Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A man called Philip came into my clinic this week. Philip has recently entered recovery and is currently staying in step-down accommodation where he has been for the past six months. However, he must be out of there by next Friday and will then become homeless. When he went into Cork city to present as a person at risk of homelessness, he was told nothing could be done for him because he had been removed from the housing list when he went into recovery and entered residential rehabilitation. Entering into rehabilitation and starting a journey of recovery is one of the bravest things a person can do but for many, housing presents as the number one barrier. If Philip had not gone into rehabilitation, if he had not tried to get out of active addiction, he would still be on the council's housing list, with an opportunity of getting a house.

As the Sinn Féin spokesperson on addiction, recovery and well-being, last year I set about drafting a document on a recovery charter, a charter of rights for those in recovery. It is a comprehensive document that lists what Sinn Féin believes are the rights of those in recovery. I brought a draft of this document to people in recovery and asked them for their opinions. The first thing said by every single person who reviewed the document was that housing needed to be the number one right because it was the number one issue they faced. People are leaving residential rehabilitation and going straight into homelessness. Those who are lucky enough to get shared recovery housing, normally for a period of six months, are often stuck there because they have nowhere else to go. One participant told me that he had been in shared recovery accommodation for over three years. He was stable, had a job and was involved in his community. He had done everything right. His children were in the care of Tusla, which was ready to release them to him but he could not find anywhere to live so he could not get his children back. Both he and his children have been stuck in limbo for the past two years. That story stuck with me because it involves someone who has done everything right and yet he is faced with an insurmountable barrier.

The current Government sometimes says that Sinn Féin does not come up with solutions but we have solutions for this. I ask the Minister of State to instruct all local authorities not to remove people from the housing list who enter residential rehabilitation for the period during which they are in treatment. I also ask the Government to consider a wraparound, own door recovery housing pilot project modelled on the Housing First programme. I ask the Government to treat those in recovery with compassion and to ensure that local authorities and the Department of Housing, Local Government do the same. These are brave people who are doing their best to create a community and to rebuild their lives. We should be standing beside them and supporting them, not putting barriers in front of them. This is another reason we need a referendum on a right to housing. Recovery housing is vital for people who are on the recovery journey and I ask the Government to seriously consider the requests I have made.

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