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

This morning, Mr. Mike Allen of Focus Ireland stated that emergency accommodation would not solve the crisis and, specifically, that we needed legislation to stem the flow of families into homelessness. A few hours later, we had a Bill in the Dáil that would have done precisely that - stop economic evictions and reduce rents to affordable levels - but the Government and Fianna Fáil voted it down to protect the landlords and vulture funds. How can the Minister of State live with himself when families are degraded to the level of sleeping in parks, when young children are put in danger and when people are neglected in this way and the Government still votes down measures that could do something about the situation? How could the Taoiseach write to me to say that the Government is making progress when the numbers in emergency accommodation have increased by 462% since Fine Gael entered government in 2011? It should be ashamed of itself. This is unbelievable.

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