Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

All of that will come as cold comfort to Niamh and Anthony, for example, in the homeless hub in my area. They have two children and have now spent 20 months, two Christmases, homeless, and their biggest fear is that they will still be homeless next Christmas. It will come as cold comfort to Jennifer, who is in one bedroom with her two kids. She went on the housing list in 2008, the council lost her application, she went back on the list in 2014 and she is on a three-bedroom list with no prospect of getting anything. They are the hidden homeless because, of course, they are not in emergency accommodation. It is getting worse. It is bad for everybody but it is particularly bad for children, and this is not acceptable. How long do you have to be in homeless accommodation before you get housed? How long do you have to be in overcrowded circumstances with two or, in many cases, three generations crammed into a house, in overcrowded, Dickensian conditions, before you get a house?

I could go on with the list. I have dealt with somebody else who has scoliosis and an occupational therapy report detailing the need for level-access living but who has been refused medical priority and told to just go and find a housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancy. This sort of cruel torture that people are being put through with their kids and so on has to end. Rather than just reeling off the accomplishments and plans, what I want to know is what are we going to do to address that level of suffering, to stop people going into homelessness, to get them out of homelessness when they are in it, in particular families and children and people who are vulnerable and unwell, as so many in these dreadful situations are.

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