John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing with four of my colleagues. The average price of a home in Wicklow is now €320,000, which is up 6.6% on last year. The average rent in Wicklow is now €1,335, which represents a rise of 11.9% in the last year and which means Wicklow has the second highest rents in the State. It has been seven years and the crisis is deepening, if the Minister is ready to listen. In Wicklow there are also 3,810 families lingering on the council housing waiting list, many for ten, 12 or many more years. Those figures, however, do not really reflect the real housing need within the constituency. Many cannot even get on the housing list. One young mum recently came into one of my clinics with her six year old son. They had been refused access to the housing list. They were told that they did not have a housing need and that there was ample space in the one bedroom available in the family home, which was already overcrowded. It was deemed suitable for her to share that room with her six year old until he reached puberty and that they could then reapply. That is totally unacceptable.

The homelessness figures for Wicklow also do not reflect reality. The July figures issued by the Department show that there are only 20 people homeless in the constituency. That figure does not include the many hundreds sofa-surfing and sharing with families and friends in overcrowded conditions. It simply means that Wicklow County Council has put 20 people into emergency accommodation. The reality is that Wicklow is not offering any emergency accommodation because it simply does not have it. The council is actually referring homeless women and children to the local women's refuge. This in turn is creating difficulties for, and putting pressure on, those providing domestic violence services in the area. We have no affordable homes, no private rented homes, no social housing and no emergency accommodation. It is time to get real. It is time to face the realities and, more importantly, it is time to act.

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