Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to invite everyone in the House to join me at a vigil tomorrow that Aontú is organising to remember the more than 400 homeless people who have died in Dublin since 2018. Every party is organising this vigil. It is not a political event. It is simply a vigil to remember the shocking human tragedy that is unfolding on the streets of our capital city. Fr. Peter McVerry and family members of some of those who have died will be attending outside the gates tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Documents released to me under freedom of information legislation in recent weeks show that 20 homeless people have died in Dublin in the first few months of this year. One of them was a child, with a further four people aged between 20 and 29. Aontú has been raising this issue for some time. In 2018, 47 people died in Dublin in homelessness. In 2019, 49 people died. It became very obvious to me during the summer of 2020 that something was seriously wrong. Homeless people were being denied help in Dublin and had to go home to their counties of origin for assistance. This was at a time when we could get arrested for crossing county borders. The Minister promised an investigation when I raised this matter at the time. Tragically, this investigation has dragged on for years with little action. In all, in 2020, we had 76 homeless deaths in Dublin. This represented a 60% increase on the number of homeless people who had died the previous year. The following year saw 115 people die in homelessness in Dublin. Last year, 95 people lost their lives in homelessness, and this was just in Dublin.

We are not recording homelessness in any other local authority area in the country, which is a disgrace. If we are not even measuring what is happening in respect of fatalities in homelessness, how in God's name can we marshal the necessary resources to help fix the problems in these locations? Behind each of these statistics are individuals, their families and their friends. The ages of these people are deeply concerning. Of the 20 people who died in homelessness in Dublin so far this year, ten were aged between 30 and 49. Two-thirds of the people who died in homelessness this year, therefore, were younger than me. This is an extraordinary figure. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, because of the spike in homelessness in 2020, provided me with some details on those deaths that occurred in July and August 2020. On one occasion, a woman in her 30s appears to have tragically taken her own life. Another woman was in her 20s when she died. Another young woman of 19 died in an emergency accommodation situation. Another death was of a man in his 20s who was found dead while sleeping rough. He had been released from prison the day before his death. It is incredible this is happening. In the society in which we are living, there is an us and them situation in the material results experienced by people.

Those deaths all occurred in one month. The following month, a man in his 50s died in an NGO service, as did another male in his 30s and another male in his 40s. This was followed by another man in his 40s who died by taking his own life. The same month, a female in her 30s died while homeless. Between July and August 2020, a total of 15 people died while homeless in Dublin. This is about two people weekly in this scenario. The findings of the investigation published by the Department of Health in recent weeks, produced by the Health Research Board, HRB, make for sad reading. Substance abuse and mental health were the major factors, but the report also cites the fact these "deaths were primarily the result of the social determinants of health, including inadequate accommodation, poverty, lack of employment, child and adult trauma, and imprisonment".

We know the causes of these deaths. What we now need is the urgent implementation of the solution. We need the Departments of Health, Justice, Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and Education to work together on this issue, from DEIS schools to psychologists and social workers and prison officers. It is a scandal that people are dying in homelessness at this rate in Ireland in 2023, and the Government has taken far too long even just to look into this issue. We also need the Government to urgently begin to record the homeless deaths happening in the counties and local authorities outside Dublin. How can the Minister of State stand over not even recording these figures in his own county?

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