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

The budget announcements made by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, yesterday on the issue of the emergency in housing and homelessness were nothing more than a hoax and a very cynical sleight of hand that involves rehashing commitments on social housing that were made long in advance of the budget and offering absolutely nothing to the thousands of families affected by the homelessness crisis or the 100,000 families rotting on housing lists with no hope of getting council homes. The Minister said that 3,800 new social houses will be provided next year. That was already announced by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, so there was nothing extra or new. A total of 17,000 housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancies were announced. That matter was already dealt with in the Rebuilding Ireland plan published by the previous Minister, Deputy Coveney. There is nothing new a year on as the crisis escalates and the number of people in homelessness services gets worse. Some 8,000 people, including 3,000 children, are homeless now. There is nothing new on a failed plan. Is that acceptable?

I want to let the Taoiseach know that, in the past two weeks, the situation has got worse. The first line of defence is council housing. The Government effectively stopped building that type of housing in 2011. The second line of defence is hubs and emergency accommodation. Both are now full. Families who are homeless are being told by text - they are not even receiving telephone calls - by local authorities that there is no emergency accommodation for them. The last line of defence against homelessness for families has collapsed in the past couple of weeks because all the hotels are full as well. My office spent two days ringing around last week for Kayley, a young mother and student, and her children. Three staff members phoned all the hotels on the approved list for hotel accommodation for those homeless people. There was nothing available. We also have Sinéad, Kayley's friend, another student with children who is in the same situation and there is nothing available for them. There is another of a mum and dad with five children. One is very heavily traumatised and her psychiatrist has expressed great worry about the young baby, two of them are toddlers and three are attending school. They phone around on a day-to-day basis and are thrown out every morning. They do not know if they will have a roof over their heads each day. There is another family with eight children - and one on the way - living in homeless accommodation and they are thrown out at the weekends because the hotels are full. They have to fend for themselves over the weekend with eight children. The defences against homelessness are collapsing and, against that background, the Government offers nothing new except a hoax, pretending to give something new when that something has all already been announced. Does the Taoiseach think that is acceptable in the face of the current housing emergency?

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