we might not be in this crisis.

We need a wider discussion on this. Perhaps the Minister of State will refer this back to the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, and get them to bring it back to the committee. Let us have a wider discussion on this. I am sick to my eye teeth and my heart is broken dealing on a daily and weekly basis with young families, some unemployed and some in employment, who just cannot get a home of their own. They might not show up in the figures for the homeless on the streets, but the problem is growing. The rough sleeping count is only a symptom. Let us get down to dealing with the real problem. As I said earlier, I represent a city centre constituency in which I can point to nearly 100 social units that have lain empty for between six months and two years. That is totally unacceptable. We, the Government and Parliament, must get to the root cause of this.

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