Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have more than 5,000 children in emergency accommodation, a figure that is both shocking and shames the State. Yesterday, the Government rightly apologised to institutional abuse survivors. It was a hard-fought for and very much delayed apology. As I have said previously here, I have absolutely no doubt that a future government will be issuing an apology for the damage homelessness has done and is doing to children during this decade. The Government has not only utterly failed to address the issue of homelessness in this State, its actions has contributed to a homeless crisis that is directly impacting the lives of thousands of our citizens. Focus Ireland's homeless figures give an insight into the failure of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments.

In January 2016, when I came into the Dáil, a month later, 5,715 were availing of emergency accommodation across the State. Fast-forward to December 2025, that figure is almost 17,000. As I regularly do, I spoke to people in Limerick this week who work in emergency services. They advised me that there is no sign of the crisis abating and everything is getting worse. They said the number of people sleeping rough has increased due to the lack of emergency accommodation in the city, with people being turned away from emergency accommodation every single night. Staff working in the University Hospital Limerick have told me there are approximately 12 or more people staying in the accident and emergency department every single night to keep out of the cold. It is so common there that they are classified as P5 patients. These are failures of this Government and its most recent predecessors.

What has happened? Why is there such a failure? A lack of support for local councils for refurbishment of voids is one element.

In Limerick, there are always 200 vacant local authority homes not in use as there is only €11,000 in funding, a tiny amount, available from central government to refurbish vacant homes. Everybody knows that is simply not enough. In Limerick, the number one issue raised with me is the need for housing. There are approximately 2,000 people on Limerick's housing list and these figures are growing. People are waiting years without any prospect of getting a home. Increasing numbers of notices to quit has left many people desperate with nowhere to go.

It is time the Government provided proper funding, turned vacant local authority houses into homes, improved the tenant in situ scheme and restored the funding that was there for it, restored funding to homeless prevention schemes and increased the amount of emergency accommodation available in Limerick. In a society like ours, which is supposedly one of the richest countries in the world, people living - and, unfortunately, in many cases dying - on our streets is simply not acceptable.

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