Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While such a sum of money would be welcome, it would be too little, too late. The Minister said last night that the Government is pursuing a housing-led approach. To illustrate this, he outlined figures setting out the number of houses being provided. He later listed some of those figures again, either to confuse or to emphasise. The former Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, used to do the same thing. She repeatedly announced NAMA's undelivered promises as if they were new and repackaged adaptation cuts and funding boosts, but they turned out to be a little less severe. The only people who have a roof over their heads as a result of spin and misinformation are spin doctors. They certainly are not going without while the Labour Party is in Government.

A housing-led approach requires new homes. The stable and secure homes that are required can only be provided in sufficient numbers by local authorities. That is why an investment of €1 billion is needed. It is why we need to establish local authority housing trusts. The Minister failed to address this point today and the other day. If these things are not done, all of the Government's policies and approaches will be worth nothing. When the Simon Community launched its annual review, it made it clear that not enough housing is being delivered. Sam McGuinness of Dublin Simon told journalists that "the 2014 target of 1,100 tenancies for Dublin has been reduced by 30% because of the complete collapse in the private rented and social housing market, with additional housing extremely slow to come on stream" and that "temporary accommodation has become a long term solution as at least 50% of people are now stuck in emergency shelters for more than six months, with little or no hope for the future". According to Simon, "the plan to end long term homelessness by 2016 is now clearly unachievable". It is a fantasy, as a result of the failures of the Government that set the deadline in question.

Homelessness is not going away. It is worse than ever before. The Government should listen to all the agencies that are making it clear that there is a real crisis. It seems to be going around with its head in the sand. Peter McVerry has referred to this problem as a tsunami. While we have no real idea of the scale of the problem due to the hidden nature of much homelessness, we do know that 10,000 people contacted Focus Ireland last year for help. That is just one organisation, and those are just the people who asked for help. We know that 158 people slept rough in Dublin last week. We do not know how many people we missed on that count because they were lying in cold squats, closed parks, wastelands, abandoned buildings, containers, dumpsters and cars. I suggest that 158 is the bare minimum number of people who slept on the streets of our capital city that night and are doing so every night.

These figures are not distortions. They are not spin. They lay bare the truth of this crisis. The Government should be truthful and join us in looking for solutions. It should engage with our proposals, even in a critical manner, but it should not be flippant. We need to be bold and ambitious. We do not want to be back here in six months' time, or a year from now, discussing the same problem again.

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