Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When the Minister's period of office comes to an end, he will be remembered for one thing and one thing only: presiding over the single largest increase in single, family and child homelessness in modern history. There is only one reason people become homeless: a failure of the State to ensure an adequate supply of social and affordable homes to meet the needs of households in crisis. In fact, one of the figures the Government released in its information dump on Holy Thursday demonstrated that he is the first Minister since 2016 to preside over an increase in the number of households on local authority housing waiting lists. What the Minister is doing is not working. It is quite shocking to suggest that there are many reasons for homelessness and somehow try to displace the blame for homelessness onto the people his policies are failing.

I will ask the question again, but the Minister will refuse to answer and will divert and deflect. What will he do to meet social housing targets this year? When will he increase them? What will he do to bring an end to month-on-month rises in the shocking level of adult, child, single and pensioner homelessness?

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