Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

What does this Government have against children? Despite the enormous resources at its disposal, thousands upon thousands of children are being left behind every year. When Fine Gael took office in 2011, there were just over 600 children officially classified as homeless. Now, it is a staggering 5,000 and continuing to rise. This means that, in the 14 years that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in one shape or another have been in charge of housing policy, tens of thousands of children have been forced into homelessness. The impact on these children is enormous. It has impacts on their physical, emotional and intellectual development, particularly when they are forced to spend two or three years in inadequate and insecure emergency accommodation.

The Taoiseach tells us that, apparently, child homelessness is a complex problem. I think this is blaming the victim of Government policy because child homelessness is not complex. It is a direct result of bad Government housing policy. There is a refusal to provide an adequate supply of social homes, particularly for those in or at risk of homelessness, and an overreliance on a private rental sector that is expensive, insecure and shrinking. The consequence of these two things is ever rising homelessness. I have not heard anything from the Minister who is present that the new housing plan will address these fundamental problems.

Thankfully, there are alternatives. Sinn Féin's alternative housing plan sets out emergency and medium-to-long-term actions needed to tackle this crisis. The Housing Commission report, which the Government continues to ignore, sets out the scale of ambition required to end homelessness and meet social housing needs. The homeless policy group, our homeless NGOs, have set out the solutions in a ten-point plan, again ignored by the Government. The problem is the Minister, Deputy Browne, and the Government are simply not listening. Until this changes, more and more children will be forced into homelessness. It does not have to be this way. The Minister can make the difference. Let us see the colour of his money when the new housing plan is published, and if he is serious about tackling this problem, which he himself is making worse.

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