I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes:
— with escalating alarm, the ever-deepening homelessness crisis;
— that in November 2023 13,514 people, including 4,105 children, were in Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage funded emergency accommodation;
— that when all hostels and rough sleepers are included the true level of homelessness is closer to 20,000 people;
— that these figures do not include the tens of thousands of people sofa surfing or living in inadequate and inappropriate accommodation; and
— that the increased activity of investment funds, such as bulk purchasing of properties and increased rents, is driving further numbers of people into homelessness from the private rental sector;
further notes with concern that:
— the most recent report from the Health Research Board stated that 121 people experiencing homelessness died prematurely in 2021;
— the recommendations of the 2020 Interim Report on Mortality Amongst Single Homeless Population remain mostly unimplemented; and
— homeless charities are raising the alarm that homelessness and deaths of people experiencing homelessness are likely to rise in the time ahead;
condemns the fact that:
— since Fine Gael took office in 2011 homelessness has increased by 254 per cent and child homelessness by 540 per cent;
— since the current Government took office homelessness has increased by 61 per cent and child homelessness by 74 per cent; and
— the Government will not meet its obligations under the Lisbon Declaration to end long-term homelessness by 2030; and
agrees:
— that the Government bring forward measures to effectively ban investment funds from bulk purchasing homes that would otherwise be available to home buyers, local authorities or Approved Housing Bodies; and these measures must include increased stamp duty on such bulk purchases;
— to increase targets and accelerate the delivery of social and affordable housing;
— to the use of emergency planning and procurement powers and new building technologies and vacant homes to deliver an additional stream of social housing specifically for those in emergency accommodation or at risk of homelessness;
— to end homelessness amongst those aged over 55 years and significantly reduce family and child homelessness;
— that the annual target for the delivery of Housing First tenancies must be doubled to 500;
— that any funds saved from reductions in the numbers of people in emergency accommodation should be redirected to homeless prevention to further reduce the numbers of people experiencing homelessness;
— to expand and accelerate the tenant-in-situ schemes for social and affordable housing to reduce the risk of homelessness;
— to increase funding for the provision of domestic violence refuge places; and
— to reintroduce the temporary ban on no fault evictions until there is a meaningful reduction in the numbers of people in emergency accommodation.
Some 13,514 people, including 4,105 children, were officially recorded as being in emergency accommodation funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in November of last year. As each month passes and these numbers rise, I keep asking myself a question: how much worse does it have to get before this Government accepts that what it is doing to tackle the homelessness crisis is not working and it needs a change of approach?
As the Minister will know, Fine Gael has been in government for 12 years and during that period, the increase in homelessness has been astonishing. Homelessness among all categories of people has gone up by 254%, but child homelessness is up an astonishing 540%. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children have been rendered homeless and have been forced to live in emergency accommodation during that period. For a significant period of that time, the Minister was supporting Fine Gael policy as part of a confidence and supply arrangement. Even in the three and a half years this Government has been in power and the Minister has held office, homelessness has gone up by 61% and child homelessness has gone up by 74%.
Those numbers do not begin to express the enormous impact on adults and, in particular, children who are being forced from their homes and into emergency accommodation. Not a day goes by without the Minister telling us about the increase in overall housing output last year, but we are still seeing the homeless numbers rise to the highest levels in modern times. Why? The answer is very simple. It is because the Government's social housing targets are too low, and year after year after year it has been missing them.
In fact, those figures - 13,500 people and 4,000 children - are not reflective of the real level of homelessness. The Minister knows that as well as I do because there are women and children in domestic violence refuges funded by Tusla. There are men and women in hostels that receive no State funding. There are rough sleepers. A growing number of people who have been through the direct provision system, and have been granted leave to remain, are trapped in direct provision and are unable to get out because it is essentially being used as emergency accommodation. When you add all those people up - this is from various Government sources - the actual real level of homelessness is somewhere closer to 20,000. That is before we even start talking about those who are sofa surfing.
If the Minister is to have any chance of meeting the targets in the Lisbon declaration on ending homelessness by 2030, he needs to change. The purpose of tabling this motion today is not only to remind the Minister of his failures to date, but also to set out alternative policy options he could consider. What could he do? He could increase and accelerate the delivery of much-needed social homes. He could raise the targets and meet those raised targets. He could use emergency planning and procurement powers and new building technologies in vacant homes to provide an additional supply of social and affordable homes, specifically targeting groups of people in emergency accommodation, such as the over 55s and families with children. He could double the volume of Housing First tenancies and ensure the entry criteria are more accessible. That would start to tackle the more than 6,000 single people in long-term homelessness. He could accelerate and expand the tenant in situ scheme. I tell him over and over again that the cost-rental tenant in situ scheme still is not working. He knows that. There had been improvements, which we acknowledged, to the social tenant in situ scheme, but it is such a shame the Minister waited such a long time to introduce them, and more can be done.
The Minister could reintroduce the ban on no-fault evictions. I know he is opposed to it, but it is still our view that it should be there. He could also end the practice of institutional investors - vulture funds - buying up homes. Leo Varadkar said in 2021 that the Government wanted to stop that practice to prevent those funds from buying up family homes and, in some instances, homes that could be used for social or affordable housing, including for families in emergency accommodation.
When it comes to homelessness, of all of the bad policies the Minister has presided over and of all the housing failures for which this Government, the confidence and supply Government and the Fine Gael Government before it are responsible, the astonishingly high levels of homelessness speak for themselves. We urgently need change. I do not expect that the Minister will endorse any of the proposals we have outlined. I do not believe he will do anything differently, and that is ultimately why we need a change of government. I go back to the question I raised at the start: how long does this have to go on for, and how bad does this have to get, before the Minister starts to change? On that basis alone, I commend the motion to the House.
