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

I have to be honest and say I am sick and tired of hearing the Taoiseach or representatives of the Government say it takes time to fix the homelessness and housing emergency. I came into the Dáil in 2011 and brought in with me, probably for the first time, dozens of families and individuals, including children, who were facing housing emergencies at that time. I warned the Taoiseach that his policy of moving away from direct council housing construction towards reliance on the private sector would generate a crisis. Today, again, there are approximately 25 households, individuals, families and children in the Visitors Gallery. They are just the tip of a very dire and desperate iceberg of misery, anxiety, insecurity and suffering because of the abject and total failure of the Government's policies on housing and homelessness.

I want the Taoiseach to look those people in the eye and tell them that his housing policies are working. Tell Sinead and her three year old daughter, who was told a few weeks ago to go 12 km into town with her children to a hostel where there are active drug users. She then had to fight to get into a hotel and last week was taken into hospital with stress because she is still homeless. Tell James and his family - a mother and their five children - who have been homeless for the past six months, whose daughter has special needs and who are being pushed from one hotel or emergency accommodation to another. Tell Richard, who is recovering from addiction and who is only offered hostels where drug use is rampant despite letters from his doctors about his mental health issues. Tell Peter, who is drug free but who is in emergency accommodation with active drug users, whose mental health is seriously at stake and who was recently hospitalised. Tell Carrie, who has been homeless for a year and is forced to share a room with three people who are smoking heroin. Tell Tom, who has been homeless for five years and who had to lodge court papers against South Dublin County Council because it took him off the housing list and took away his time. Tell Amanda and her two children, Sarah and Eamon and their four children, Samantha and her three children, all of whom had HAP tenancies - the Government's great solution and the centrepiece of its housing policy - and who are all now being evicted by landlords who want to pull out of the HAP arrangements.

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