Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late and not hearing my Civil Engagement colleagues give their opening speeches on this topic. I have come from a housing committee meeting where we are waiving pre-legislative scrutiny for the introduction of an eviction ban this year over the winter period. One of the issues we were all concerned about and were raising, was the tenant in situscheme and how to ensure the effective application of this scheme over the winter. That is going to be the focus of some of my contribution to this debate and I will focus on three main areas.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is rare enough that a Minister has such a command of his brief and also knowledge of and passion for it. I know he comes from a community sector background so having somebody like him in charge of this area of social inclusion is very welcome but I also realise the limitations he has in terms of being able to co-ordinate the other big spending Departments.

I will start by focusing on housing because the theme of this motion is consistent poverty. Without the security of a house and home, it is very difficult to do things like do well in school. It is very difficult to get a stable and secure job. It is one of those things that contributes to addiction issues. Over the past 20 to 30 years, we have effectively privatised our social housing system. Over the past number of weeks, we have seen people decrying small landlords - or landlords people are saying are small - leaving the sector and the vulnerability that this opens up in terms in the increase in our homeless numbers. The reality is that we should not have as big a private rented sector as we do. We have 62,000 people requiring social housing supports who, because of income inadequacy, will probably never be able to afford their own home, yet they are at the mercy of the private rental sector. They are at the mercy of a casual private rental sector where one can evict people on the basis of sale or to move in family members. Those 62,000 people should not have to go up against that insecurity day after day, month after month, year after year. Those 62,000 households and families should be housed in a secure private rental sector. It costs us €900 million each year between the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and other supports and we spend on average €1,900 per tenancy, per month. That is about €20,000 per year.

We know from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, for example, that approximately 70% of families entering homelessness are coming from the HAP system and sector. One of the things we need to do with this eviction ban is use the time and place to scale up the tenant in situscheme. I have addressed this on many occasions. Where a HAP or RAS tenant is under an eviction notice, entering homelessness or finding other accommodation, the local authority would buy that housing and take it back into social housing control and stock. Some local authorities simply do not want to manage it and are quite happy with the private sector fulfilling that need but that leads to a huge insecurity in tenancies. People move around from house to house and home to home and any children involved are never able to fulfil their full potential because the threat of homelessness is always there in the background. It is always hanging over them. I have heard from the other side of the House that we need to balance the rights of landlords and tenants. I do not agree because for one it is an investment and for the other it is a home and there is no balancing of that.

The second issue I want to address is education. I will focus in particular on the impact of Covid-19 on education and the shutdowns. I am going to sound like an anti-vaxxer and an anti-lockdown person. I am not but we have failed the most disadvantaged children we have in terms of the number of shutdowns and lockdowns we had. I was a teacher before I came to the House and had many disadvantaged students. The one thing I noticed over the time period between me being elected and finishing my last school year, was how many students I had who were reliant on data and who did not have access to broadband or a laptop. My niece is a teacher and a home school liaison officer in a very disadvantaged school and she spoke of the number of children she had who were learning from home on mobile phones and using data because there was no broadband. Access to food, energy and technology was key. Other countries such as the Netherlands recognised the impact those lockdowns had in terms of the disruption to children's education and put in place funding to be able to address that yet we did not do it to the same extent. We have moved on very quickly without adequately addressing those big gaps and blocks in those children's lives and education. The Labour Party and my party leader, Deputy Bacik, have called for a catch-up fund for children and we really need to have a look into that. It follows up on Senator Ardagh's point about DEIS schools and targeting supports. We really need to look at and accelerate more targeted supports for people in DEIS schools who suffered from continuous lockdowns and need to catch up in terms of education.