Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been raising this issue for the past 18 months or two years, much of the time with the Minister for Social Protection and specifically in regard to rent assistance and rent caps. Not a day goes by without people coming into my office to talk about their embarrassment at finding themselves in this situation. Most of these people are functioning families. They talk about being in despair and their sense of disbelief because this was never a situation they thought they would find themselves in. They talk about stress and about being on medication to deal with it and about that stress transferring to their children. This has not just been happening in the past couple of weeks, but has been going on for the past couple of years. The issue has been well flagged.

One thing homeless agencies advise is that we must try to prevent homelessness. They suggest this is where rent caps are important and that we must negotiate an extra three, six or nine months to keep people in their homes. Many of these homes are being sold because the banks are insisting on this. Others are being sold because people are getting out of negative equity. There is a time lag attached to this.

The Taoiseach said this is not about money, but I believe it is and it compares badly with what is happening elsewhere. Last week, we heard on the news that €100 million extra was found to cover the under-estimate in the water metering programme which the consultants had got wrong. That money needs to be put into this area and into a homelessness prevention programme that will buy the extra time required until some of the houses being built come on stream in a few years time. This is critical. I urge the Taoiseach to ensure that is a feature of this initiative.

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