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

I listened carefully to the Minister's response but no matter how many figures he throws across the floor at me, on the key metrics his housing policy is failing. Rents, house prices and homelessness are all up. The Minister said the number one challenge is ensuring that people can exit from homelessness, but the number of exits is simply not keeping up with the number of entries into homelessness. I gave him the figure of 23,000 notices to quit in the 12 months between the second quarter of last year and this year. The primary cause of people entering homelessness is because they cannot find a home. They have been evicted and cannot find a home that is affordable to rent or buy.

I again ask what change in tack the Minister will make in the limited time left to him and his Government to ensure that we see a change and do not see an awful increase in homelessness at the end of every month. He published the figures and is well aware of the rising number of children in homelessness. What is he going to do about it in the next few months? I am offering him a constructive proposal. We published our homeless families Bill, backed by NGOs in the sector and those working on the coalface with families in homelessness. Will the Minister adopt our Bill? He supported it previously in opposition. Will he adopt it now and try to have some change to help support children in homelessness?

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