Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ministers for facilitating this debate today. I will flag a couple of practical issues of which Ministers should be aware. Much has been said that I agree with, particularly Deputy Duncan Smith's points about a State presence. In my constituency, the local Fine Gael councillor, Mr. Jim Gildea, offered his home on the second day of the conflict to the Irish Red Cross. He and his wife live in a home with additional space. They have yet to receive a telephone call. They received an email saying they would get a telephone call but nothing has happened. Meanwhile, another family down the road nearby has a Ukrainian family staying. They have been there for the past two months and with the pressure for everybody it has to move on.

I could link them directly, but I cannot do that because the home and so forth have to be assessed, there must be Garda vetting and one cannot put vulnerable people in a newly vulnerable situation. My difficulty is that I am aware of both situations but I cannot deal with the gap. I have nobody to call and I cannot reach the Irish Red Cross or the IPAS unit. I cannot join these dots even though I am aware of them, and this cannot be the only situation where this is occurring. As public representatives we are encountering many of these different situations which we can use and flag and connect with somebody who can take things further. As Deputies have said, it is difficult to reach IPAS and the Irish Red Cross. I appreciate that they are under overwhelming pressure at present, but we have practical things that can be resolved on the ground. We just need a better-connected system.

I also have a particular concern about Ukrainian teenagers who are coming here, particularly those who are coming alone and who are reliant on Tusla due to whatever tragic reason they are in Ireland alone. The difficulty is where they are ageing out of the Tusla system from 17 years old into 18 years old. In usual circumstances in Ireland, a minor coming to 18 years old is under the after-care programme of Tusla. It is not necessarily clear, it may be so but it is not yet apparent to me, that this is also the case in respect of Ukrainian children. They are not necessarily under a care order, for example, but they are under the remit of, and generally reliant on, Tusla. How do we protect those very vulnerable young people who may be moved from one accommodation to another and may be placed in a situation that is more at risk than where an 18-year-old would otherwise be placed? I draw that to the Minister's attention.

Other Deputies have raised vacancy. That is an ongoing issue. Going around my constituency last week I counted five vacant homes in one estate which historically had been a council estate. I went back later in the week for a constituency clinic and I saw activity in three of them, so something is happening. That is fine, but I cannot access the information about the others. It is still difficult to do that.

It occurs to me, however, that we have a very good rent a room tax relief scheme. When the Minister was the spokesperson on housing for Fianna Fáil he tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, asking for it to be extended from €14,000 to €15,000 per year. I can understand that. However, consider the pressures now in addition to our housing crisis, people coming out of direct provision and a greatly increased number of people looking for accommodation.

If we are trying to increase housing stock generally without placing additional pressure on the social housing system, is it really time to look at this scheme on a temporary basis? Should we conduct a macroeconomic analysis and not only consider tax forgone? If we take a three year temporary programme and do something radical such as double it or increase it by 50% to try to get more one-bedroom places for individuals or couples in Irish homes and provide tax relief to do so, the Department of Finance will speak about tax forgone against general tax income. Could we look at an overall macroeconomic analysis of something such as this? Could we examine what the impact may be on take-up and what the relative cost of this in terms of tax forgone might be versus the cost to the State of acquiring or providing emergency accommodation in other forms? This could then be benched against the humanitarian concern of housing people in what we all recognise are not necessarily appropriate circumstances. It is a radical thing to ask. I ask that the view taken is not only the Department of Finance's quite narrow view of the tax analysis of it but that something more broadly across government would be considered.

See this speech in context