Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The report by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland on the welfare and mental health of children living in homelessness could be summed up by simply saying that the Government is guilty of child abuse. There is no other way to describe it. Its failure to put a secure roof over the heads of 4,000 children means that the State is guilty of abuse. The lifelong consequences for many of those children rest firmly on the shoulders of the Governments that have precipitated and presided over this crisis. In 2011, when Fine Gael and the Labour Party came into Government, the programme for Government promised to end homelessness by the end of the term of that Government. The opposite happened. By the end of the term of that Government, we had reached the worst level of homelessness and child homelessness in the modern history of the State and this has continued to get worse under this Government.

It is important to say that there are winners out of this and they are very conscious of it. IRES REIT, the biggest landlord in the State, declared at the beginning of this year that its portfolio was worth €921 million, just under €1 billion. Its share price had jumped 13% and its net rental income had jumped 13.5% on the previous year. Margaret Sweeney, the CEO of IRES REIT, summed up the situation when she said the following:

Rental demand remains strong and, whilst it is beginning to increase slowly, the supply of residential accommodation remains constrained. The prospects for growth in the Irish market remain good.

That statement sums it up. What is bad for the children living in homeless accommodation, whose welfare is being destroyed and whose futures are being stolen, is good for IRES REIT and it knows it. It is lining its pockets. The worse the crisis is, the more profit it makes. That is true of Cairn Homes, the largest owner of zoned building land in Dublin, which drip feeds housing on to the market to keep prices high and shares out the profit bonuses to its directors each year. It is shameful.

The Minister of State said the Government is improving the situation but the truth is that more than two thirds of its social housing plans rely on HAP, which is paid to private landlords. Even if its plan succeeds, which is doubtful, the net result will be that the vast majority of people will continue to be prey to the IRES REITs of this world, which will continue to line their pockets, and will periodically be evicted into homelessness causing the sort of hardship and suffering pointed out by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. It is shameful.

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