This is my first opportunity to welcome the Minister of State. I can describe him as a personal friend and I wish him well in his job. I am happy to put on the record that in the area and on the issue which I raised today I have ample evidence not only of his commitment but also his willingness to make himself unpopular in the interests of homeless people in Cork and, therefore, what remarks I might have intended to make I will temper accordingly knowing the goodwill of the Minister involved.
The year 1987 has been designated as the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. You need not worry, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, I will not take the entire 20 minutes at all. The process by which it came to be known to people working with the homeless in this country that 1987 had been so designated can only be described as a slow process of osmosis. We and various people involved heard about it indirectly and from religious and other agencies. It was one of my colleagues here in the Seanad who mentioned it to me and produced some documentation that he had got from a sister involved in some voluntary organisation. A number of other people I spoke to were not aware at that stage that this proposal had been made.
I do not think the Minister and I would have any disagreement that this is an extremely important decision and one that is appropriate because in the United States and in Europe homelessness has been identified as an increasing phenomenon. The unofficial estimate is that homelessness in the United States has increased tenfold in the last six years from 300,000 or fewer to about three million.
This phenomenon is now coming to the attention of the Community. We had a successful seminar in Cork last September on the problem of homelessness in Europe and the alarming fact for those of us from Ireland who were there was that, even in advanced countries with advance welfare states, the problem of homelessness is becoming more and more visible. Homelessness is also a Third World phenomenon brought on by large scale migration from rural to urban areas into environments where there is little or no housing and little or no provision in the form of shelter available.
Therefore, it was appropriate, first, that the United Nations agency to deal with the whole question of shelter should be situated not in the First World but in a Third World country, Kenya, and that the United Nations should designate a year of shelter because this is becoming visibly an international problem. It is also a national problem in this country and, therefore, the response to International Year of Shelter for the Homeless should be two-pronged. It should have an international dimension and a national dimension. I was happy to see in the revised Estimate for 1986 for the Department of the Environment provision for the United Nations International Year of Shelter for the Homeless to the tune of £25,000. I am glad that we are providing funds to the international body and it is emphasised that this is a contribution to an international organisation. It will not be a contribution to anything that is being done within this country.
I was disturbed to find that there is no reference in the Estimate for the Department of the Environment to any support for any activities connected with the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless in this country. There is a very welcome provision under housing for funds for the implementation of what is still the Housing Bill but which it is hoped will become the amended Housing Act. We hope in that area that the funds will be available. What is missing is any provision for lead in support, for organisational costs, or for the preparation of projects, schemes, publicity, conferences or anything that would involve people in this country where we have a lively, active and fairly vocal voluntary sector dealing with the problem of homelessness. There is nothing evident in the Estimate for the Department of the Environment to make provision for this. One can only conclude that the provision that is intended this year is either so miniscule as not to deserve a separate heading or it is not being provided at all.
I do not understand how we can hope to participate fully in such an important international occasion if we do not have provision in the year preceding to support various groups. I know that the Department of the Environment is the official contact point for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless and, therefore, I must assume that any activities are going to be supported from within that Department or that activities are going to be funded by that Department. I would therefore have to wonder where priorities are going, because in searching line by line through the Estimate of the Department of the Environment I found interesting references to a grant to the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to the tune of £25,000 and a grant in respect of homes or shelters for stray or unwanted dogs or cats to the tune of £125,000. One must assume, therefore, that for reasons best known to themselves, both the Minister and the Government have either taken no decision about support nationally for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless or have taken a decision to do nothing this year.
There are attempts afoot — I am not involved in them — to set up a local committee of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. I have no knowledge of its status, whether it is official or unofficial, or whether the Department of the Environment are officially participating or not. If such a committee is being set up it should not be left entirely to the voluntary sector to fund what is, after all Irish participation in an international effort. It should not be left to voluntary organisations that are, as the Minister knows only too well, more and more heavily strapped for funds, to provide the funding to do something proper.
It should not be left to international organisations to give money to this country. It is a once off thing. It is one of the small areas of social problem that is beginning to manifest itself. We could learn from an international conference on homelessness. We could, for instance, learn — if I can be slightly political — about the failures of legislation to deal with homelessness in other areas which might enable us to amend our own current draft legislation before some of the same mistakes are repeated here. We could learn about the relationship between urbanisation and homelessness. between homelessness and family breakdown. There is so much we could do if funding was available. Therefore, it is a matter of considerable regret that funding is not available. It is difficult to envisage a situation where support for such a international year could be made available if it did not include some funding. We can have moral support, we can have verbal support, we can have the Department of the Environment being officially involved, but without hard cash all other kinds of involvement are really no more than meaningless gestures.
My purpose in raising this matter on the Adjournment is not to get involved in a dispute about whose goodwill is greater than whose goodwill. It is not to get involved in a dispute about who is more or less concerned about the homeless. It is not to invite a recitation of all the things the Department of the Environment have done or are proposing to do for the homeless. It is to invite a positive response from the Minister to the specific question: are the Government going to provide support to enable activities to take place here under the auspices of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless? I could go on at length, but I think I have made my point. What is needed is perfectly clear and I look forward with considerable interest to the Minister's reply.
