Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The core part of the Minister of State's response, about delays in helping people to avoid homelessness, does not answer my question. He states there are no statistics. The biggest failure of this Government by far has been housing. As I said to the Taoiseach here a couple of weeks ago, and as both of the Ministers at the Department will be aware, every Thursday and Friday evening the homeless unit in Parkgate Street is completely under siege. Each weekend perhaps 70 families are not able to receive any emergency accommodation. There is no room at the inn for those families day after day, week after week. It is an intolerable situation. Some Members in this House have criticised Greece but this is a situation that mirrors or is worse than some of what is happening in Greece. We have five or six hotels completely full. We have dozens of other hotels and guest houses where many rooms are taken up with such families. The previous figures, which the Government only gave us in April last, showed that over 1,100 children and 500 families were homeless.

There has been no action on this matter. Next week a Minister will visit my constituency, Dublin Bay North, where hundreds of families are homeless, to launch a couple of dozen apartments. The Minister of State's colleague, Senator Hayden, is holding a meeting today about the deficiencies of rent supplement. Will he bring in legislation on rent regulation and at long last, before this Government ends, declare a housing emergency and introduce the equivalent of FEMPI for housing?

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