Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Many thousands of people will come out on the streets for the Raise the Roof demonstration because of the failure of the Government to address the absolutely diabolical housing and homelessness crisis. I have brought to the Gallery some of the people for whom this is a life and death matter. Deputy Bacik may not have been aware that some of the residents of Tathony House she referred to are present. The 35 families in Tathony House have done nothing wrong but are facing eviction by a landlord who has had a massive rent roll of approximately €750,000 a year for all the years they have been his tenants. They now face eviction and the possibility of being put out on the street. They are scared and that is why they are here.

Residents from Rathmines Road are also in the Gallery. More than 20 families and individuals there are facing the prospect of eviction on grounds of sale. I have also brought in residents from St. Helen's Court, who have faced four years with the sword of eviction hanging over their necks from two different vulture funds that are trying to mass evict them. This is important in the context of the Tyrrelstown amendment and all the rest of it. Although the residents are still there, they now have an active eviction order against them. Even when they defeated the last three attempts by the landlord to circumvent the Tyrrelstown amendment, the fear, stress and anxiety led many of the tenants to leave. They could not put up with the stress on them and their families. The fear, stress and hardship that these people in the Gallery are suffering is shocking.

Jacqueline is also in the Gallery. She, her husband and her two teenage daughters are being evicted from the home in which they have lived for 55 years. Jacqueline was born in the house. They are a working family but they cannot get a mortgage because they are too old and the bank will not lend them money. They are over the income threshold so they are not entitled to social housing and they face the prospect of the street, unless the Government intervenes. Stella and her two daughters in Bray also face eviction, not only from where Stella lives but, since she is self-employed, from where she does her business. She will not only lose her home but her job. Their situation is best summed up by Jacqueline. She speaks for all of them when she wrote in a letter I will hand to the Taoiseach after this:

My darling, beloved husband will be put into an early grave as he is a broken man. As the dad of the house and as a husband he cannot fix this, This whole situation is affecting both our health. We are a broken family living dark days in fear, Minister. I need you to fix this and I need you to fix this now.

The question from all these people is: will the Government use the €500 million allocated to housing that it has not spent to buy their houses and apartment blocks to prevent these families and individuals from being put into homelessness, and end the suffering, hardship and trauma they and their families are suffering, as are many others?

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