Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the last two years, NESC has allocated a lot of its time to trying to prompt a more substantive series of actions on two of the most pressing and critical issues for this country, namely, the housing and climate emergencies. However, it is not clear if its work is having any impact at political level in government. The council has presented its work, and that of conference speakers, on how to achieve a more sustainable impact on rough sleeping, for example, and land use. Two weeks ago, a man sleeping rough in a public park approximately a mile and a half from here became the 27th person to die on the streets of Dublin in less than a year and a half. In response, the Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Damien English, claimed that enormous progress is being made and that there will be no issue with the number of beds in this area this winter. This was quickly followed by Fr. Peter McVerry's statement that there are more rough sleepers today than there were last year. He pointed out that the Government continues to miss the fundamental point that beds for rough sleepers would be only used if people feel they would be safe accessing the service. In regard to the Government's most recent claims, he said: "I don't see any evidence of them learning." Does the Taoiseach disagree with Fr. McVerry's point that many homeless people are reluctant to access beds because they are concerned for their safety? Is there not something terribly wrong that people would rather risk sleeping rough than access or enter some of our services? Is the Taoiseach confident that the policies and services are in place to stop this unprecedented level of deaths on the streets of our capital city, in particular this winter?

See this speech in context