Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion. There are a number of elements to it and I will discuss some of them. We all know the housing targets are insufficient. The Government has asked the ESRI to do a piece of work on projecting housing need. The Government is going to base its targets on that. I have just come from a meeting of the housing committee on the planning Bill. We were discussing this ESRI report and how the whole issue of pent-up demand is not included in the terms of reference given to it by the Government.

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The figure the ESRI comes up with will not look at well over ten years of pent-up demand for housing, which is a serious omission that the Government should immediately correct.

It is important to say that no one disputes that we need 50,000 new-build homes per year. There is no question about that need, but there is also no question that those 50,000 new-build homes will not be delivered entirely by the private market. It is simply not possible. That is not due to capacity constraints, which exist and which need to be addressed, but because of the prices of new-build homes being delivered by the private market. Simply, there are not 50,000 households that will be able to afford them. If building more affordable homes is not a key part of providing the 50,000 homes that are needed, it will not happen. The Government's delivery of this has been incredibly poor. In 2022, for example, 4,100 homes were promised and in that time only 323 affordable purchase homes were delivered by the Government. In the previous year, there were no affordable purchase homes, incidentally. Last year, 5,500 affordable homes were promised by the Government. We do not have the figures for the whole year - the Government has not released them yet - but in the first three quarters or nine months of the year, only 159 affordable purchase homes were delivered by the Government.

As I said, the number of homes is important, as is the type of homes, including affordable homes, but this is not only about numbers. It is also about amenities, facilities and the infrastructure delivered with new housing. On Saturday, I spoke to people in one of the newer areas of my constituency. A lot of new housing has been built and there is massive frustration there that more and more housing is going in, yet they do not have the community facilities and amenities to go with it. There is huge frustration about that.

It is not only about the quantity of homes. The design and the use of low-carbon materials are also important. It is disappointing that to date the Government has not set out a measuring process for the whole-life-of-carbon impact on building materials and that it has not put carbon limits on the construction of new homes to ensure low-carbon materials are used.

Before I say a little about what needs to be done to ensure more affordable housing is delivered, in the context of the motion and the issue of the eviction ban I will address a few bits of Government spin we often hear about homelessness. We hear from the Government that the last eviction ban did not work because there was an increase in the number of people who became homeless over the lifetime of that ban. What it does not tell us is that there was a substantial decrease in the number of children who became homeless when the winter eviction ban was in place, so it was an effective measure. During the discourse around who is becoming homeless, the Government does not tell us that when we look at the figures, we see that the vast bulk of people who become homeless from the private rented sector become homeless because they receive no-fault eviction notices. We can look at new presentations into homelessness in Dublin, for example. According to the most recent report, which is for the last quarter of 2023, 85 people who were evicted into homelessness from the private rented sector received no-fault eviction notices. In comparison, there were only ten evictions into homelessness for reasons to do with rent arrears. By contrast, in most other European countries the entire conversation is about how to reduce the number of people in rent arrears who become homeless and how to intervene in those situations to support the renter and the landlord to try to sustain those tenancies. We evicted 85 people with no fault at all into homelessness. They were paying their rent and were completely compliant with their rental agreements.

The Government is keen to tell us that relationship breakdown is the biggest contributor to people becoming homeless. This is part of its deflection strategy, which tries to make out that homelessness has nothing to do with the Government's disastrous handling of the housing situation. It is trying to pin it on the breakdown of people's relationships. If we look at the figures published by the Government on this, we will see that what the Government does not tell us about relationship breakdown is that the most common type of relationship breakdown leading to homelessness is the breakdown of relationships with parents. Much of that has been caused by severe overcrowding, and by the absolute stress of families living out of box rooms and multiple generations living in one small home. Families do their best to support one another in those situations, but after months and years of overcrowding, the ensuing stress can lead to relationship breakdown. This extreme housing situation is leading to people becoming homeless. When the Government talks about relationship breakdown, it should be honest with the public about the type of relationship breakdown it is talking about and what is causing it.

The Government needs to be upfront about the rough sleeper count. There is a considerable gap between the official figures published in the rough sleeper count and the actual number of people the outreach team is in contact with. For example, the number of people sleeping rough, according to the last official count in November 2023, was 118. However, the number of people recorded as rough sleepers who are engaged in contact with the outreach team is 564. There is a huge gap between the actual number of people the outreach team is meeting and the official number presented. Of that 564, 356 use emergency accommodation from time to time. That still leaves well over 200 individuals the outreach team is meeting, about half of whom do not make it into the official figures the Government presents.

The Government often tells us about the number of exits from homelessness. What it does not tell us is that 43% of those exits in Dublin, where unfortunately we have most homelessness, are not into stable housing. More than 43% of those exits involve people moving back in with family and friends into box rooms, sleeping on floors and couches, or going into hospitals and other medical facilities because their situation deteriorated in homelessness. We need the Government to be upfront when giving these figures and not spin them.

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