Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The hour is late, the Government benches are bare and the Minister of State, predictably, has stood up and incanted the same robotic garbage to which we have been listening for the past five years. If he wants the factual position, this is it.

In 2014 the number of additional families entering emergency accommodation in Dublin alone was 40 a month, a doubling of the figure in the previous year. January 2015 saw a further increase, with a total of 400 families in emergency accommodation. By August this figure had increased by 76% to 700 families. Here is a fact for the Minister of State - these families include 1,500 children. The biggest fact for him is that the State is deliberately failing each and every one of these families and children, in particular. No amount of sanctimonious guff from Government Deputies, including Deputues Catherine Byrne and Eric Byrne, as well as the Minister of State or anyone else, will alter that fact or hide the Government's failure.

The Minister of State criticised Deputy Dessie Ellis's Bill and cited unintended consequences. Let us spell out what the very intentional consequences of the Bill would be. First, it seeks to provide rent certainly for people who are terrified that they will lose the roof over their heads. Second, it would prevent homelessness and place the appropriate burden and responsibility on the Government and the State. How dare anybody in the Government question families who have loved ones who find themselves homeless? How dare the Minister of State do this? If he lived in the same world as the rest of us, he would know that families across the State worry and fret and do their very best for their sons and daughters who cannot cope with their mortgage repayments and lose their homes and are now living in rental accommodation or for loved ones suffering from substance abuse. How dare the Government suggest the responsibility to clear up the mess over which the Minister of State presides lies with these same families? They are more than measuring up. The big failures of the piece are the Minister of State, the Minister and his colleagues who could not even be bothered to show up in the Chamber to have a discussion on this critical matter.

See this speech in context