Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have always believed that the very least that people could expect from their government is a roof over their head. To say that the Government is failing in that regard is a profound understatement. At least 13,000 people, including 4,000 children, are without a home. That figure is probably 20,000 when we include all of the shelters in our calculations. The Minister is failing them. What is more is that his Government is beginning to reconcile itself to that fact. At the start of this Dáil term, we had a debate on whether we had a housing emergency. The Government came back and forth, again and again, on whether it was an emergency. It eventually landed and ended up accepting that it was an emergency. The truth is that there has never been an emergency response. Not under the confidence and supply arrangement, and not since the current Minister came into government, has there been an emergency response of the kind that is needed. Every action taken by the Government, even the better ones, was a day late and a dollar short. So much of what the Government is doing is failing completely.

Some of the cases we deal with - I am sure the Minister deals with them too - are absolutely heartbreaking, as are the situations people are facing. These are compounded by the fact that there is very little prospect of things getting any better soon for those people. I will mention some of the people I have spoken to in the past four or five days. There is a man in his 70s who is overstaying just because he is convalescing from a hip operation. He has no idea where he is going to go and he has been on the list for about a year. Another case is of a woman who has still not been assessed for homelessness by a local authority and lives between couch surfing and sleeping in her car with her two children, who are in primary school. Another woman broke down when speaking to me last week because she is now facing homelessness. The father of her two children is already homeless. The only way they can see him, because the homeless accommodation will not facilitate that, is in her house. If she is made homeless, where are they going to see their father? These are the situations that people I have spoken to in the past five or six days are facing. It is the responsibility of the Minister's Government. There needs to be an emergency response. There should have been such a response four or six years ago, or probably more than that. I ask the Minister to bring such a response now by increasing the targets, by increasing the provision for Housing First and by dealing with this matter. He must not continue to allow the vulture funds in through the back door.

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