Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this timely and vital motion. It is deeply disappointing to see that the Government is not supporting it and has put forward an amendment that will take away from the point of the motion.

I am deeply annoyed and frustrated by this Government's failure to act on homelessness and to treat it like an emergency. A home is one of the most fundamental needs that people have, yet clearly the Government does not understand the true value of a home. If it did, it would not be bringing a wrecking ball to the tenant in situ scheme, which was working to prevent people losing their home, or sabotaging one of the few policies that do something to alleviate homelessness.

Shamefully, the Government is pulling the small rug that was available to tenants out from under their feet. When the eviction ban, a measure that was preventing homelessness as well, was lifted in March 2023, I described it as one of the cruellest decisions ever taken by an Irish Government, and it was. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made the decision knowing that it would result in people being made homeless. Now it is making another decision that it knows will make people homeless. Where is the evidence that backs up restricting the tenant in situ scheme? The Government has not provided it, just as it did not provide evidence to back up the lifting of the eviction ban. It is another Government policy based not on evidence but on a lack of care, a lack of interest in dealing with homelessness and a lack of concern for some of our most vulnerable people in this society. I cannot get my head around it. I said shame on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael then; I say shame on them again today. It is a bloody disgrace that the eviction ban was lifted and it is a bloody disgrace that the Government is now bringing a wrecking ball to the tenant in situ scheme. When the eviction ban was lifted, the Government said the tenant in situ scheme was the protection, the safety net, that was in place to prevent renters from being made homeless. Yet now the Government is rolling back and removing that promise and commitment to renters.

This is an emergency, a social disaster, yet this Government continues to fail to treat the housing crisis like the emergency it is. The wrecking ball it is bringing to tenant in situ is one more example. Some 30,000 households have been evicted since the eviction ban was lifted in March 2023, with 14,000 in the last three quarters of 2023 and 16,000 last year. That is an emergency. They are famine-scale evictions. Some 85% of them were no-fault evictions; the tenant did nothing wrong. In 61% of cases the landlord stated they were selling up. That shows that in most of these cases the eviction could be prevented through a ban on no-fault evictions, which the Minister and his Government consistently refuse to implement while they claim to care about the devastation being caused by the housing crisis. The Taoiseach said again today that he is as concerned as anybody in this House about the housing crisis. I beg to differ. The Government seems more concerned about the cuckoo fund landlords lobbying to prevent tenant protections than the actual tenants being evicted. Since the lifting of the eviction ban in March 2023, homelessness has increased by 28%. The Government clearly does not see record levels of homelessness as an emergency. A total of 3,472 children were homeless in March 2023; today there are 4,603 children homeless, a 33% increase. Thousands of children have gone through the trauma of losing their home since the lifting of the eviction ban. There is the uprooting from their neighbourhoods and from their friends, bringing a few belongings with them into a strange place, into emergency accommodation. Each child will be damaged by every day they spend in emergency accommodation. Homelessness is a trauma but it is completely preventable, and the Government clearly does not see this as the emergency it is.

Many areas do not even have emergency accommodation. There are waiting lists for emergency accommodation. The Simon Communities have recently said that the Government still lacks a comprehensive plan to tackle homelessness and that one of the key areas is the tenant in situ scheme. There are over 55,000 households in receipt of the housing assistance payment. The Simon Communities' quarterly Locked Out of the Market report from December showed that just 46 properties were available to rent within the discretionary rate of the HAP scheme. Where are those 55,000 households to go to find somewhere to rent when they are issued a notice to quit? Where will they find somewhere to rent? The tenant in situ scheme offered some level of hope. It prevented a small though not insignificant number of families and individuals from becoming homeless. Where are the HAP tenants to go if they are evicted?

The changes to the tenant in situ scheme immediately plunge 60,000 households into immediate risk of homelessness, but then the Government clearly does not care. Dublin city councillors have written to council management asking them what they will do to support and implement the tenant in situ scheme, as continued. The Department of housing and the Government have introduced huge uncertainty to the scheme. We know there are tenant in situ applications that are not being processed. There are people who will be made homeless as a result of the changes to the scheme. In my constituency, in Ballymun and Finglas, 243 people went for one social home. If no homes are becoming available, where will tenants who are facing eviction from the private rental system and who are eligible for social housing go? This is really not acceptable, and the Government has to accept that it needs to properly implement the tenant in situ scheme. Where should these people go?

I also want to ask about the cost rental tenant in situ scheme, whereby those who do not qualify for social housing but qualify for cost rental could be prevented from eviction. Will the Government continue funding for that? Again, there are small numbers involved but there should be more. Will the Government continue to support the cost rental tenant in situ scheme?

What is it with the Minister and the Government's disdain for renters? They appear to be captured by the big landlords. I believe the issue is that they do not care. They do not actually care about those tenants being evicted and they do not care about the individuals and families being made homeless. As I said earlier, the evidence is there that the tenant in situ scheme is working, so why is the Government introducing any level of uncertainty into it? The Government should tell the local authorities to use the tenant in situ scheme as they need it for any household, individual or family that faces eviction. There is no lack of money. We have billions of euro in budget surplus. Here is a policy that has been proven to work. It can actually work. I argue and plead with the Minister to reverse the Government's new limitations on the tenant in situ scheme, keep it working and keep the funding going into it. It comes back to the argument that if they do not, it will show once more that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not actually care about renters and those being made homeless.

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