Holly Cairns: Government Failing Families in Homeless Crisis

Go raibh maith agat, Ceann Comhairle. Firstly, I want to congratulate our new Social Democrats TD, Daniel Ennis, and Fine Gael's new deputy, Sean Cain, and warmly welcome them to this chamber. I know Dan is going to be a fantastic addition to our parliamentary party team. We're all so excited to work with you. This is a huge day for Dan, for Sean and their families, and I want to welcome their families and supporters to the gallery today. I especially want to welcome Dan's mother, Jacqueline, his brother Geoff, and fiancée Chloe. I know that none of us would be here in this chamber today if we didn't have the support of family, friends and party members, the people who knock on doors for us and keep us going through the hard times, and families who are willing to make enormous sacrifices so we can be here. This essential support doesn't get enough recognition, so I want to acknowledge it today. I would also like to thank our excellent candidate in Galway West, Media Nick and Laich, and everybody who voted for the Social Democrats on Friday. Taoiseach, the front page of the Mail today reveals a shocking figure. The cost of emergency homeless accommodation reached nearly €500 million last year. That's a 570% increase in spending in just 10 years. But while we can measure the financial cost of soaring homelessness, we cannot measure the human cost. How many babies are struggling to learn to crawl right now because of a lack of space? How many toddlers are experiencing delayed speech development? How many children have become withdrawn or are falling behind in school? How many of their parents have developed insomnia or depression? Or how many relationships have broken down because of the constant stress of their living conditions? The full extent of the trauma being created by homelessness is something we will never truly know. But we do know the negative impacts can be lifelong. It affects children's development, education, mental and physical health, job prospects and their relationships. Because a stable, secure home is the foundation for a happy life and that basic building block is missing for 17,500 people. This is especially an issue in Dublin Central where a disproportionate amount of emergency accommodation is located. One tenth of the homeless population in Ireland, 1,700 people, are living in just one street, Gardiner Street. Across the constituency it has been estimated there are 7,000 people living in homeless accommodation. Has any small area in the country ever had to cope with such a disproportionate level of trauma, unmet need and state failure? These are people and an area that have been abandoned by successive governments left to pick up the pieces of years of your failure on housing and the response of this government is not to help or reduce homelessness, it is to make the situation even worse and it's time for the Government to recognise that and change course. Taoiseach to respond, Deputy, your time is up. Could I first of all say to the Deputy that again the population increase in the last 10 years has been quite phenomenal as well and indeed is having an impact on the housing situation. The migration impact, and I mean this in a general sense, not in any casting expression, has had impact on housing also and one only has to look at the figures now in emergency accommodation who are non-European or non-Irish is well over 50%. That's where we are in the modern era. We've got to deal with that, we've got to help people who find themselves homeless. We need to understand what are the drivers of homelessness in the last five to 10 years also and without question in my view when you analyse the figures and when you talk to people that population growth obviously is a key area but also we do need to respond in terms of social housing for example. We're building more houses now in direct builds than we ever did since the foundation of the state on a per annum basis. Last year over 9,000 social houses alone were built and ultimately the provision of increased social housing is the best route to dealing with homelessness. No other way will sustainably deal with it. In addition to that we're building a lot of affordable homes, we're giving a lot of support to people in terms of starter homes and across the board in terms of helping out other things we're giving assistance to people who need to access housing itself and without question the momentum is towards more increased house provision. 36,000 last year, again we hope to increase upon that and probably will in 2026. What's interesting commencements are up 176% this year but 11,000 commencement notices in the first four months. Real dwelling investment up 19%. Construction employment is up 33% since 2020. 33% in five years, 10% year on year and that's because of the increased house building that is taking place. There's been a 55% year on year increase in terms of land for housing and deals to facilitate housing there. The HBFI loan book up 25% so whatever metric you're looking at there's increases happening. The issue is the speed and how we can deal and how we can exit people from homelessness as quickly as possible and from emergency accommodation in particular. If you do a temporary rent ban or if you do an eviction ban and so on you will depress supply again. I mean we've been through this the housing commission said the existing renting situation couldn't continue that we had to create a more permanent framework for the rental market to give certainty to all concerned and what you've just suggested towards the end of your contribution would actually make the situation worse because you would depress supply and we need more supply and we need it as quickly as we possibly can and it's interesting that any form of supply that we've proposed in the last few months is being opposed by yourself and by others in the opposition. Thank you Taoiseach. You can come back in, it's Deputy Holly Cairns now Taoiseach to respond. Taoiseach I think you actually need to stop and listen to yourself when you come into this chamber week after week and try and spin a positive message on housing when there are 17,000 people who are homeless, more than 5,000 children. This is at a time when there are record budget surpluses and the only thing you've changed in your approach is to start blaming migrants for that failure. It is shameful. You talk about every metric and fail to mention the most important metric which is the increase month on month you break records in the number of people becoming homeless. Instead of acknowledging your approach has failed and changing it you introduced legislation which we all knew would increase evictions and rents and that is exactly what happened. Can you at least acknowledge the increase, the staggering increase, the only success that you've had in terms of homelessness? Taoiseach will now respond. Deputy Holly Cairns time is up. Taoiseach will respond. Deputy Cairns your time is up. Taoiseach will respond. Well I don't have any faith in your capacity or our party's capacity to deal with housing and homelessness from what you've produced so far. I don't actually in terms of the substance of what you put forward. Soundbites won't build houses Deputy. It's good play but it won't build houses and you've failed to acknowledge. I don't mind having an honest debate on housing but you consistently fail to acknowledge any progress at all in terms of the social housing issue for example. There's been 58,000 social houses built in the last five years. That compares dramatically to anything built in the previous 10 years but you can't acknowledge that. You can't acknowledge anything at all. I acknowledge there's a homeless crisis out there. I've said from day one that housing is the number one crisis but we're doing something about it with concrete policies. I see nothing. Genuinely all I see, all you've produced is a savings and investment scheme. That's all you've really come up with. That's not going to solve homelessness today, next year or the year after. Like a lot of rhetoric Deputy but very substance. Thank you Taoiseach time is up.