Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On Friday we learned that homelessness figures have risen yet again to almost 12,000 people, which represents a 2.1% increase month on month. These figures relate to the period just before the lifting of the eviction ban took effect. I shudder to think what the figure for next month will be, as the evictions allowed to proceed by the Government come into force.

These figures show that the Government is divorced from reality, detached from reality. In light of consistently rising homelessness figures - rising yet again last month - the Government made the indefensible decision to lift the temporary no-fault eviction ban. By doing so, it chose to pull the rug out from under families and individuals who are facing homelessness. It fails to understand that each of these numbers also represents a life - the life of a child living in uncertainty, a parent trying to keep a brave face or an elderly person living in fear. These new figures do not even begin to capture those in hidden homelessness, those who are couch surfing, adult young people living on in childhood bedrooms and the thousands who are emigrating for lack of affordable housing.

Having one family in homelessness is one family too many. It is even more so the case when we know how inappropriate emergency housing and hotel stays are beyond a couple of nights. Week in and week out, children are getting ready for school in hotel bedrooms and students are preparing for junior cert and leaving cert State exams, not knowing what home they will be going back to. They are being failed by the Government, and that is a national tragedy.

The Government could have used the period of the eviction ban as the breathing space to allow for the introduction of emergency housing measures, which would have provided support to families then facing eviction. However, the Government instead saw it only as an opportunity to kick the can down the road. Days before the ban was due to be lifted - and even in the days immediately following its lifting - there were no concrete plans in place to support the thousands facing eviction and about to become homeless as the ban was lifted. The Government’s mini budget, announced last week, was a desperate attempt to mitigate a crisis for which it has no one to blame but itself. These 11,988 people in homelessness deserve far more than what the coalition of convenience has offered.

They have been left behind, out in the cold, while the Government's mini budget simply puts more money in the pockets of private developers.

We in the Labour Party have consistently advocated for State-led, local authority-led, approved housing body-led solutions to the housing crisis but we have yet to see our constructive proposals taken on board. Instead, the Government has retained a failed private developer-led model and it has failed to live up to the hype it has created around housing. Its shocking failure to control the controllables is a disgrace. Will the Taoiseach reinstate the eviction ban? Will it adopt the Labour Party's constructive proposals to begin the pathway for families and individuals to safe, secure and affordable housing? Will the Government take on board the measures we are proposing to do that?

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