Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State said "There is no shortage of will or determination... to deal with the issue of homelessness. It remains our top priority." If that were true, it would not say too much for the effectiveness of the Government, would it? Since it lifted the eviction ban, the number of people forced to live in emergency accommodation goes up month after month. The Minister of State says it is a top priority. In that case the Government is not very effective and is failing all along the line.

However, I do not believe the Minister of State; I do not think it is a top priority for the Government. It is not that it likes to see the numbers going up; they are embarrassing for it. It releases them on a Friday afternoon so that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste can keep a low profile over the weekend and thereby avoid embarrassment. However, its priority - to use the Minister of State's word - is not the tenants but the market. Its priority is the landlords. Its priority is not the tenants. At the moment in Fine Gael circles with an election coming up, its Members probably feel they have lost the dressing room with the tenants at this stage and that they will not get too many votes from tenants in the first place. They are happy to let the market rip and let the tenants go to hell. The Minister of State can shake his head all he likes but the tenants and people who discern things about politics looking into this debate will know or feel that I speak the truth on this matter.

Let us look at some of the facts. Since the People Before Profit Bill passed Second Stage on 22 February, 1,093 people have been forced into emergency accommodation; 398 of them are children. A total of 5,735 notices to quit were issued in the three months of April, May and June. There was a 21% increase in the number of notices to quit for the first three months of this year. Let us pause and think about this. That indicates the worst has not hit yet; it is in the pipeline. We will see a see a surge of homelessness and a surge of people being forced to go into emergency accommodation over the winter, which is the worst time of the year it can happen. It is on the head of the Minister of State and his Government. He comes in here and has the nerve to trot out these half-baked little commonplaces. One person in homelessness is one person too many. I have heard that about a dozen times from a dozen different Ministers. Do they go to classes with PR companies to learn how to recite these things? Do they even think of what they are saying when their policies mean that homelessness is increasing month on month?

The Minister of State said that he understands the anxiety of someone who has been forced into homelessness. Does he? Does he understand the anxiety of someone who has been forced into homelessness? Has he ever been forced into homelessness himself? Has he ever had a notice to quit land on the other side of his letterbox? Has he ever been in a situation of having to feed kids and keep a roof over their head while on a low income and the landlord, who has been given the green light by the Government, issues him with a notice to quit? I doubt that he has; I will stand corrected if he has been. I await his reply with interest. However, I doubt that he really understands, for example, the anxiety of a mother in a situation like that. How could he until such time as he has stood in her shoes?

I will give a real-life example from the city of that Cork. On the south side of the city at the moment on Dean Street beside St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, eviction notices have been served for an entire building containing 24 units. The landlady issued the notices to quit at the end of May, a couple of months after the Government had given her the green light to do such a thing. Now people are facing eviction at Christmas. Some of the notices to quit are for 27 November and some are for 10 January. One of the people who has a November eviction notice needs to go for an operation which relates to their heart in November itself. Some of those tenants have been there for ten years and more. Apart from the Minister of State present, who voted to lift the eviction ban? It was voted for by the Ministers, Deputies Micheál Martin, Coveney and Michael McGrath, who are just down the road across the constituency line which is a couple of hundred metres away. People will remember who is responsible for giving the green light for this.

By the way, in the absence of the reinstatement of the of the eviction ban, I understand Cork City Council so far has done three deals on tenant in situ. This really needs to be stepped up, but it should apply the tenant in situscheme and purchase that building to stop people being evicted into homelessness and also to take into public ownership an historic building which was built in 1760. It is where the choir for the cathedral used to live and is a listed building.

I wish to make some brief points about the upcoming budget as it relates to this issue. I would say that it is incredible but actually unfortunately it is entirely credible, given where it is coming from, to hear Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers and Deputies talking about cutting tax for landlords in the budget. I think even the mandarins in the Department of Finance are opposed to this, pointing to the unbelievable position where passive income for property rental would be taxed at a lower rate than earned income. In other words, a tenant who is a working person and is in the PAYE system, pays 30%, 40%, 50% or more of their income over to the landlord in rent while the landlord is taxed at a lower rate than the tenant. Is the Government for real? It will face an absolute hammering not just from People Before Profit-Solidarity but from other Deputies in this House and from all the housing charities and campaigning groups in the country if it decides to go down that road and create a two-tier system, worsening the situation.

I also want to make a brief reference to some breaking news overnight. One of the reasons we have such high levels of homelessness and so many people forced to live in emergency accommodation in this country is that people cannot afford the rent. This was pointed to last night by the Living Wage Technical Group which recommended an increase in the rate of the living wage. It pointed to rising energy costs, food costs and rent costs as a reason for doing this. I am in favour of cutting rents and I am in favour of freezing those cut rents. I am also in favour of increasing the income of renters so that they are better able to afford the rents.

The Minister of State has failed the lowest paid workers in this country by having a completely unrealistically low national minimum wage at a rate of €11.30 an hour. I stand for a national minimum wage of €17 an hour. I think that is what someone would need to survive in this day and age with the cost-of-living crisis. The living wage technical group, in its wisdom, has recommended a figure of €14.80. It says that is the minimum that is needed to live a dignified life in this society. That is €3.50 higher than the minimum wage the Government has introduced. I would like to hear the Minister of State and other Ministers explain how they can justify that. There is a proposal for a living wage of €14.80 and the Government is asking people to live not on €1 less, €2 less or €3 less, but €3.50 less. It shows a complete lack of understanding and is an unsustainable position.

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