Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State, Deputy English, knows, we have a major housing crisis with almost 9,652 men, women and children homeless, of whom 3,689 are children. These figures exclude the contentious number of people who have been removed from the homeless list. Latest figures also show that there are 763 families in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation. Some of these families have had to resort to self accommodating, that is, ringing around hotels to secure a booking. This is extremely difficult and very stressful as the Minister of State can imagine, especially in the case of families. Hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation are often booked on a daily basis, leaving families in a terrible and uncertain situation, sometimes having to travel long distances, if they can even afford it, at the last minute to secure beds for the night. Most families and individuals who are homeless with Dublin City Council are now spending up to three or four years homeless waiting on council accommodation or sometimes less if the housing assistance payment, HAP, can be secured.

Every time major events take place in Dublin we have a crisis in accommodation with some hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation opting to take in clients at the expense of homeless families even though they have nowhere to go. This human tragedy is repeated year in year out and will become even more obvious when over the weekend of 25 and 26 August, Pope Francis will visit Ireland. He will visit the Phoenix Park and Croke Park in particular. With the expected crowds and the peak season for tourists, accommodation will be impossible to get and more often than not the prices will be inflated by some establishments taking advantage of the occasion. We have already experienced that in the past. Once again this leaves us with a human tragedy in the making and a major crisis for those homeless families.

Does the Minister of State have an estimate as to how many families could potentially be displaced over the weekend? If action is not taken we will have more families sleeping rough in cars, couch-surfing or sleeping in any nook or cranny they can find. What contingency plans has the Minister of State put in place? Does he intend on putting a crisis management team together? Where are the facilities or accommodation to be had considering that we have 763 families dependant on this type of accommodation at present? The Minister of State cannot leave this until the last minute. The families and their children need certainty. Can the Minister of State guarantee them security and a safe and decent place to stay during that weekend because we have not seen that up to now? We have experienced when there are major events such as concerts that a lot of people get displaced. I also believe that hotels putting up prices on these occasions is something that should not happen because some of the prices that we have seen are crazy and as a result some people are made homeless. Some hotels want to get people out and bring in tourists so they can jack up prices.

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