Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said that he believes real progress is being made. I genuinely do not know how he said that with a straight face. Behind all of his policy failings - sky-high rents, unaffordable homes, rampant vulture funds and 13,500 homeless people, 4,000 of whom are children - are real people. Families are having their lives destroyed. Sometimes I think that if the Minister knew how bad the situation was, he might actually change tack but maybe I am wrong. In his own constituency, which is also mine, I have two offices and I run very busy clinics. I had a look at my diary and took a sample from one day. My first appointment was with a lovely woman who is waiting on the tenant in situ scheme to decide whether it will purchase her home. She has to be out by April and is absolutely frantic because she does not want to take her kids out of their school and so on. Next, a mother and father who have two kids. The mould in their apartment is exacerbating their asthma. The impact on their health, both mental and physical, is indescribable but they are stuck there because there is nowhere else for them to go. Next up was a man in his 50s. Relationship breakdown has left him homeless. He is couch surfing but he tells me that he is very close to giving up hope. Imagine the indignity of having to do that in one's 50s. Next was a woman in her 60s who has been on the housing list for 13 years. She is sleeping on a relative's floor. I cannot describe to the Minister the impact of this on her physical and mental health. Next, a father and daughter who are both homeless and desperate to rent somewhere close together. They are living in different parts of the city, one sleeping on a floor and the other on a couch. Finally on that day, a woman with three kids in a domestic abuse shelter which she is due to leave at the end of this month. She cannot go back to her family home for obvious reasons and is sick with worry at the thought of joining the 13,500 people in emergency accommodation. Her situation is already bad enough.

These people should be the Government's priority, not the vulture funds but real people who need help now.

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