Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To say I am happy to speak on this important issue would be wrong. Like Deputy Connolly and others, I agree it is a shocking situation.

Last week, the Oireachtas housing committee released its report on family and child homelessness. It is a stark and sobering assessment of the damage being perpetrated on children by the current homelessness strategy. Like previous speakers, I have no axe to grind with the Minister of State, as he is doing his best. However, it is a scandal and a disgrace that the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is not in the Chamber for this debate. If it was opening an envelope or turning a sod for the third time on the same site, he would there with his hard hat. Cá bhfuil sé inniu? Níl sé anseo.

The housing committee intensively engaged on this issue for some considerable time. It heard from all the main stakeholders and its assessment is pretty damning. What is clear is that the current approaches are simply not working. That is why the committee made 14 recommendations aimed at bringing improvements and, more importantly, relief for families and children into the equation. The Minister of State must know from his constituency clinics about these desperate situations. We have them every day of the week in our offices but we cannot do anything for them. The committee recommended the Housing Act 1988 be amended to place a statutory duty on housing authorities to regard the best interests of the child as paramount, as well as to have regard to the needs of the family and to make provision of suitable accommodation for the family unit to ensure its effective functioning. A family cannot function if it is sleeping on the street or in emergency hotel or bed and breakfast accommodation. The Minister of State is a family man himself and knows no family could do it.

We need to urgently limit the amount of time a family can spend in emergency accommodation in order to minimise the risk of long-term adverse outcomes.

This is why we are calling for the Housing Act 1988 be amended to place a limit on the amount of time. It is entirely unacceptable that we continue to allow a broken system to persist. It is a system that is destroying the well-being of children and creating permanent damage to families in every town and village in the State.

The April homeless figures provided by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government show the total number of homeless families at 1,729, which includes 3,794 dependants. Figures issued in May by Focus Ireland show that a total of 94 families with 137 dependent children became newly homeless in Dublin alone in April. What is going on? This morning, the Tánaiste spoke about his record in housing. Is Deputy Eoghan Murphy the sixth or seventh Minister with responsibility for housing? Would we be better off if we never had a Minister with responsibility for housing? We all welcomed it and thought it was great but there is such inertia and inability. It is a shame the Minister of State does not have colleagues with him to support him and the Minister is not here either. It is shocking.

In a briefing note to the committee, Focus Ireland made a number of clear points. It noted that the latest Government figures exclude families who have been assessed as homeless by local authorities, are receiving homeless support funded by the Department with responsibility for housing, or are living in emergency homeless accommodation that has its own front door. The figures are being manicured day in day out. There are all kinds of nuances there and the figures are wholly and entirely deceptive.

Focus Ireland has called for the number of families living in own-door emergency accommodation to be published each month along with the headline figure. Until we get this honesty, clarity and direct assessment and see the real figures, we are going nowhere. If we cannot do this, it is a sad state of affairs. Focus Ireland advises this is the practice in England and Scotland, where similar properties are used to accommodate homeless families. It gives a clearer picture of the nature of the problem for policymakers and services. If they can do it in England and Scotland, why are we hiding? It is the same in Northern Ireland. If a house becomes vacant, it is let again within six weeks. Here, we have them closed for three years. They are an absolute blight on our towns and villages but it is an absolute scandal when there is such a need for houses.

Focus Ireland research shows that even a short period of homelessness often has a very negative impact on families and their children. Could any of us imagine not having a home? More than 40% of the families who are homeless in Dublin have been in emergency accommodation for more than a year. Emergency accommodation is for a week or two and not for 12 months. I do not know where Fine Gael's moral compass has gone. I knew it was never really interested in the ordinary little people, but my goodness, the figures we have now are shocking. I take great umbrage at the script read out by the Minister of State because it was waffle. He knows himself that-----

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