Richard Boyd Barrett: Denounces Child Homelessness as 'Criminal Neglect'

Well Keown, last Keown, I have to again express my fury frankly that given the shocking content of two reports out this week about the scandalous situation in terms of children in homeless accommodation and families in homeless accommodation that the senior minister is not here to take that debate but maybe it's just indicative of the fact that the situation has become completely indefensible what the state is now guilty of is nothing short of criminal neglect and child abuse there's no other way to describe it when we get a report suggesting that hundreds and hundreds of children in emergency accommodation are unable to learn to crawl infants not even children infants unable to learn to crawl to chew or to speak or to have anything like a normal developmental pathway that is criminal abuse and child abuse it is the Magdalene Laundries of the 21st century waiting to happen and if this continues we will be looking at redress screens like we saw for the Magdalene Laundries of the Magdalene Laundries it is utterly shameful and it shows just you know it's beyond failure now the government's attempt to address the homelessness and housing emergency that their policies have largely created only 8% according to the respond report of those going into emergency accommodation 15% of whom are there for two years or more 45% who are there more than a year including I repeat hundreds in excess of a thousand children only 8% move on to secure social housing the rest end up in HAP tenancies not secure liable to end up homeless again in the near future or the other big cohort end up having to go home into overcrowded conditions with their families or into other emergency accommodation where the torture the hardship the neglect and the abuse continues because of the failure of the government to provide secure affordable public housing on scale to address this housing crisis 8 years after Fine Gael came into power and remember many of these children are now facing into Christmas the INO and Focus Ireland have now had to give out a resource guide to teachers to deal with the with homeless children in school with homeless children in school because of the stigma they face the mental trauma they suffer having to go into school every day when they're in this situation of homelessness where they can't bring their friends home where they can't have sleepovers it is absolutely obscene it's obscene minister but nothing seems to change nothing seems to move this government thank you minister thank you but I do thank Deputy By Bard for raising the issue I've seen the coverage of the reports and he's right to raise the points and they do need to be addressed the developmental issues in children that have been highlighted are certainly not acceptable supporting individuals and families experiencing homelessness is a priority for the government and over the course of rebuilding Ireland the government is committed to meeting the housing needs of over 138 000 households with 50 000 homes delivered through build acquisition and lease the implementation of the plan is well underway and is making progress we can see this reflected in social housing waiting lists which have reduced by 26% nationally between 2016 and 2019 the government is committed to delivering homes for all of the families currently experiencing homelessness however until a home is provided it's also critical that we provide the appropriate accommodation and supports and B&B and B&B's for emergency accommodation the government has provided local authorities with capital funding to develop family hubs there are currently 30 family hubs in operation nationally and total and they cater for a total capacity of almost 690 families additional hubs will be delivered in the coming months Hubs provide more security and stability for homeless families that is possible in hotel accommodation families in hubs are supported by local authorities and their contracted NGO service delivery partners to identify and secure appropriate long-term accommodation the supports available in family hubs assist families to move from emergency accommodation to a home within a shorter time frame the annual report released this morning by respond for instance confirms that on average families move out of their hubs within six months within six months with a range of housing responses being provided these include local authority owned properties approved housing body properties and HAP supported tenancies in the private rented sector the objective is to secure a home for a family within a six month period although obviously we work to try and ensure that homes provided within the shortest period possible 2018 5135 individual adults and their associated dependents exited homelessness into homes an increase of 8% on the 2017 figure in the first half of this year 2825 further individual adults and their associated dependents exited homelessness that's 21% up on the comparable period for last year 2018 next year it's expected that we will see in excess of five and a half thousand adults and their associated dependents moving out of homelessness the HAP place finder service is playing a vital role in preventing families from entering homelessness in the first place and in housing those families who do find themselves in emergency accommodation under the place finder service all local authority authorities are now being provided with the options to pay deposits and advance rental payments for any households in emergency homelessness homeless accommodation in order to secure accommodation via the HAP scheme local authorities may dependent on local demand offer households in emergency accommodation the option to source accommodation themselves or with the assistance of with the assistance of the the the place finder officers these officers are being funded by the department 23 local authorities have such officers in place and more than 9300 households have been supported by the homeless HAP scheme nationally up to the end of quarter three of this year supporting a household to exit homelessness sometimes requires in fact often requires more than just a house sometimes it requires a broader suite of social and welfare supports so it's vital that the range of state bodies act in a coordinated fashion and high-level inter-agency group including representatives from key government departments local authorities and agencies like TUSLA and the HSE is in place to support this critical coordination objective from I got two minutes deputy deputy honestly for the government to say that council housing lists have reduced it just makes me want to scream right do you know why they've reduced in large part because you've refused to link lift the income thresholds so every single week there's people coming into my clinic who've been locked off the list who are still desperately in need of housing but because their income has creeped a few euro over the income thresholds income thresholds that have not been raised for about a decade so this is the new plan for the government to reduce the housing list is just chop people off the housing lists and for less and less people to be entitled to social housing even though there's no other options available to them dragging a whole new cohort of people into the housing crisis and similarly to mention HAPS HAPS just makes me want to scream as well last count Corley do you know I was talking to the place finder's office in Duniairat down she told me not that I didn't know but she confirmed because they're supposed to find places HAPS places she said one bedroom apartments in Sandifur they're now going for two thousand euro a month two thousand euro one bedroom right do you know what the limit is for one bedroom homeless HAPS one bedroom nine seven five forget it right that's why nobody's moving out of homeless accommodation because the money being provided by the state is not enough to get even halfway to the high to the level of rents and even if you manage to get into HAPS tenants you could be homeless again in six months time because there's nothing secure about them and meanwhile you know definitely gardens and sites all over the country you're selling off public land that could be used for public housing to provide secure affordable housing that is why we're in this mess and I'll just conclude by saying this count there's a demonstration of housing protesters on the 5th of December to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Jonathan Corrie those protesters have asked and I'm glad to say the business committee has agreed that there will be a debate in here on solutions to the housing crisis on the day of that rally but I can tell you one thing that they are out there protesting several years after the death of Jonathan Corrie because the government has have not provided any solutions other than ones that have made the situation worse I think the deputy is right in the sense of the need which is happening now for a review of the thresholds I don't accept that the full 26% is as a result of people's incomes going over going over the existing thresholds but that review is starting to get in train it didn't happen for a decade because there was a decade of incomes were fairly flat but incomes are starting to rise and he's right to point out that the that and I certainly the issue of and I don't want to get I don't like getting into individual cases but the Jonathan Corrie case was was horrific and you know many agencies including government have to responsibility but I would emphasize to the deputy and he knows himself that in that particular case and in many others the part of the answer that spoke about the other supports that people need in relation to homelessness is crucial and homelessness is caused by surely economic reasons for absolute certain but there are other factors that contribute but having said that we will be proceeding with the review of the thresholds it is something that is timely at this stage but I don't think that that answers the 26% in total I will move I will move