Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The raw and human impact of the housing crisis was laid bare in heartbreaking fashion on RTÉ last night. With great courage and dignity, Graham King told how he and his family live in a tent. They have nowhere else to go. His wife, Patricia, and his two children, Grayson and Priya, stay in the tent. He stays in the car. They live day to day. Graham said:

I’m on disability and half carer's. My wife works. We have to run a car and feed kids. The expenses add up.

Speaking about the conditions in the tent and how his children are coping, he said:

It was a game at first. It’s not so much anymore. The last couple of nights haven’t been good. Wind, rain - that type of weather has already destroyed one tent. This one is holding up, but I don’t know how long it will last. I haven't got much sleep because I still have to be looking after the tent when the rest of them are sleeping in it.

About his children, he said, "[The children] know they're homeless but they don't know the meaning of what that entails" and that they cope by occupying themselves. There are playgrounds nearby and a walkway, and they feed the ducks,

For more than a decade, Governments have been telling people that they will fix housing, yet here we are with a father on national television telling his family's story of living in a tent in Ireland in 2022. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, had no answers for Graham. He and his family are still in that tent today. It is day 53 for them. Incredibly, the family have been told that they earn too much to qualify for State housing support. I have no doubt that viewers last night were looking on with a sense of, "There but for the grace of God go I", a feeling that this could happen to anyone, especially in light of extortionate rents, record levels of homelessness and a maxed out emergency accommodation system. Last Wednesday, in Dublin 7 in my constituency, for example, all emergency shelters bar one were full.

When a working family, a family trying to do everything right, ends up living in a tent, it is surely a sign that the system is broken beyond recognition. For months, Sinn Féin and others have been calling on the Government to introduce a winter eviction ban to halt the flow of people into homelessness. I welcome the fact that it seems the Government has finally listened and will proceed with a ban. It is a first step. This measure must coincide with an accelerated delivery of affordable homes, tackling crisis rents, increasing income thresholds for social housing and an urgent plan to bring vacant homes into use. In the here and now, though, we must ensure that the eviction ban is done right. Cuirim fáilte roimh an gcosc geimhridh ar dhíshealbhú mar chéad chéim chun tabhairt faoi ghéarchéim na ndaoine gan dídean. Caithfidh an Rialtas é a fháil i gceart gan aon mhoill. There are concerns that the eviction ban may not be introduced until December. That would be far too late. Such a delay would result in hundreds more adults and children being forced into homelessness but if we work together, we can pass the right legislation very quickly to prevent this from happening. Will the Government do that? Will it ensure that the winter ban on evictions is implemented without any further delay?

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