Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister informed us earlier that the figures for this month show an increase of 12 in the number of families that are homeless. A total of 57 adults and, heartbreakingly, 137 children have become homeless since the previous set of figures. The Minister told us not to panic and that the figures do not paint the whole picture. He set out other provisos to try to convince us that things are not as grim as they seem, but they clearly are. Then again, no one here has children who are homeless. However, we know the people who have because we see them coming through our doors and we see the impact it has on them.

While we talk about this matter, as we have done 100 times before, outside these doors the numbers simply keep on rising. These are not simply numbers, they are real people. The lives of over 3,000 actual children are on hold or up in the air. Their future is uncertain and their opportunities will be limited. Unless their situations are reversed, the cycle of lack of opportunity will continue. They will be subject to the inevitable disadvantage and social exclusion that results from a childhood spent on the periphery of society.

The "My Name Is" campaign has done a good job in putting faces to the statistics. The various outreach groups on the front line have helped as well, including Inner City Helping Homeless, Peter McVerry Trust, Focus Ireland, Simon Communities Ireland and Threshold. They are doing amazing work on a day-to-day basis but it is merely scratching the surface. I have heard those organisations described as "our partners" by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, as if they are the providers of public services. They were set up to fulfil a function but they were never meant to provide public services. They have a different function. In any event, all this prevents them from fulfilling the role of advocating more strongly when there is a dependence coming from the Department as well. That is an entirely unhealthy situation. We cannot allow a situation whereby voluntary NGOs are expanding in order to try to pick up the pieces. That should be done by the Government and the local authorities.

I commented on this issue three years ago and said it was a great irony. When a mother and her newborn baby are leaving a maternity hospital, the staff will not let them leave unless a baby seat is fitted in the car. However, no one inquires whether they have a home. There is a great irony in that. I have come across situations where people have left hospital and entered into a situation of homelessness. I imagine others have as well. Where are those children to go once the mother has left the hospital? How can they get developmental checks when they are on the move all the time? What about the visits from the public health nurse? What about the other safety nets through which children are increasingly falling? The Department of Education and Skills is not entirely engaged with this process. We find that children are missing important milestones.

I have also heard alarming reports of concerns – I will not put it any stronger than that – on the part of some public health nurses about the rate of sudden infant and cot deaths. That needs to be examined to see whether the concerns are real. I have no wish to scaremonger but that requires some consideration.

We cannot continue to appease our consciences by claiming that homeless hubs are the solution. In reality, they are modern-day tenements. They are potentially worse because there is no long-term security for the families. That permeates everything. Often, I find that the parent is utterly stressed when she comes to meet me. I know that transfers through the family. The first time someone came through the door of my constituency office and told me that she and her seven year old child were sleeping in a car was in 2014. We were told that this was a supply side issue and that it takes time to build houses. That was four years ago. We keep being told that it takes time to build houses. However, the number of local authority houses that have been built since then is negligible in comparison to the increase in the problem.

Several issues have been raised in this debate. One relates to place finder team. The week before last, I was dealing with five families who are homeless. One family was not actually homeless but was going to become so the following week. I contacted the county council and was told off. I was told to send them here and send them there. Apparently, we were "misdirecting" them – that was the term used. I do not know where I should have directed them, but, in any event, apparently I was misdirecting them. It might take several weeks before these homeless families can be assessed. I know this sounds daft, but sometimes I envy the services in place in Dublin, which has a specific homeless service. I realise I should not say that, because the epicentre of the problem is in Dublin city centre. I call on the Minister of State to show me this place finder team and to prove that it is working, because I do not see it.

The actual homeless figures that are published do not include the number of children who are in overcrowded and temporary accommodation. Some are self-accommodated with relatives and friends. It is not unusual to see whole families sharing one bedroom that a relative has offered. I imagine other Deputies will testify to the same thing. That is self-accommodation but it is not really counted as homelessness. The definition of "homelessness" is the absence of "one family, one home". That was one of the housing action group demands in the 1960s or early 1970s. Yet, here we are after a vast amount of so-called development and we are further back in some cases than we were in the 1960s and early 1970s.

I have said before that I believe we need a war effort to deal with this. However, I do not see such an effort. Moreover, I do not believe the figures I see coming from the Department. We were told three or four years ago, during the term of the previous Government, that money was not an object. I am of the view that we have misspent much of it by investing in HAP as a solution. HAP has not delivered additional houses.

Approximately 7,500 individuals or families are on waiting lists in Kildare. Housing is certainly being built. I see housing estates being built in my area, but I do not see the amount of units that need to be built.

Many are very expensive and I do not know how people will be able to afford them, which is another issue.

Not long into his tenure, the Taoiseach told us that when one compared the Irish homelessness situation with that of other countries, it was not a whole lot worse. I am paraphrasing him, but the problem is that a sense of normality has crept into this debate. There is a normality about children not having the security of their own homes. There is also normality about the kind of homelessness figures that are produced monthly and that we need in order to measure whether there has been progress or otherwise. That is something we should caution against. We are storing up really serious problems for the future. We cannot fix these problems by throwing money at them. We will have to provide public services to undo the damage that has been done by not addressing this issue at this point. The solution is to build houses and to do so in the numbers needed. I agree with the point made by local authorities. I do not think the will is there. I question whether they want to be involved in the delivery of houses because it is incredibly slow, even in the context the numbers that have been promised.

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