Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: notes that:

— the Government has lost control of the homelessness crisis as levels of homelessness continue to rise despite the winter ban on evictions;

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD, and his Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael colleagues in Government, including the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath TD, and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD, chose to allow more people to become homeless when they failed to introduce an emergency response to the escalating homelessness crisis in parallel with the winter ban on evictions;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's homeless figures in December recorded 11,632 people, including 3,442 children, in emergency accommodation;

— when adults and children in emergency accommodation funded by other Government departments and in hostels not receiving State Government funding, and people sleeping rough are taken into account the true level of homelessness is approaching 18,000 people;

— this does not include those sofa surfing or living in unsuitable and overcrowded accommodation; and

— the Government's targets for social and affordable housing are too low and have been missed three years in a row; and

calls on the Government to:

— reject the failed and failing housing policies of Darragh O'Brien TD, Paschal Donohoe TD, and Michael McGrath TD;

— extend the ban on evictions to the end of the year, except in cases such as breach of contract by the tenant or where an owner is homeless or is at imminent risk of homelessness;

— expand the tenant-in-situ scheme, for both social and affordable cost rental tenants, to ensure local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies purchase private rental properties where tenants have Notices to Quit, subject to price and condition of the property;

— use emergency planning and procurement powers, new building technologies and vacant properties to increase the delivery of social and affordable homes in 2023 above the current housing plan targets; and

— revise their overall social and affordable housing targets to ensure that at least 20,000 public homes are delivered in 2024.

I am sharing time with colleagues.

When the former Deputy, Eoghan Murphy, was the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, he introduced a ban on evictions. Within a very short period of time, the number of men, women and children in State-funded emergency accommodation dropped dramatically. Over the space of three or four months, we saw a 60%-plus reduction in official levels of homelessness. Since the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien, introduced his ban on evictions last year, a ban we urged him to introduce, unfortunately, we have not so far seen any reduction in the number of people in emergency accommodation. As the Minister knows, in November, the number of men, women and children across all categories in emergency accommodation increased. In December, the overall levels of homelessness increased, driven, in particular, by single-person homelessness. There was a modest decline in family presentations. While the Department will not be releasing the January figures until later this week, there is a genuine concern that at best, the levels will plateau and at worst, they will continue to deteriorate. If we ask ourselves why, the reason is because the Minister did not take the advice of many front-line homeless service providers, housing policy experts, as well as many of us in the Opposition, when we supported the introduction of the winter ban on evictions.

What we have not seen over the course of the ban period is any real emergency response to try to ensure that fewer people present to homeless accommodation and more people exit homeless accommodation more rapidly. We are still having huge problems with the tenant in situscheme. It is not being applied consistently across all local authorities. There has not been sufficient guidance given by the Department to ensure that that scheme operates quickly and efficiently to ensure HAP and RAS tenants with eviction notices do not become homeless. We have not seen any definitive statement from the Department or the Minister to allow approved housing bodies, AHBs, to operate the tenant in situscheme for affordable cost rental. I know the Minister has been privately supportive of attempts by residents in Tathony House to try and have that matter resolved, but I think we need something much clearer and more public across the board. Crucially, we have not seen the mobilisation, in a manner comparable with Covid, of all of the resources of Government, including existing emergency planning powers, procurement powers, new building technologies and vacant homes, to try to get some additional social housing stock in place more quickly to tackle the ever-growing levels of homelessness in the city. As a consequence, we are now facing the ending of the ban on evictions at the end of this month and a very serious cliff edge. Yes, it will be extended for some, but a very large number of notices will fall due from the beginning of April. That will accelerate into May and June. Even if we start to see a levelling-off of official homeless numbers in January and February, we are looking at the very real prospect of significant increases from April, May and June.

The motion we have tabled urges the Government to do two things. The first is to extend the ban on evictions. It can only be temporary. It is an emergency measure. I accept that there are legal challenges around an indefinite ban on evictions, even with the caveats in the current legislation. The primary motivation that convinced Cabinet to support the last ban was that in October of last year, at least 19 local authorities had no emergency accommodation available at all on given nights. The prospect of families with children having to spend the night in Garda stations as per Tusla rules convinced the Government to act. The fact that we are now potentially going to be in a much worse situation come April, May and June means the Government has to reintroduce an extended ban on a temporary basis.

I will make exactly the same point as I made when we debated this last year. A ban on evictions is not a solution. A ban on evictions is a mark of failure. All it will allow us to do is to use that breathing space to introduce the kind of emergency measures that the Minister will hear many of us on the Opposition benches, and many people working on the front line of homeless services in the public and voluntary sectors, urge him to. It does not matter how long the Minister's amendments are. They are no substitute for actions that actually make things better for people on the ground. The figures do not lie. More men, women and children than in modern history are in emergency accommodation funded by the Minister's Department. That is despite the fact that we had a winter ban on evictions. The time to act is now. The time to extend the ban on evictions is now. Crucially, we must introduce the suite of emergency measures that we are calling on the Minister to introduce. We will work with him on that to ensure that when we have the second ban on evictions, we see the numbers presenting as homeless and exiting homelessness go in the right direction.

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