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

Tonight, as many as 13,000 adults and children will sleep either on the streets or in emergency accommodation funded by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Tusla or the Department of Justice and Equality, or, indeed, not funded by any Department. Contrary to what the Minister stated, the Oireachtas committee did not under any circumstances accept that his removal of homeless adults and children from the figures relating to homelessness was acceptable. In fact, at the Oireachtas committee hearing – Members can check the record – there was a clear disagreement. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive and independent academics who helped with the homeless report categorically said on the record that the adults and children who were removed at the request of the Minister were, at the time of their removal, homeless, without tenancies, without security of accommodation and accessing homeless services, something Brendan Kenny, the director of housing services for Dublin City Council had also confirmed. The Minister is absolutely wrong and should consider correctly the record and misrepresenting the Oireachtas committee.

The Minister also claimed that recent figures both from the CSO and his Department suggest that we are turning a corner, that supply is beginning to increase and that it is a sign that things are going to change. The problem is that if one takes the figures that he is quoting and compare them against his own targets, the very opposite is the case. Last week, the CSO released the total output figures for 2018. They are good robust figures and I have no quibble with them whatsoever. The indicate that 18,000 homes were constructed in 2018, up from 14,000 in 2017 and 9,000 in 2016. That is positive, but what is the Rebuilding Ireland commitment? It is to ensure that an average of 25,000 homes are produced every year in the period to 2021. That means what the Government believes is necessary to tackle the crisis is an average of 25,000 units a year. Halfway through Rebuilding Ireland, how far are we behind target? The answer is that we are 43% behind target? While I welcome the additional homes, for the Minister to somehow say this is unquestionable progress belies his own targets.

When one looks at the social housing delivery figures that were announced late last night, the Government is claiming 27,000 social housing tenancies were created last year. We know from the figures that only 6,861 real social houses, owned by approved housing bodies and local authorities, were delivered last year. That is no my definition of real social housing, it is that of the National Economic and Social Council and the Committee on Housing and Homelessness. Of those, just over 4,000 were built and the real worry, which I share with Deputy Curran, is that only 2,000 of those were delivered by local authorities. It is not that the other units were not welcome, but 31 local authorities should be delivering far more than 2,000 new builds a year. Five approved housing bodies are delivering almost as many new builds as the local authorities and that makes absolutely no sense.

The Department continues to wrongly count expensive casual re-lets as voids. I think that practice should stop as it inflates the figures, albeit by only a small amount. Probably the real scandal of the figures last night is 44% of the Traveller accommodation budget remains unspent. This is the second year in a row that the Traveller community has been badly served by the Government. That is the reason homelessness among Traveller is higher than in any other section of the population. That is why tragedies happen such as we saw in Carrickmines. While I appreciate that this is not solely the fault of central government, central government must do more to address the shortfall to make sure it does not happen again this year. The real problem with yesterday's figures is they confirm the overall picture, namely, that 75% of all social housing need is being met by subsidised private rental tenancies through HAP, the RAS and leasing. It is the casualisation of social housing. It is almost like zero-hour contracts in the social housing space, but it is also very expensive and it crowds non-social housing tenants out of the private rental market. The Minister is wrong when he states that they are rebalancing. Rebuilding Ireland wants to have 90,000 additional HAP tenancies by 2021. We are going to have more subsidised private rental tenancies than ever before at a higher cost if this plan meets its targets, which it seems to do on that front.

How do I know Rebuilding Ireland is not working? Last year, the total number of real social houses was just under 7,000. How many new households came onto the social housing waiting list last year? The answer is 14,000. If, therefore, one is producing housing to meet the needs of half the number of new applicants, how is one ever going to deal with historic need let alone future need? It would take the Government 20 years to do so, which is how we know this plan is not working.

The question is what we need. We know what we need because almost everybody else bar the Government is telling us. We need a rights-based approach to housing and we need to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. We do not need more time. The Constitutional Convention recommended this approach by a majority of 84% in 2014. In fact, there was a deal between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to deny the housing committee the right to deal with the issue. It is buried in the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and we will never see the outcome of that, which is really what is going on, not deliberation. We need a doubling of capital investment in social and affordable housing to meet real targets and real need. We need action to freeze rents and, in Sinn Féin's view, to take the pressure off struggling renters with a refundable tax credit. We also need greater action to prevent the flow of families into homelessness, including the introduction of the Focus Ireland amendment.

Our position has not changed since the previous debate on the matter. This plan is failing. This Government is failing. The Minister, who is not even here to listen to the rest of the debate, is failing. We need a new plan. The only thing that is going to change the Government is massive protest on the streets, both through the Raise the Roof campaign throughout the course of this year and the National Homeless and Housing Coalition mobilisation in Dublin on 9 March. When Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael see the strength of public anger at the failings of the Government's policy, we might perhaps see some change but I do not think we will see anything until then.

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