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

Despite the Minister's claims of success and his promises and commitments, while the Dáil was in recess the human misery resulting from the housing and homelessness crisis continued and escalated. Given that the Housing Commission and now the Central Bank have told us that the Government's plan, Housing for All, provides for approximately half of what is necessary to deal with the deficit in housing, future needs and especially the deficit in social and affordable housing, the future is grim. It is important for us to focus on what that means for human beings.

I will talk about some of the cases that came across my desk in the past week. Anthony is 67 years old. He has aggressive COPD and a heart condition. He has been homeless and couch surfing since October last year because he was evicted through no fault of his own.

I have known Gavan since he was a teenager. He is 62 years old. He is seeing a heart specialist and lung specialist and has an open ulcer on his leg. He was sleeping in his car. Then he was sleeping in his tent, which was recently stolen from him. He is homeless with nowhere to go.

Robert is 69 years old. He has heart disease and will be out of his home on 21 September because his wife died and the family is selling the home. He has nowhere to go. He was never on the housing list because he never thought he would be in this situation.

Linda is in her 50s. She is disabled, has scoliosis and cardiac disease. She has had a pacemaker since she was eight years old. She is couch surfing and has now been separated from her son because when people are couch surfing it is difficult to find a place for both themselves and their children.

There are other people, such as Sinéad who after 14 years on the housing list lost all her years because her son dropped out of college for a year and got a job. His income brought the family household income over the threshold and now all her 14 years on the waiting list are gone. He is now back in college, the family is back under the threshold but all the years are gone.

This is the sort of hopelessness people are facing. What will the Government do differently for these older people, vulnerable people, families and children who are in an absolutely dire state? In most cases, they are being told to go to hostels in the city centre, dormitory accommodation. Nothing is available in the locality. There is no prospect of a council house any time soon or, even worse, they have been knocked off the council list altogether-----

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