Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about a lady in my constituency who spent six years on the housing list and on the rental accommodation scheme, RAS. She is to be evicted on 10 April. Because of the sky-high house prices in Cork, the council is not allowed to buy the house under the tenant in situ scheme. The council has said the landlord is looking for too much. This lady has three children, the youngest of whom is three. This is the only home they know. This year, instead of Easter egg hunting and having a happy Easter, this family will be packing their bags. Where are they going to go on 10 April? Where will this lady and her three children live? She has no idea and no one has a solution for her. Can the House imagine the trauma that will be caused to those children if they have to go into emergency accommodation? When we look at them, it is the result of Government policy. Let us imagine how that lady felt when she saw the Taoiseach having a laugh and a joke with Donald Trump about how great things are in Ireland and the housing crisis. She was crying in front of me. She was crying because she will be homeless on 10 April. She was looking at the Taoiseach having a laugh and a joke. Where was this woman in all of this?

Not alone this, I know another gentleman who has been 15 years on the list. He is facing eviction in June. When he went on the list, his three children were aged two, five and six. Now they are 17, 20 and 21. Their whole childhood was spent in insecure housing as a result of Government policy. They spent their childhood never being secure in a home.

I will leave the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, with a few comments. The Central Bank says the Government will miss its targets for the next three years. We know the Government's figures for last year were made up. The whole place knows that was a con. That was proved today when Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asking the Taoiseach a question. Four times the Taoiseach refused to answer the question about whether he knew the figures that came out last year and whether the Minister for Finance told him

I am dealing with a family who are going to be evicted on 20 August, with three children on the spectrum. These three children will be homeless on 20 August. I have another mother with two children on the spectrum, with one child having sickle cell disease and they will be evicted on 29 April. I also know of another family. I have a list of them here. They are all being evicted because of Government policies. We are asking the Government for once to listen to Sinn Féin. We are coming along with ideas and solutions because the Government is out of them.

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