Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Minister of State for coming to the House. A cross-party and a cross-sectoral approach should be adopted but that is not to say the Government cannot do more and that we should not point out to the Government where we think policies are failing and must be changed. We have a number of ideas and pictures of homelessness. There is the poor unfortunate person who has got into addiction difficulties or family troubles. We know that only too well. I express my sympathy to the friends and family of Mr. Corrie. I do not know anything about him and I do not attribute those characteristics to him. That he died puts a shame on all of us here.

There is one image of the homeless. I have been informed by local authority staff in County Meath that image is not typical of the people presenting as homeless in County Meath. I was told today that long gone is the average picture of the alcoholic or the drug addict presenting in Navan for homeless accommodation. The typical client of the emergency housing services in County Meath at present is the working poor. As of last week, 560 people in my own county, presented as homeless this year. Their circumstances are all different. Many of them are the working poor who cannot afford rents and cannot afford to live in accommodation in their own county. For many of them it is not their own county as they may have moved from Dublin where rents are even more expensive. In County Meath there are only four houses available that come under any of the rental supplement thresholds - two bed apartments in a rural town in north Meath and a rural town in south Meath.

There were only two available. Out of a total of four, only two were available to recipients of rent supplement. There is nothing out there for people to rent. The average rent in County Meath is nearly 50% higher than the rent supplement threshold. It is not possible to rent a property - there is nothing out there. In a town in south County Meath a man was sleeping rough last night and homeless services personnel are well aware of the situation. There was a family - thankfully it was during the summer - who were living in a tent near a town in south County Meath. The parents had to tell their child that they were on holidays. They had been put out of their house because they could not afford the rent. That is the reality of the situation.

Ideally, housing costs should equate to 30% of net income. If one wanted to rent in Ashbourne, for example, one would have to be earning €3,000 net per month. If an average family wanted to rent a three-bedroom house in Kells, they would need to be earning €2,373 per month because the average rent for one of the four properties available to rent is €712 per month. In the most expensive area for renting which is Slane, there are six properties available with an average rent of €1,125 per month. That means one would have to be earning almost €4,000 per month for that rent to equate to 30% of income. The typical person cannot afford that. I know of a public servant who earns around €2,000 net per month who cannot afford €1,000 per month in rent. It is simply unaffordable. In the town in question, there are only two properties available to let anyway and I do not know if the landlords would accept rent supplement. That person, quite frankly, would be better off on social welfare.

There are people all over the place who are receiving notices from their landlords that their rent is increasing or that the properties they are renting are being sold. In most cases they are getting the appropriate amount of notice and the landlords are entitled, by law, to put them out. What do they do then? They ring up homeless services in County Meath and if they are from Dunboyne, Navan or Kells they often have to go elsewhere to be housed. It is very difficult to house people. I have seen families split up, with women being accommodated in women's shelters and men sleeping on the floor in their parents' houses. That is not even as bad as it gets. That is the picture now. Families are being split up because they cannot afford their rent. We must supply housing urgently, although I am not talking about a bonanza for developers. The Government must play its part and treat this issue with the urgency it deserves. This situation will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

There is certainly a huge problem with people sleeping rough in Dublin and there is also some of it in my own county. The biggest problem in Meath, however, is the fact that ordinary working families cannot afford rental properties. On the issue of rent supplement, all of the relevant organisations are saying that it must be increased and I agree with them. Anyone in receipt of rent supplement in County Meath at the moment must be falsifying the forms and I do not blame them. They must be paying money under the counter to landlords because there are no properties available at the rent supplement caps. That must be happening wholesale. I understand that community welfare officers have discretion to increase the rent supplement but they do not do so, from what I have been told. They generally do not do it. County council staff have told me that they can always justify expenditure on emergency accommodation and the same should apply in the Department of Social Protection. Community welfare officers should be given a lot more discretion by their bosses to increase rent supplement payments. Kildare was given an increase although I am not sure if it matches the levels of rent in that county. County Meath was not given an increase for some reason.

People are being pushed to the pin of their collar financially and are being squeezed out of their homes. When people ring me and other public representatives we do not know what to say to them. We can make representations to the local authorities but if the latter do not have housing available, what can be done? That is what it comes down to in the end. We must increase the supply of housing and also make sure that the relevant agencies are dealing with one another more effectively. County councils should be able to ask community welfare officers to increase the rent supplement in certain cases and the community welfare officers should do so. If it is an emergency, they must do it. We can find money for other emergencies so we must find money for this.

I have invited a formerly homeless man to come to the House tomorrow to speak to Members. I hope it will be helpful to Members. He has been an advocate for housing for homeless people for a long time. He slept in hostels and homeless shelters for two years and has many ideas on the issue. I am sure some of the men and women on the streets now could tell us a thing or two about what should be done. They are at the coalface; we are not. We have all met them and spoken to them but we need to hear their views on the issue.

Let us not forget the working poor. They are at the coalface of contributing to the economic recovery that we hope is coming but they cannot afford to live in a house. It is madness. If the Minister can solve that problem we will do whatever we can to support him. We really need the Minister to solve this problem.