Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Healy for moving the motion and giving Members the opportunity to speak about this important topic. Sinn Féin supports the principle behind the motion which we fully support. It is almost three years since Jonathan Corrie died on steps just opposite the entrance to this building. When he died as a rough sleeper, many of us were very reticent to comment publicly. This was in part out of respect for his family and friends. We did not want to be accused of being seen to use his very tragic death as a stick with which to beat the then Government. In the following weeks and months some of the commentary in the public debate increasingly appeared to attribute blame for his tragic and untimely death to aspects of his own life, that it had had to do with his mental health, lifestyle choices or refusal to enter into emergency accommodation. The more I learn about the detail of the case the more I am firmly of the view that none of these things is true. The death of a person like Jonathan Corrie is the direct result of a housing system which has been designed in such a way that it cannot find a permanent home for anybody, whatever complex issues Jonathan had in his life. The months passed and the promises and, in some cases, Government interventions rolled on. Others died and their names were never printed in the newspapers or they never became household names.

In August and September there were three deaths of people who had been experiencing homelessness: Jennifer in Cork, Danielle in Kildare and a young man who was living in emergency accommodation in the city centre. The debate that followed these deaths was of a very similar nature. Even the then Taoiseach, speaking on his way into the Government's housing summit, seemed to suggest the linking of the homelessness of these individuals with their cause of death was bad journalism and a misreporting of the facts. I know some of the cases quite well, from speaking to local politicians and county managers, and there is a direct link in all three cases between the experience of homelessness and the untimely death of the person involved. In the past seven days there have been three more deaths, of rough sleepers in this instance, in three different parts of the State, namely, Tralee, Dublin and Dundalk. I say all of this and choose my words very carefully because at some point we will have to accept that there is a relationship between Government policy, the housing crisis, the growing levels of homelessness and the increasing numbers of people who are losing their lives. At this point that is an indisputable fact.

I do not know what peoples' definition of an emergency is. People are dying on the streets because there is no emergency accommodation available and the emergency accommodation that is available is not appropriate. People cannot access permanent housing, or the allocation offer they have been made by a local authority is so stressful that it leads to someone taking his or her own life. That is the very definition of an emergency, but it is not the only definition. Before he left the Chamber the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, said the Government was making progress, but the figures for homelessness suggest otherwise. Since Fine Gael took office six years ago, there has been a 300% increase in the level of child homelessness. That is not progress. Since the Government took office in 2016, there has been a 30% increase in almost all categories of homelessness. That clearly is not progress. On many occasions I have said the Government is simply not doing enough. There is not enough action to stem the flow of families moving to homelessness. The delivery of social housing is at a snail's pace and there is still a chronic over-reliance on the private sector by a factor of 70:30 for the delivery of housing that people need.

At his housing summit the Minister announced 18 measures which he appeared to justify in the Chamber today. Half of them had already been announced, or amounted to the rebranding of existing initiatives. Other measures will actually make the situation worse such as requiring all landlords to register all notices to quit with the Residential Tenancies Board, with no extra powers being given to the board. The Minister has made big play of saying the additional new build units were a big win. It would be a if they were additional units to the total amount already announced for delivery, but they are not. It was a figure shifted from acquisitions, which would actually be a quicker and better process for those in long-term homelessness. I am happy that there will be more new builds, but the total quantity announced by the Minister is exactly the same as that announced by the former Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, more than one year ago

I am sorry that the Minister is not in the Chamber to hear me speak, but since July he has made 64 separate policy announcements as part of his review of Rebuilding Ireland. Some have some merit and some have none at all. Some are reannouncements or a repackaging of other measures. My criticism is not that the Minister is making policy announcements but that the announcements lack any coherence whatsoever. It seems as though somebody is flailing around desperately trying to give the impression that action is being taken and changes are being made when, in fact, the very opposite is the case. Perhaps it is because he has not appointed a senior policy adviser on housing, he has a junior and inexperienced press officer or he just does not understand the depth of the crisis, but it is clear that we are not hearing the kinds of announcements and new initiatives that are urgently required to tackle it. The Government's counter motion is indicative of this. It refers to one aspect that is directly related to Deputy Healy's motion, something Deputy Cowen also mentioned, which is the referral of the socio-economic rights recommendations made by the Constitutional Convention to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. What better way to bury the recommendations than referring them to a committee that is wholly inadequate to deal with the matter. They should have been referred to a special Dáil committee with a range of expertise, or they should have been referred to the respective committees such as housing and health committees and so on. Referring them to the finance committee sends a very clear signal that money trumps rights and that we will not have a rights-based approach to or any of the other issues in hand.

With regard to Fianna Fáil's amendment, I mean this in all sincerity. I find it disappointing that Deputy Cowen tabled the amendment in that form. I agree with much of what is contained in it, but it is actually not an amendment to the motion but an alternative proposition altogether. It would have been better if we had all sent a clear signal to the Government that we were not satisfied with the lack of urgency shown in tackling the homelessness crisis. We could have dealt with Deputy Cowen's amendment and the other policy issues, some of which have merit, while some that do not, on another occasion. Sinn Féin is more than happy to support Deputy Healy's motion. Irrespective of the outcome, crucially we need to see the Government taking more action, delivering more homes and getting more families off the streets and out of emergency accommodation in order that there will be no more deaths.

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