Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing - five minutes each - with Deputies Mattie McGrath and Danny Healy-Rae from the rural Independent group.

I will speak on a sub-group of homelessness which is street homeless people. Homelessness is a deeply unhealthy state. Many of those on our streets suffer from mental illness combined with drug addiction - a so-called dual diagnosis - but many also have physical illnesses which relate to being on the streets and their drug addiction. If people have that triple diagnosis, they are in a seriously unhealthy state. If we are to avoid unnecessary deaths on our streets, we need to address those three issues. The challenge for this Government is to provide safe, secure and appropriate housing tailored to the individual street homeless person's needs coupled with essential medical, addiction and social support services to ensure that exiting homelessness is sustainable and for the long term. Those health and support services should be a priority. There should be linkage between supplying appropriate housing and appropriate services if we are to allow these people to get off our streets.

There are some startling statistics available, including that: 85% of our street homeless people have either a mental illness, a drug addiction or a physical illness; 50% of them abuse drugs as well as having a mental illness; 13% have serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder; 33% have self-harmed in the past six months; and 50% are on methadone or taking heroin. There is an alarming rate of suicide ideation and attempted suicide among these individuals. It is very difficult to obtain accurate figures on how many people are street homeless in Dublin due to the transient nature of homelessness and the scatter of homelessness around the city. If one adds the number of rough sleepers, which a recent count indicated was 106, to those who are in night shelters, hostels or treatment centres, the figure rises to over 300. Estimating the number of homeless in other areas outside Dublin is equally as difficult. All one has to do is walk up Grafton Street and along St. Stephen's Green towards Baggot Street to see the evidence of street homelessness. I did so three weeks ago and at around 10.30 p.m. there were 14 people setting up their sleeping bags and cardboard boxes in doorways. That was in 500 or 600 yards walking around the city.

There are many complex factors that lead to homelessness, including family breakdown, poverty, poor education, unemployment, leaving institutional care, drug addiction, alcohol addiction and mental illness. There is a disproportionate number of homeless people on our streets who have been in care or in prison. Foreign nationals make up a significant number of those experiencing homelessness because they lack access to housing entitlements. There are two broad methods of exiting homelessness. One is the Housing First model, which has been mentioned extensively in the report. Housing First offers a homeless person on the street secure accommodation without any barriers or questions. After they have accepted that they get wraparound services - psychiatric, medical and addiction services - but they are taken off the streets before they get them. The treatment first model is a staircase model whereby people are offered detoxification, stabilisation and rehabilitation services before they are offered a house or accommodation. There is a need for both of these models. There are many variations of these models but the most important part of all of them is providing somebody with secure accommodation. There is one frightening statistic on those who go into psychiatric hospitals and have delayed discharges. At the beginning of January, there were 10,000 hospital days accumulated on delayed discharges. If a hospital bed costs €500 a day, that is €5 million wasted on delayed discharges.

I commend the report to the House. Increasing the number of Housing First units from 100 to 300 is very important. There are 50 people already waiting for housing if they could get the accommodation from Housing First. The lack of accommodation is the critical part. I wish the Minister every good fortune in implementing the report. I hope all the other Departments associated with the Minister's initiative can supply what he requires from them.

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