Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will make only a brief contribution as much has been already said. In terms of the summit to be held tomorrow, two things need to emerge. In calling a summit any Minister or body raises an enormous expectation of some solution. It is clear there are no easy solutions. People like Senator Hayden and others in the Visitors Gallery have been working for decades trying to solve the problem of housing.

In holding a summit tomorrow, at least two things need to happen. First, at the end of the summit politics must have been taken out of this. All of us in this House would like to see a roof over peoples' heads and people cared for by the State, yet there are many people who persist in playing politics with homelessness. Scaremongering and screaming do not help. If we are to have a summit it ought to be one that takes the politics out of this issue.

Second, whatever is decided there will be a cost involved. The Minister said earlier that this is not really a matter of funding. In regard to the emergency aspects of homelessness, anyone who has ever been on the street with homeless people, as I know people in the Visitors Gallery have been, as I have been, will know that many of them have extraordinary difficulties in their lives. While provision of a tent, van or caravan for a night is fine, it will not solve the problem. There is a need for outreach programmes and mental health and addiction services for the specific group of rough sleepers. That costs time and money and requires a programme. There is no point in pretending that in providing one or 20 additional beds we are going to solve the problems for this particular group of people. We know that for some people, taking up a bed is not what they know how to or want to do, or they have had it all before and do not want it anymore. They need something more. Therefore, if following the summit, 30 additional beds are provided that will not solve that problem. I do not want the end result to be 30 additional beds because 30 additional beds will only solve the problem for a week, possibly, or even a day.

For me, the emergency crisis we are in is I hope the purpose of the summit. Some of the matters outlined by the Minister in his programme announcement last week are good in terms of the need for a longer term solution to housing up to 2020 in order to address some of the problems that have arisen over the past 20 years. The proposals around investment in the construction of more houses and the restoration of void houses and so on are also welcome. However, in terms of this crisis area, without a coherent strategy - I do not know if the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health will attend the summit tomorrow - or joined-up thinking between the Departments on this issue, a coherent solution will never be found.

It is interesting perhaps to look back to 2006, when the Simon Community reported that there were 55 untimely deaths of people who were homeless that year. That is more than one death a week. This happened in 2006 when the garden appeared to be very rosy. We have not travelled far since then in that we are still talking about homeless. A summit will not solve that. It will crystalise it for a moment and will gather people but what is needed is a commitment to spending money seriously on the people who really need it. They need much more than a roof over their heads.