Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As a mother, I understand the pressures and anxieties of finding oneself in a position of having nowhere to live and being homeless. I can sympathise with the feeling of one's child being at risk. Many mothers and fathers in this State are experiencing this to a grave extent. They worry where they can scrape the few extra cent from every month to pay their rent and keep a roof over the heads of their children to provide them with a sense of security and safety. We must take a step back, look around and realise the exact nature of the situations people find themselves in. In my county of Cork, rents have increased by 13.5% in just over one year. The average rent is now €950. These ever-increasing rents put people to the pin of their collars. The research shows that the failure to address the reality has led to ever-increasing numbers of families presenting as homeless. In June of this year, the number of families who were homeless was 531. That is double the figures for the same month last year. The stories in the papers and on television and that are heard anecdotally are all too common. The shock of hearing of these tragic stories has been replaced with a sense of disdain and disenfranchisement. I am afraid it has become just another election issue in the eyes of some rather than the crisis it is.

Six years of recession has seen the income of many families fall sharply due to job losses, pay cuts and/or reduced working hours. The cost of living has shot up and there are more additional taxes to pay such as property tax, USC and pending water charges. Thousands more families are struggling on very low incomes or social welfare and many are falling into serious housing difficulties as rents continue to rise. Some families are becoming homeless as Rent Supplement payments fail to cover the rent. They fall into arrears and end up losing their home.

These are not my words. I am quoting directly from Focus Ireland. As a result, these rent increases, which in some cases are astronomical, put children at a higher risk of homelessness. The implications of this can, unfortunately, be viewed throughout the country. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that this can be detrimental to any child's development. Due to the sporadic and disorganised nature of the way these families are being placed in temporary accommodation, children suffer severely. Developmental restrictions are put in place in respect of the accessibility of schools, a space at home which is conducive to learning and doing school work and what must be a highly strung atmosphere among family members in such small and confined places. Considering the ever-increasing numbers of families presenting to homeless services and that the time families are spending in homeless services is increasing, it is rational to say that the current structures are failing these people.

We are crying out for a different tack that focuses more on a preventative strategy rather than a knee-jerk reaction, as was done through the introduction of expanding the time span between rent reviews which does nothing in respect of striving towards affordability but rather prolongs inevitable and extortionate increases. A report, entitled Family Experiences of Pathways into Homelessness: The Families' Perspective, by Dr. Kathy Walsh and Brian Harvey was launched in September by the Housing Agency. The researchers concluded that, "a striking feature of this research was the families we consulted had a sense of powerlessness when dealing with private landlords". The researchers said that, "any argument with the landlord about their 'rights' was perceived to put that prospective reference immediately at risk". These are only two quotes from what appears to be a particularly damning report.

We also must highlight the issue of child protection and how 1,500 children in this country are potentially subjected to danger as a result of the lack of regulations. It puts these children in potentially harmful positions. This Bill calls for a more preventative approach to stem the flow of people presenting to homeless services and to give those at risk a sense of financial and social security. We must protect our most vulnerable to the best of our ability and I sincerely hope for cross-party support in this regard.

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