Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Apollo House occupation over Christmas which was a fantastic action to propel the indescribable housing and homelessness crisis to the top of the political agenda and which received huge support across the board, as noted by Deputy Ruth Coppinger, was a fantastic intervention in this deplorable crisis. It piled further pressure on the Government to address this chronic problem. Again, as Deputy Ruth Coppinger stated, words and descriptions fail us at this point. We have spoken and protested so much about it. That type of people power action to propel the issue to the top of the political agenda is the only way we will get the change we need to force the Minister to provide for the radical shift in policy that is necessary to deal with the crisis.

The figures have been quoted. Nearly 7,000 people are homeless. The figure has increased exponentially. It is disgraceful that 249 of them are children. The numbers exiting homelessness and moving into social housing have decreased solidly for the past four quarters. At the end of 2015, 241 people were exiting homelessness to move into social housing, but by the end of the third quarter of 2016, that number had reduced to 141.

The Minister is failing and that failure results from the central problem with his housing policy and strategy - the failure to build local authority housing with affordable rents and provide the security of tenure tenants really need. Those on low and middle incomes need secure tenancies. The exponential rise in the level of homelessness also results from the failure on the part of the Minister and successive Governments to give tenants in the private rental sector the security and protection they need. The Bill is an attempt to do what the Minister is failing to do. It seeks to ensure tenants would have real security, not just the protection for four years offered by a Part 4 tenancy which they only receive after six months, by providing that after two months they would have indefinite security of tenure.

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