Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is a terrible tragedy that we are approaching Christmas in Ireland in 2017 but, as of September 2017, more than 3,000 children are homeless throughout the country. More than 8,000 people of every age are without a home. These figures have been going up. By the summer of this year, the figures had increased by 25% over last year. This is happening year on year. Between December 2014 and August 2017, there was a net increase of 5,412 in the number of people recorded as homeless, representing an increase of 189%. In March 2017, a total of 77 families presented as homeless to services in the Dublin region. In 2016, the average number of families becoming homeless each month was 85. It should be kept in mind that homelessness figures do not include people sleeping rough, people in direct provision or people in domestic violence centres that are overcrowded as well as many EU or non-EU migrants who cannot prove centres of residence.

The tenth report of the Government special rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, was released only last week on 7 December. He noted criticism by UN human rights bodies of Ireland's handling of the crisis in child homelessness in a way that infringes numerous rights of children, including the right to play, the right to adequate accommodation and the right to family life. These are infringements of the principle of the best interests of the child and the right of a child to life survival and development. In particular, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights noted that social housing units should be increased and that Ireland must tackle homelessness adequately.

Beforehand, on 2 October 2017, Dr. Shannon had criticised State inaction on child homelessness. He said children are not passive spectators but are deeply affected by the impact of homelessness. He said emergency accommodation deprived children of the right to achieve their full potential and compromises their ability to grow and develop. Dr. Shannon said several rights were affected by the problem of homelessness. He said children's education is compromised, their ability to play is reduced and their physical and emotional well-being is damaged. The crisis in child homelessness in this country is a fundamental human rights issue. It is truly time for the Government to view housing as a human right to be enshrined in the Constitution.

The question of standards in emergency accommodation is another major issue. Peter McVerry has highlighted that emergency accommodation has no standards or inspections and that it is always shared. This leaves children exposed to violence, drug-taking and a severe lack of standards in health and cleanliness. This was exposed by thejournal.ieearlier this year. Grainia Long, chief executive of the ISPCC, told thejournal.iein 2016 that children's human rights are being breached in several areas in respect of the use of hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation as emergency accommodation. In May this year, UNICEF Ireland described as a total failure of State the shocking reports that 12 families, including 30 children, were left with no option but to present themselves at Garda stations because they had nowhere to sleep.

Homeless hubs are being introduced as a means of moving families out of bed and breakfast accommodation and hotels, but they have been heavily criticised by experts. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has described the approach as trying to normalise homelessness, institutionalising families and infringing the right to private and family life and dignity.

A recent report from Maynooth University on homeless hubs shows the damage they do to children's mental health, the structure of the family, privacy and autonomy. The report also shows that the Government policy of relying on the private rental sector, hubs and emergency accommodation from 2009 to 2015 has cost the State 31,136 directly built social homes.

There is a homelessness crisis now. There are more than 180,000 vacant dwellings in the State now. There is no time to wait on this issue. At the heart of this crisis is a broken housing system, a system dominated, unfortunately, by Government spin and not, regrettably, by building houses.

I raised this matter with the Tánaiste yesterday on Leaders' Questions, as Deputy Jan O'Sullivan mentioned. When I raised the reality of the figures for the number of houses being built, the Tánaiste said my statistics were "simply not true". I stand over my figures and the irony is my numbers were taken from those of the Department. The figures I gave yesterday have again been confirmed by independent experts. I will read them into the record as it is important to put a spotlight on this constant Government spin.

Of a target of 2,284 houses that were meant to be built or completed this year, only 809 were delivered. Of these, 303 were direct local authority builds in 18 different authorities, meaning 13 local authorities did not complete a single house in 2017. Of the 98 completions in Dublin, 76 were rapid builds for families on the increasing homeless lists, which leaves a grand total of 22 units in the greater Dublin area for a waiting list of over 40,000 people. As I said to the Tánaiste yesterday, surely an objective analysis of the Government's analysis would be results-driven but the results speak for themselves because they are appalling. Independent experts have backed me up and indicated they stand over those figures. Perhaps, due to the magnitude and seriousness of this emergency housing crisis, the Government should be afforded an opportunity to correct the record. Not doing so would bring a further lack of confidence and worry in the victims of this crisis, who have been left speechless, as well as upset, that the Government simply does not even have a handle on figures.

See this speech in context