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

We warned the Government when it decided to go through with the cold-hearted decision to lift the no fault eviction ban on 1 April that it would lead to a spike in homelessness. The figures that came out last Friday, conveniently enough for the Government before the weekend but we need to consider them, show a significant rise in the rate of homelessness in the first month after that no fault eviction ban was lifted. Worst of all, it shows a dramatic jump in the number of families and children who are homeless. We now have the shocking record number of 12,259 people homeless, and 3,594 of them are children. In the past month, the number of families going into homelessness increased by 94 with 122 children among them. These are children who have been put through the trauma and hardship of being made homeless because, in many cases, of an eviction where the families have done absolutely nothing wrong. They have been thrown into emergency accommodation. Will the Taoiseach not accept this has been a disastrous decision? This is just the beginning because the Government staggered the end of the eviction ban, which means this will escalate.

All the signs are that this already disastrous situation of record numbers of individuals, families and, worst of all, children, will increase and increase. The Government needs to reinstate the eviction ban.

I know what the Taoiseach will say. He will say we have the tenant in situ scheme and that is what the Government is doing to stop evictions. I remind the Taoiseach it was the Opposition that proposed that scheme. We had to fight with the Government for two years for it to introduce it but in many cases, although we are getting some success, it is not working because big investors in particular, as well as corporate landlords, even though they are evicting people on the grounds they are selling a property, when the local authority approaches them to say it wants to buy those properties, they are just saying, "No". Something needs to be done about that. That is what is happening in Tathony House, where 35 families and households are threatened with eviction. The landlord is just ignoring the council. He wants to go through with the eviction and is refusing to engage on the issue of purchase. I have raised other similar cases with the Taoiseach in recent times.

The Government's policies are not working. It is not rational to say it will be worse in a few months' time if we reinstate the eviction ban because, in a sense, that suggests the Government's plans to deliver more affordable and public housing will not actually be realised. Will the Government reinstate the no-fault eviction ban? Will it ensure there is first refusal for local authorities and approved housing bodies that are trying to buy properties to prevent families and children being made homeless?

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