Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

I give a warm welcome the Little Blue Heroes who are with us in Leinster House today or watching online. I commend the gardaí involved in the organisation. I hope they have a pleasant day with us.

This week, primary school children across the country will be released from school for their summer holidays. They will wave goodbye to teachers, SNAs and classrooms and put away their schoolbags and books until after the holidays but some children will have very little to look forward to this summer. The latest statistics on homelessness will be released on Friday. As it stands, in Ireland today, 4,775 children are recorded as homeless. This figure is likely to go up on Friday, as it has done consistently since a Fianna Fáil Minister lifted the eviction ban in 2023. Those children in homelessness face a very different prospect to their peers this summer. They do not have forever homes. Some entire families are sharing one room in a homeless hub, hotel or hostel. Their children have no room to play or grow. Their parents face an awful situation, often forced to make really difficult choices.

Yesterday, I visited a dog shelter. There, I heard from staff who told me about the anguish faced by families forced to give up beloved family pets because they are entering homelessness. I met one family dog and a litter of little puppies. Her owners were desperate to keep her but could not because they had received notice to quit. Dublin City Council anticipates that the cost of housing people in emergency accommodation will increase by €35 million this year. Spending has more than trebled in the past decade, which is demand driven. Spending on emergency accommodation is increasing because more people and, shamefully, more children are being left without a home. They have been failed by the State. They have been failed by this Government. The cost of that failure is more than just monetary. I think we are all aware of the immense human cost of families forced to give up pets, move into one room and of children whose lives are curtailed in this way. The consequences of allowing children to be left without a home are disastrous for the individual families and households and for our entire social order. The Government is not offering any prospect of hope to families facing notices to quit. Its policies are tolerating the intolerable. Notices of termination are the biggest driver of homelessness in Dublin, representing 32% of all those presenting as homeless in 2023 and 42% in 2024, a 10% increase in one year. The Government is offering nothing to families in this scenario. We in the Labour Party offered a homeless families Bill which would oblige authorities to prioritise the needs of children as members of families, not just treating them as dependents of homeless adults.

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