Mattie McGrath Criticises Housing Policy Over Child Homelessness

To say I would be happy to speak on this important matter here today would be a wrong statement. I am not, like Dr Connolly and others. It is a shocking situation that we are in. Last week my colleagues on the Housing Committee released a report on the family and child homelessness. It is a stark and sobering assessment of the damage that is being perpetrated upon children by the current homelessness strategy, Minister Stark. And like previous ministers and speakers, I have no access to bear with you, you are doing your best. But I think it is a scandal and a disgrace that the Minister for Housing is not here himself. If it was opening an envelope or turning Assad for the second or third time on the same side he would be there, with his hand tat and the whole lot, but Carl will chain up. The Housing Committee has been intensively engaging on the issue for some considerable time. We have heard from all the main stakeholders and the assessment is pretty damning, Minister. You know this yourself. What is clear is that the current approaches are simply not working. That is why we as a committee have made 14 recommendations aimed at bringing improvements and more importantly relief for families and children into the equation. In fact they have been lost in this whole. You have heard it from all the speakers. You must know yourself in your own clinics. We all have them. Desperate situations in our offices every day of the week and we just can't do anything for them. We are strongly of the view as a committee that the Housing Act 1988 needs to be amended to place a statutory duty on housing authorities to regard the best interest of the child as paramount. And to have regard to the needs of the family. And to make provision of suitable accommodation for that family unit to ensure its effective functioning. You can't function if you are sleeping on the street or sleeping in a hotel or a B&B. You can't, Minister. You are a family man yourself, I think. We are all families. You couldn't do it. It must be impossible. We also need to urgently address the need for the limits to be introduced, for time limits to be introduced, limiting the amount of time a family can spend in an emergency accommodation in order to minimise the risk of long-term adverse outcomes. This is why we are also calling for the Housing Act 1988 as it to be amended to place a limit on the amount of time as I said. It is entirely unacceptable that we are continuing to allow a broken system to persist, a system which is destroying the well-being of children and creating permanent damages to families in every town and village in this state, Minister. Every town and village in this state. The April homeless figures provided by the Department of Housing Planning and Local Government show the total number of homeless families at 1,720. 729, which includes 3,794 dependents in those figures. Figures issued in May by Focus Ireland show that a total of 94 families with 137 children became newly homeless in Dublin alone in April. In the month of April. And you think, you stand up here in the Tarnasher today, answering questions of the art of business, talking about his record in housing. You see, the 7th Minister now, the Minister for Housing, Minister Murphy, the 6th, if not the 7th. We did better off if we never had a Minister for Housing. We all welcomed him, thought it was great. But there is just such an inertia, such an inability, and such a shame by the inventions here this evening that you have the colleagues to support you. And seeing the Minister's not here. Shocking. In a briefing note we received at the committee, the following points were made clear. Focus Ireland has noted that the latest government figures exclude families who have been assessed as homeless by local authorities. They exclude those families who have been assessed by local authorities. So the figures are being manicured day in, day out. They are receiving homeless support funded by the Department of Housing, or living in emergency homeless accommodation, which has its own front door. So I mean, there's all kinds of nuances there, and the figures are wholly and entirely deceptive, Minister. Focus Ireland has called for a number of families living in owned or emergency accommodation, the numbers, to be published each month, along with the headline figure. And if we get that honesty, and clarity, and, you know, direct assessment, and put it out there, the real figures, we're going nowhere, Minister. We can't do that, it's a sad state of affairs. Focus Ireland advice, this practice is in England and Scotland, where similar properties are used to accommodate homeless families. And gives a clearer picture of the nature of the problem for policy makers and services. So what they can do in England and Scotland, why are we hiding? It's the same in Ireland as they can, if a house becomes a vacant property. It's really left within six weeks. We're here, we haven't closed up for three years. It's an absolute blight on our towns and villages, but it's an absolute scandal when there's such a need for houses. Focus Ireland research also shows that even a short period of homelessness often has a very negative impact on families and their children. A short period of home, and couldn't you imagine? Could any of us imagine if we hadn't been home? Over 40% of families who are homeless in Dublin are now in emergency accommodation for over a year. Emergency accommodation is for a week or two. There's a week on emergency, not for 12 months, Minister. I don't know where it's been against the moral compass gone. I knew that you were never really interested in the ordinary little people, but my goodness. Shocking figures in the way. Now that figure, 40% of families who are homeless in Dublin are now in emergency accommodation for over a year. And I too take great humbers with the script that you read over here today. Because it's waffle. And you know yourself. It's not... It's not... Sorry? I was here. I watched it. I was here. Of course I was here. I was here for the start of it, and I watched it in my office. Okay? Of course I was. I heard your thing, and I've read it. And so it could be used in a different part of this building, not to give us here. As I said, the charity has also, Focus Island, has also said that the current situation would be much worse without the work of Focus Island, as it helped over 400 families to secure a home last year. And I salute them. And Father Peter McVeary and all the other groups. In partnership with the state, as Focus Island provided those 400 houses, didn't do it on their own. And move on from homelessness to those 400 families. The charity stressed that much good work is being done, but the crisis will continue without a substantial increase in social housing provision, and a move away from reliance on providing more emergency accommodation and hubs. That's what we have to do. We built them in the 20s, and the 30s, and the 40s, and the 50s, and the 70s, and the 80s. And we built them we had in cranes or equipment, we built houses by the 100. And it's the greatest con being perpetrated on the people which are moving figures around and moving announcements. You think you're conning the people, but you're not. You might be conning some people in here, but you're not conning the people out there, who are for an outlive. They're waiting for you to come to their doors. I'm sure you're getting into by-elections already. As I said, we must move away from that reliance of providing for an emergency accommodation. It's huge money. Focus Island has called for a number of key actions to be taken by this government to help ease the crisis. But will you take them? The introduction of specific sub-strategies for addressing the needs of homeless families given the scale of the crisis. The setting of time limits by which no family or person will be homeless for longer than six months. This will require new measures to prevent men, women, and children losing their homes, and improve measures to help those who are already homeless. And, of course, you won't be in those measures because you'd have to upset your friends in the banks. You won't stop the banks. And you have your former MEP out there among a million amount of words. He couldn't condemn the CEO of KBC Bank when he wanted to close the page on the tracker of mortgage. And that's the arrogance that they have. But they know. You send in your ex-MEP to be the spoofer firm now out there, getting a fine remuneration, I know, and come out. He couldn't even condemn the words. He said they were unfortunate. That's the thinking that you have in your party. That's the respect that you have for the people who are homeless. A commitment to building more social housing in sustainable communities. Well, she won't do that. You tell us in Tipperary you're building houses and, God, we can't find them. We can't find them. Ensure that local authorities publishes guidelines for their staff setting out what children's first approach to a homeless family would involve. And I salute the frontline staff. They have a cold face every day of the week in Tipperary County Council, in Clarmellan, in Nina and elsewhere. And also ensure that a stream of social housing is made available for vulnerable care leavers who would otherwise face homelessness. So we need to have respect, first of all, and we need to realise that cut out all the cause wallop, cut out all the spin and get meaningful efforts. And we talk about fast tracking and different schemes you brought in. They're all Ponzi schemes. And you know it. And they're not accessible. Even the whole purchase loan in Tipperary. I think one we had in one of the recent years and five in another year. It's just not working. And the system is so broken and you're so unable to fix it and you can't even face the people. You're in here on your own and another Fine Gael member in the House this evening. Or indeed, independence for change will make up the government. So you should hang your head in shame, Minister. And you should tell your message to your boss, to your senior minister, that he's hiding. But he can't hide from the people with their pound-louies. When they go in to vote in the ballot box, you'll have no place to hide. When they put down the ever in the paper. Ever a hay and ever a ten or ever an ill. You can't hide from the people because the people have found you out. And your contempt for the people is just staggering.