Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for this important report. It is an informative piece of work looking at six dimensions of housing adequacy: accessibility, affordability, security of tenure, cultural adequacy, quality and location. It also provides us with baseline figures on the housing situation for a range of socioeconomic groups. This research is important because it essentially backs up with data what we all know.

Whether the people on the opposite side of the House choose to acknowledge it or not, they know in their quiet moments exactly what is going on. When they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning putting on their make-up, having a shave or whatever, they must know that what they are doing is not good. They must see what we are seeing in our clinics and on the streets. It is at the stage now where people approach us on the street to describe the appalling state of the housing emergency and how it affects them. That is extremely embarrassing for people. It is dehumanising to have to beg for somewhere to live, or to have to be constantly sharing their story about how they are bringing their kids up in a place that they are embarrassed to call home. That is not good enough. That is no way to raise kids. It is not a year or three or four years of their lives - it is kids growing up into adulthood in these situations. Their parents cross the street to come to us. They are mortified because all parents want is to give their kids a decent start in life in a warm and safe place where they can bring their friends home and not to have to move constantly.

When you are a lone parent, a migrant or the parent of a child with a disability, everything gets that bit more complicated. You need more supports, but they are not there, so you are forced to go and tell your story to a politician and to look the politician in the eye and explain the conditions that you are raising your family in, how embarrassing it is, how horrible you feel and how you cry yourself to sleep at night. We are seeing this every day of the week. I am not making this up. Everything comes back to housing. If we are dealing with a child protection case, in the end it comes back to housing. If we are dealing with issues around employment, it comes back to housing, because some people simply do not have enough space to be able to work from home or they are forced to live too far from where they work and they are getting in trouble in work. That is compounded when you are a member of a marginalised socioeconomic group.

It is infuriating when I see the Department of Finance say the ESRI is detached from reality because it says the Government should borrow more money to build houses and try to solve the crisis. We know well who is detached from reality and it is most definitely not the people who say that for the love and honour of Jesus we should build houses so that people can have somewhere to live and are not forced to go to politicians to beg and to have to tell their story over and over again. This report points up not just the difficulties that exist in the housing system, but how they affect people who are already marginalised and not getting a head start and how this puts them back much further. I urge the Minister of State to reflect and to take three things on board: first, the findings of this report; second, the absolute necessity to build social and affordable homes and; third, for God's sake will he tell the Department of Finance who really is detached from reality?

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