Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. I commend Deputy Jan O'Sullivan on bringing it forward. We have to be mindful of families when we speak about homelessness. It is a difficult situation for anyone to be homeless but particularly for families with young children, especially children with special needs. Sometimes they are left outside of the discussion which is particularly sad. It is particularly sensitive for everyone involved in that situation. They need to be given priority to assist them in having delivered some type of social housing or supports through whatever mechanism is possible. We must go back to the root cause of the issue that brings us here this evening. There are a number of different categories which we have all spoken about and which affect families, particularly those with young children and children with special needs. Lack of supply is a massive issue at the moment. We have to double our efforts to ensure we make greater attempts to bring supply into the market. Supply affects everything. We have engaged with the Minister on this issue on numerous occasions. It is a massive problem on which we need to double our efforts.

Evictions are another issue. Some of the families we are talking about here this evening have children with special needs while others do not but it does not matter, as we are concerned with the family unit. Families have been evicted by the banks as a result of mortgage arrears. It is a massive problem. We have brought forward a number of Bills to try to deal with that issue and to prevent homelessness. The difficulty in accessing the private rental market is another problem because of the lack of supply. Current market rents are very high and supports such as the HAP scheme are not adequate to deal with current levels of rent. People cannot afford to pay the rent differential, which leads to homelessness. It is a problem I have highlighted on a number of occasions here and we need a short-term solution to deal with it. There are also families that meet the criteria to get on the housing list but get no support because they are marginally over the financial means threshold. Those limits need to be reviewed because people are caught between two stools and are suffering. Nobody is reaching out to them. It is another issue for families. My own local authority, Kildare County Council, which I deal with regularly, is doing its best under extremely difficult circumstances while being under-resourced. It does not have the flexibility to give families priority in particular circumstances. That is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Families with children are living with parents and other family members, which is causing all sorts of welfare and social problems. We need to look at cases of families who have been on the housing list for a year. One such case presented to me last week. They have been on the housing list for a year and have a young child who is blind. It is very sad. They have been told it will be at least nine years before the local authority can deal with them as a family unit. They were advised to find housing they can rent and were offered support through HAP. However, they cannot get a unit because they need to access all the medical services and supports their child needs. That is an issue. If the local authority had a level of flexibility, it could consider prioritising housing that family given their child's needs. I support this very timely Bill and I hope it gets the support of the House.

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