Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

It is an utterly shameful figure. It represents a record high in the numbers of children who are without a home under the Minister's watch. He can deflect and seek to scapegoat others all he likes, but this is under his watch. He is the Minister for housing, and it is simply not good enough to say he will be taking decisive decisions to reduce and take children out of homelessness. How is he going to do it? We are proposing to him measures that would take children out of homelessness, patently, because all the people he just quoted to us are telling us all that what is driving children into homelessness are evictions from the private rental sector. Therefore, we are saying let us do something creative and constructive to help and support the children and families we are all hearing from all the time who are utterly despairing. As I said yesterday, they see nothing from this Government; no safety. The Minister talks about tenant in situ, but there are no new acquisitions. We cannot make tenant in situ work for the families who come to us. The Minister knows this. Of course we criticised the Government's circular. We did so because it was rendering a scheme that was supposed to be a safety net utterly ineffective for the families we are seeking to support.

I will give the Minister another figure - €630 million. That is the amount the Government is apparently looking to spend on an untargeted VAT reduction for the hospitality sector. If the VAT cut is to be in respect of food and catering alone, that would be €630 million. For the entire hospitality sector, it would be closer to €800 million. That is a sum that we in Labour believe would be better spent on alleviating child poverty and tackling child homelessness. That is what the Government should be doing. The proposed VAT cut is a sledgehammer approach.

It is going to benefit the bigger companies, namely the McDonald's of this world. That is not effective. It is not effective to support the struggling independent cafés and restaurants which need targeted supports from the Government. It is certainly not enough to support the families who are desperate and at the end of their tether because they cannot see any way to secure a roof over their heads and those of their children this winter.

There are clear ideological choices for the Minister and his Government colleagues to make in respect of the budget. The Government is choosing to rely on market forces rather than adopting the active State policies and interventions that would make a difference. It is choosing not to invest in ensuring that the concept of tenant in situbecomes truly effective. It is choosing not to invest in a second tier of child benefit. Earlier, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, said that the Government will not create a new second tier of child benefit. That is regrettable. The Government has had two years to work on this. We all know it is complex, but there has been a great deal of research done and it is regrettable that the Government is not taking a targeted approach to addressing child poverty.

The Government's countermotion is derisory. I read the wording and could not believe it. It refers to the Government's priority of a reduction in child poverty. It lacks any ambition or sense of urgency. At the end of the countermotion, the Government says absolutely nothing. It says it is committed to further progress and will use the budget to prioritise measures to reduce child poverty and homelessness. What are these measures? If the Government is not introducing a second tier of child benefit or investing in the measures we have discussed, including the tenant in situ scheme, to ensure that families will be safe from homelessness, what is it going to do? What about a no-fault eviction ban, which would ensure that children are not affected? Let us end child evictions.

I commend Deputies Wall and Sherlock on putting forward the motion and my other colleagues for speaking to it. Our colleagues have put forward constructive measures. We have suggested that this could be the budget in which we see a Government take really serious measures to end child poverty, the eviction of children and child homelessness. Even the Government's stated ambition falls far short of that. We see nothing and have heard nothing from the Minister, Deputy Browne, or his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, today which suggests that the Government is going to adopt measures that would have a real impact on addressing the scourges of child poverty and homelessness in our in our society today. One in five children, that is, 250,000, are living in poverty and 5,000 are homeless. This is a shameful record, and the budget should be serious about tackling it.

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