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

I am not taking aim at the Minister of State but it is deeply disappointing that the Minister responsible, Deputy James Browne, is not in the Chamber for this. These are the first statements on homelessness under his Ministry. We are told he is at a subcommittee. Surely, that subcommittee could have been rearranged and he could have had the decency to be here. I am not taking it out on the Minister of State but it is absolutely disgraceful that the Minister for housing is not here for the first statements on homelessness.

Reading through the Minister of State's statement, I can call it nothing other than sanitised spin to deflect from utter failure. The Minister of State accepts the profound impact homelessness has on individuals and particularly children. That is one sentence in a three-page statement. However, not once does the Minister of State say the levels of homelessness are too high. What are the levels? There were 16,734 individuals homeless in December. The Government goes on about the success of housing policy and, reading this statement, you would think the Government is absolutely solving the issue of homelessness. What is the reality? The figures are there in the local authority quarterly report, which I have gone through. I will show the Minister of State the figures and the reality of homelessness which the Minister of State and the Government completely deny and are trying to normalise.

There has been a 12% increase in the past 12 months. There are now 2,478 families homeless in this country, an 18.5% increase since the start of last year. That is an almost 20% increase in the number of families who are homeless and this Government acts as if its housing policy is working. Since the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government was set up just over a year ago, we have seen the number of children who are homeless increase by 11%.

Let us look at Fine Gael's record in government. We have figures from 2014. That is 12 years of Fine Gael in government and there has been a 590% increase in the number of children who are homeless in this country. How many children have gone through emergency accommodation over that decade? We do not actually have figures for that. I am the only one who has tried to estimate how many children have been in emergency accommodation over the past decade. I estimate somewhere in the region of 40,000 children have been through emergency accommodation in ten years of Fine Gael being in government. I still do not understand how Fine Gael and the Government just say this is okay, this is normal and they actually treat it like the emergency it is. The Government is not treating it like the emergency it is. It is an absolute scandal.

I am going to read some of a report from Barnardos which it released last year. It is about the impact of homelessness on children. I encourage people to read it and try to highlight it as much as possible because it is devastating. What is being done to children in emergency accommodation and the utter failure of this State to provide for those children is devastating. Before I get onto that report, a Royal College of Physicians study in 2019 showed that 40% of children in emergency accommodation were experiencing clinically significant levels of mental health and behavioural difficulties. That figure is 40% - almost half of the children in emergency accommodation. Children in homelessness were twice as likely to require hospitalisation as children not living in homelessness. The Barnardos report states:

It is hard to understate the potential impact that moving into emergency accommodation can have on a child. For many children we work with, it is a case of suddenly leaving their homes, most of their belongings, potentially their pets, and moving into much smaller accommodation that is less suitable and a considerable distance from their previous homes. This event can be extremely traumatic for children and unfortunately, without supports, long lasting. The trauma can affect children’s relationships with others, their behaviour and ability to engage in school, their confidence levels and feeling of wellbeing, in essence all aspects of their lives.

This State is failing 5,188 children who are in emergency accommodation right now, the thousands of children who have been through emergency accommodation and the thousands of children who will become homeless in the coming years because the Government failed to put a ban on evictions of children and families who will be made homeless. The Government's new rental measures do nothing to protect the hundreds of thousands of renters who are in existing tenancies and will still be subject to no-fault evictions, so we will continue to see thousands of children in this country subject to trauma - trauma that is utterly preventable. It is preventable if the Government has the courage to put in place a ban on evictions but it will not do it. The Government will take emergency action for investor funds but it will not do it for thousands of children and families who have been made homeless, are homeless or will become homeless in the coming months and years.

I will go through some of those figures. There are now 2,500 children who, right now, have spent over one year in emergency accommodation. That is one year of not being able to have birthday parties, not being able to have friends over and living in unsuitable accommodation. Barnardos and the Royal College of Physicians have set it out. The evidence is there. Yesterday, the Taoiseach gave a State apology for people being institutionalised. We are institutionalising a generation of children. This State, the Government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are institutionalising thousands of children right now under their watch. The Government knows it is happening. It knows the damage it is doing to children. Yet, what does the Government do? It wrings its hands, shrugs its shoulders and says we cannot put a ban on evictions. That would be emergency action that would prevent children being made homeless but the Government will not do it.

The Minister for housing should be here to answer this but he is not. He runs away from it. He runs away from his responsibility. There are 1,100 children in emergency accommodation for longer than two years. We know some of them have been in that accommodation for three, four or five years. There has been a 25% increase in the past year. This State is absolutely responsible for that. It is a derogation of that responsibility to allow this to continue. I can guarantee there will be commissions of inquiry in the future as to how this State let this happen. The Government knows it and has known it for years. It is a shame on Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and this Government that thousands of children are being left in emergency accommodation that is deeply damaging.

Fundamentally, it goes back to the Government's failure to prioritise homelessness and prevention. The Government cut the tenant in situ scheme and will not increase the HAP limits. What does it do? It increases the rents chargeable for investor funds. The Simon Community's report showed there are no rental properties within the HAP limits for those who are being made homeless, so where are they supposed to go to? The new rental increases will lead to higher rents and higher levels of homelessness. Yet, the Government says it is all needed for supply because supply and more supply is the solution. Supply is not the solution for families and children whose landlords are evicting them. The solution is a ban on evictions of families and children into homelessness.

That is an immediate emergency action that the Minister of State could take. Why will the Minister of State not take it? Do the institutional investors, the corporate landlords and the landlord lobby have the Minister of State so under their thumb that he will not act for the thousands of individuals, children and families who are being made homeless?

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