Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

A family comprising a mother, a father and their eight children are sharing a two bedroom house with a sister and grandmother. There is nothing from the local authority. Another family in the Gallery, with seven children, is getting a variation on the rent cap on a month-to-month basis but is being told this will not last. They will face homelessness if the rent cap policy is applied. Another family in the Gallery have been on the list for 15 years. Another family in the Gallery is dealing with receivers moving in on the landlord. Representatives of the receivers are sitting outside the family's house to intimidate them and the family do not know where they will go if they are put out. Another family, with five children, has been staying in a hotel in west Dublin for the past six months even though the children go to school in Shankill. Another family, with two children, has been on the list for 14 years and is renting chronically damp accommodation under the RAS. The children are sick as a result of the damp. For another family, three children have been sharing a bed with their mother for the last 18 months because the rent cap prevents them getting private accommodation.

I will not continue to rehearse the list because it is too long. That is the human reality, and it is replicated all over the country. The Minister of State has to face the fact that it is an emergency. She says the Government does not have the money to deal with the crisis. I beg to differ, however. The Government pays €500 million in rent subsidy to private landlords every year. That money would build 5,000 council houses and save money for the State.

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