Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Eoghan Murphy is to be the new Minister with responsibility for housing. He will face major challenges. Before I speak about them, I want to make some comments about the Minister leaving that post, the Minister, Deputy Coveney. In the course of the Fine Gael leadership election, he spoke about wanting to fight in the interest of the man in the sleeping bag.

There are many more men and women in sleeping bags now than was the case when this Government took the reins. In fact, when Deputy Coveney took the position of Minister with responsibility for housing in May of last year, there were 1,994 children homeless in this State. The figure is now 2,708, which is an increase of 35%. We saw the scandal last month of 12 families with more than 30 children being told to go to Garda stations for accommodation overnight.

See this speech in context