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

One terrible aspect of the absolutely dire housing crisis over which the Government is presiding is that people with very serious medical conditions are looking to gain medical priority but waiting months for their cases to be looked at, even though they are in dire situations, clearly because of lack of resources for medical assessment in local authorities. Something needs to be done about it urgently. I will give the Taoiseach a few examples: a 73-year-old with a very severe spinal condition who is couch-surfing with family members and being asked for more and more reports; a man of 66 receiving cancer treatment who was sleeping in his van, has made several attempts on his life and has still not been properly assessed; a woman who was for nine hours on a dialysis machine and who submitted medical forms in November of last year; and a 68-year-old man who is epileptic and facing the possibility of eviction, having submitted his stuff in September. The list goes on. Something urgently needs to be done about vulnerable, unwell, mostly elderly people not having their housing needs assessed quickly and efficiently.

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