Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a written speech with some lovely statistics in it on homelessness. However, it really does not mean a whole lot. Homelessness is about life chances. As people speak here tonight, I think back on my life and I think back to a time in 1983 when our business went bust. Lady Luck is either with you or against you. I was on the brink of handing up my house, which would have rendered me, my wife and two children homeless. I cannot say enough about my wife and how she got me through that period. Life chances changed my life. I got a break.

May Jonathan Corrie rest in peace. We would not be here tonight talking about this issue but for him. If his life is to mean anything, it has to mean a change of mindset. It has to mean that we, as legislators, stop thinking about rules and regulations and start thinking about solutions. Allocating €35 million to this or €50 million to that, for things which are going to be delivered over so many years, is not where it is all at. Where it is all at is the 168 or so people who are on the streets tonight, freezing cold. Some may die and some may not. Every one of them, at some stage, put a smile on a mother's face or had a present from a sister or brother.

We talk about alcoholism and drug abuse when we talk about homelessness. One of the great things about life is when you are really down and the world is kicking you, it is absolutely marvellous to be able to take a drink and forget about it all. The problem is whether you can get up the following morning and get on with life. That is the difference. Some people are so beaten they cannot. When we talk about people falling on hard times in this country, we are not satisfied they are on hard times and that we can intervene there and then. We wait for them to get into worse situations before we intervene. Official Ireland is the most difficult and heartless place. However, the people who work in official Ireland are not heartless people. They have sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers. Some of them have people who are homeless.

There will always be people who will want to sleep on the streets, and there is nothing we can do about that. However, if we are serious about tackling homelessness, we have to talk about mindsets. We have to introduce an understanding of homelessness to our education system. We have to train gardaí, nurses, teachers, librarians and so forth to call for intervention there and then when they see a problem and not wait until the problem becomes so serious that we finish up with what we have seen this week.

I will be honest with the Minister of State. Every day I get off the Luas and walk to Leinster house, I pass homeless people. To my shame, my absolute shame, I turn my head the other way. I turn it the other way because they scare the living hell out of me, because one day I could have been there or I may be there at some stage in the future. None of us knows what life will bring. We have to stop the blame game, because a lot of it goes on in the world.

A task group is being put together tomorrow. I ask the Minister of State that the first thing the task group does is authorise the Civil Defence to come out straight away. Homelessness is not a Christmas problem. It is a problem in society and it will go on until hell freezes over. However, we have spent millions of euro in this country building a fantastic set of equipment for situations of national catastrophe. The Civil Defence co-ordinates this. I would like the Civil Defence on the road tomorrow night erecting shelters, temporary as they may be. Every year for as long as I have lived, I have heard people saying we cannot ignore the homeless at Christmas. What is the difference between 25 December and 26 December? If a person is homeless, there is none.

We were recently told NAMA is going to return a profit. Do we need the profit? If there are buildings, whether residential or commercial, which can be turned into family accommodation, let us do that. Let us look at the way families can be housed. Senator Conway spoke on the rural relocation scheme. If there are families homeless in Dublin or in any other city today who are willing to relocate to another part of the country and be given some form of subvention to keep them in body and soul until they get on their feet, let us look at that as a possibility. Homelessness is not a Christmas problem. It is a long-term problem and we need a long-term plan.

Langfords Hotel, in town, is locked up and has been for a number of years. Let us break down the doors, open it up, and make accommodation available. We saw this weekend how a 40-foot trailer can be turned into living accommodation over the course of a weekend at a cost of no more than €20,000. The Irish Glass Bottle site is somewhere we could put God knows how many hundred converted 40-foot trailers. Let us look at solutions such as this.

I apologise for being annoyed about this but I cannot come to terms with it. I cannot even look at the people sitting in the Visitors Gallery because what separates them from me is they are able to look at a homeless person as another human being. To my shame, I have looked at homeless people as some lesser form of human and I deeply regret it.