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

Yesterday the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, released the April homeless figures and they make for grim reading. The number of children living in emergency accommodation is up by 43 on the figure for the previous month. The number of older people without a home is also up. According to the figures, the overall picture is stagnant. Despite claims by the Minister that he is making progress on housing supply, there is no sign of the homeless crisis abating. Under the Fine Gael-led Government, the level of child homelessness has increased by a shocking 74%. Since the Minister took office, the figure is up by 30%. Under the Fine Gael-led Government, the number of people aged over 65 years living in emergency accommodation has increased by 60%. Under the aegis of the Minister, the figure has increased by 27%. How is it possible that the Government cannot house 128 older people? Could one imagine if it was one's mother or father languishing in emergency accommodation? How is it possible for the Government to allow 3,689 children to live in emergency accommodation, many of whom will spend up to two years in inappropriate accommodation? What the figures released yesterday clearly show is that the Government's housing plan is failing and that the Minister is failing. No amount of hard hat photo tweets will change that fact. There are more homeless adults and children today than when the Government took office and they are spending longer periods in emergency accommodation.

To make matters worse, for the second month in a row, homeless families have been removed from the figures. A total of 297 adults and children in counties Dublin and Meath have simply disappeared. That brings the total number removed from the homeless figures in the past two months to 875. The Minister claims that the people concerned are not homeless, but local authority housing managers disagree. They are living in temporary accommodation without a tenancy agreement, funded from the emergency budget, while the council sources them a permanent home. Mr. Brendan Kenny, director of housing in Dublin City Council, when asked on "Morning Ireland" this morning if the families who had been removed from his administrative area from the April figures were still homeless said: "There is no tenancy agreement. They are still homeless. They are on the homeless list, and they still have homeless priority." However, the Minister thinks it is okay for them to be removed.

Does the Tánaiste accept that despite the economic recovery, the homeless crisis is getting worse? Does he also accept that the Government's housing policy is failing? Does he agree with Mr. Kenny that the families who were removed from the homeless figures in April are, in fact, still homeless and will he commit to ending the blatant manipulation of the homeless figures by the Minister?

See this speech in context