Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Mine is a simple question today. How can the Minister say his Housing for All policy is working when over 4,000 children are homeless? Everyone deserves the dignity of a roof over their head, and the basic responsibility of the State to provide shelter and homes is even more pressing when it comes to children and young people. On the formation of the First Dáil, the first document produced was the first Democratic Programme for the new Republic. Labour's significant contribution to that delivered the strong commitment that the first duty of the Republic would be the welfare of all its children, a principle as resonant today as it was a century ago. In the intervening years, so much has changed and our economy has grown, but we cannot say that this is an equal Republic for every child. Our Republic has not discharged its vital duty to protect the welfare of our children.

Next Friday, we will learn yet more grim records have been broken when August's homelessness figures will be published. Already, 4,401 children are in emergency accommodation in this State. That heartbreaking figure is not indicative of a working housing policy. Indeed, it represents a shocking increase of more than 70% in child homelessness over the three years since Housing for All was launched. This is not just an empty statistic because each child in homelessness is a child whose life has been blighted by the experience. There are children doing their homework on the floor of a hotel room and a family hampered and humiliated by a failure that is a failure of Government. No amount of glossy pamphlets or flashy press conferences from the Government can obscure the reality that for those who seek a home, things are getting worse and not better.

On every key metric, the Government's housing policy is failing. It is failing people of every generation. It is clearly failing our children. It is failing renters because the Government failed to incorporate the protections we proposed in our renters rights Bill. It has failed because there have been rent increases of 27% over the past three years. It has failed because more than 23,000 eviction notices have been issued from quarter 2 of last year to the second quarter of this year alone.

The Government is failing those who wish to buy a home. The average age of a first-time buyer is now 39 and the CSO has revealed that house prices have increased by almost 10% in the past year. That news comes on the same day that the Central Bank warns that the Government will miss its house building targets this year. I know the Taoiseach has assured us that the Central Bank is wrong, but the Government has consistently missed targets on social housing and the dogs on the street know that the targets are too low anyway. The Central Bank, the Housing Commission and many more agree with us in Labour that new targets of more than 50,000 new builds per year must be published. We have not seen those targets yet. Speculation about election dates is now rife. That speculation is going everywhere. The Minister's Government colleagues have thrown around spending promises all summer like confetti at a wedding. We all know there is a very limited time left to this Government. In the limited time available to the Government, will it change tack on housing, invest the Apple billions in delivering homes, introduce real protections for renters and, crucially, pass our homeless families' Bill to protect children and keep them out of homelessness?

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