Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. According to the Simon Community, the official count for rough sleepers last month was 168. This represents a 30% increase in the period since spring of this year. The number is double that which obtained in November 2012. This is a time of many sickening firsts and all-time highs. For example, there are now over 1,600 adults and 680 children in emergency accommodation, which has never happened before. Some 39% of those 1,600 adults are women. Again, that has never happened before. Emergency accommodation is turning into long-term accommodation with no viable options on to which people can transition. This has also never happened before. Many people have given up seeking emergency accommodation, while others believe themselves to be safer on the streets than in such accommodation. As Senator Byrne outlined, individuals and families are being evicted from private rental properties every day because they are unable to meet rent increases in an unfettered market.

We all agree that we have an emergency on our hands. The numbers of people on the streets are increasing steadily and we need to act. Any action we take must be real and must not be a knee-jerk, panicky reaction to the tragic death of Jonathan Corrie. We must put in place a dedicated and sustained response that deals with the crisis holistically. I am of the view that this is not just a homelessness crisis, it is a housing crisis. The housing crisis to which I refer is characterised by a shortage in the social housing sector and a serious lack of affordability in the private rental sector and is being exacerbated by an absence in rent regulation, a rent supplement scheme which is completely out of sync with actual rental prices and the absence of measures to prohibit landlords discriminating against tenants who are on rent supplement. The unprecedented crisis in the social housing and private rental sectors means that non-typical individuals are either being placed at risk of homelessness or are actually becoming homeless. For example, there are as many as 150 families in emergency hotel accommodation. The majority of these families have been pushed out of the private rental sector by spiralling rents. Aside from the massive cost to the State, this hotel and bed-and-breakfast accommodation is completely inappropriate and hugely disruptive for families and children - some of whom may be obliged to move schools as a result of being in such accommodation - and is potentially unsafe. I call on Government to family-proof all forms of emergency accommodation immediately and to co-ordinate with the Child and Family Agency and emergency accommodation staff in respect of child protection.

This crisis is putting unprecedented pressure on front-line services and pushing those more typically vulnerable to homelessness, namely, those with addiction issues and mental health difficulties, children who are becoming too old to be held in care by the State and the victims of domestic violence, further and further out onto the margins. These people only resurface to public and political attention when one of them dies sleeping rough on the doorstep of a building near the national Parliament.

A recently published report compiled by consultants for the Private Residential Tenancies Board indicates that rent control would make the housing market worse. Focus Ireland rejected this finding and maintains that rent regulation is a crucial part of a suite of measures which should include an increase in rent supplement to reflect the actual cost of rent and tax breaks for landlords to encourage them to rent their properties. I would also subscribe to a measure of rent regulation against an index - as is the case in many other European countries - or in line with inflation. Many of the initiatives which have been taken are to be commended but there are nearly always caveats attached to these. For example, Housing 2020 and the recently announced social housing strategy are welcome but, realistically, meaningful delivery on these is 18 months to two years away. The new rent increase protocol agreed with the Department of Social Protection for families at imminent risk of homelessness is only available in Dublin. What is really needed is a level of flexibility throughout the system and at an earlier juncture. The housing assistance payment has received a positive response from landlords because it is a guaranteed "around rental" payment but it does not prohibit them from refusing to accept tenants who are in receipt of financial support. How are people to find suitable accommodation within the maximum rent limits? Excellent recommendations have been made in respect of these and many other matters by Focus Ireland, Threshold, Dublin Simon Community and the Peter McVerry Trust. The solutions are available, they just need to be implemented.

I wish to briefly discuss something a number of colleagues in this House said yesterday concerning Jonathan Corrie and the fact that he had declined to take up all offers of assistance and accommodation made to him during the 30 years for which he was homeless. I did not know Jonathan Corrie. I sympathise deeply with his friends and family following his death. I do not know what was his mental health status. I am of the view that examples of people failing to take up an intervention and seemingly choosing to remain homeless need to be viewed in light of the report recently compiled by the Dublin Simon Community, which contains statistics indicating that 71% of its service users have mental health difficulties. Of these individuals, 63% have been diagnosed with depression, 46% have been diagnosed with anxiety, 11% have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and a further 11% have been diagnosed with psychosis. A very high proportion of people who are homeless have addiction issues.

Furthermore, a very high proportion of people who have a mental health difficulty also have an addiction issue.

I call on the Government to urgently implement the key recommendations from Mental Health Reform who are represented in the Gallery tonight: fully staff homeless outreach mental health teams; ring-fence local authority housing for people being discharged from psychiatric hospitals; and provide on-tap, in-house mental health expertise within homeless services, for example, Merchants Quay Ireland has an in-house mental health nurse full time, to provide support to clients other staff members are concerned about. There are anecdotal reports to show this works because it has reduced the number of people having to access mental health supports through accident and emergency departments when in a crisis. We need to establish a dual diagnosis service for people with a mental health and addiction or alcohol misuse problem. This is long overdue. We have the reports, the plans and the expertise, particularly in the non-governmental organisation community. We need sustained and persistent action.