Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Four hundred people have died in homelessness in Dublin alone in the past five years. That is an incredible figure and the national one is far higher, but the Government does not seem to want to record these figures. We have a situation where, heartbreakingly, that figure does not include the number of people who died sleeping rough in the city. We have 11,754 people in homelessness, 3,000 or more of whom are children. Many of these children will be spending their third St. Patrick's Day in a hotel room as a result of the dire crisis in housing. As a result of the Government's announcement on ending the ban on evictions, thousands of families are now living in fear that their last protection from homelessness has been taken from under them by this Government. The Government must go back to this decision. It needs to take into consideration the level of damage that is being done to so many children and so many families who are teetering at the edge of homelessness. The Government's decision must be revoked.

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