Richard Boyd Barrett: Calls State Neglect Over Family Eviction

Yeah, I just think it is worthwhile at times when we're discussing these things, which can seem quite dry and technical, to just remind ourselves of the human reality. And I mean, literally every week I have somebody coming in to me who's facing a date for their eviction. But this week, just as the particular week that's in it, I had a lovely young couple. And both of them have been working in their, I think probably about the mid-twenties. They're a lovely, lovely, lovely couple. And throughout the whole engagement with this couple, and they had their young son with them, who has special needs, I think it's about two or three, lovely. Little young fella. The same name as my son, just coincidentally. But he was sitting there smiling at me the whole time during the thing. But his mother was just bawling crying the whole time. Her partner had to keep reaching over to kind of hold her, because as much as she was trying to keep it together to explain the situation they were in, she just kept getting overwhelmed with fear. Because their date for eviction is this week. This week. And they've done absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all. And they're terrified about the prospect of what's going to happen to them and their child with special needs. And both of them were telling me themselves that they, later in life, had been diagnosed, or that they didn't know when they were younger, but that they had special needs. That they were on the spectrum and so on. And they were finding it really difficult to cope with all the forms they had to fill out and trying to understand hap and homeless hap and thresholds and what happens, you know. And if they got working family payment, what might that mean? Would it drive them over the social housing income threshold and make their situation even worse? And, you know, was there anything I could do and what not? And you look at their position on the list and you think, no. Unless these people get prioritised, and even if they get prioritised, then it would be extremely difficult. I mean, the bar is getting higher and higher and higher to get prioritised, medical priority. Because another feature of these things is people often who aren't doctors second-guessing, people who are writing letters on behalf of people, where doctors say, oh, yeah, this person should be prioritised, this kid shouldn't go into homelessness, it would be really, really bad for them, or this person, because of their disability, really, they shouldn't be in the hostel. But the council, because they have nowhere to put them anyway, just say, oh, well, sorry, we can't prioritise you. That's not a severe enough disability, so, sorry, we can't prioritise you. So, I suppose my question to the minister is, like, can anything justify this? Can anything justify the tears of that mother? Can anything justify that little child, who's about two or three, with special needs, being driven into a hostel in town? They're terrified, I mean, they're absolutely terrified. I don't think they'll go to a hostel in town, the truth. I'd say they would probably do almost anything, because that's a long way out from any sort of family support networks they have in Dunleary, but that's what you get offered most of the time in Dunleary, because we don't have even enough emergency accommodation in Dunleary, so you get sent into town in a hostel, and you might be in there, you know, and then after a while, maybe after a year or two, you might get into emergency accommodation in Dunleary, and then you don't know how long you might be there. You could be just languishing there for God knows how long. So, can anything justify, Minister, in your mind, that being done to those people, being evicted in that circumstance, to satisfy the investors, to incentivise, because what we're being told is, that has to be done. That has to be done to incentivise the investors. It is a small landlord, by the way. Small landlord is doing that. And they didn't have, they weren't saying awful things about the small landlord. But it's you guys who manage the sector. It's you guys who create and sustain a sector that allows that to happen. Because to my mind, if, you know, if the consequence of the sort of rental sector we set up is that that happens to that family and to that child, there's something wrong. There's something wrong with that. Because that's just not right for that to happen to that child or to that mother. It's just not right. I don't care what justification you want to try and put on it. But we know it's, as Deputy Lawler said, it's spreadsheets. People with spreadsheets in Antwerp and New York are looking at Dublin and saying, Jesus, you can't put the rent up to 2,500 in certain circumstances. So, you know, we mightn't build there because it's not profitable enough for us. But the human consequence is that lovely couple. And the tears and the child going in. And that's, like, to my mind, that's sort of state neglect. You know when we passed that referendum on Children First, the Children First guidelines, which say that actually the state is culpable of abuse if a child is neglected. Now, to my mind, the state is guilty of an abuse of that child and is guilty of the, you know, willful neglect of the well-being of that child if that child is allowed to go into homelessness. And I hear from the government, oh, we're working on prevention of people going into homelessness. No, you're not. You're not. Because you're allowing that to happen and you think that in order to incentivise investors that that is legitimate. It's not legitimate. It's illegitimate. It's absolutely outrageous that that can be allowed to happen. So, you know, my question to you, Minister, is, you know, can you honestly stand over that situation? That's just one. That's just this week's example for me in my office. But I'm sure others can stand up and talk about their experiences in the last week or two of the same desperate situations. But it really did struck me. And just how confused and desperate and sort of feeling and helpless people were pleading for help. And you're just thinking, there's nothing I can do, I'm afraid, because that's allowed. It's allowed that you can be thrown out. And it's allowed that you have nowhere to be sent but a hostel. Or maybe if they won't come into a hostel, they will. That's very often in my area. People say, oh, no, I'd rather sleep in my car or, you know, pitch a tent somewhere because I'm not going into town in those hostels. So that's the human reality of it all. But you do have a choice not to do that and to say, well, that's not acceptable. And that's done in other countries. We're not evicting people into homelessness. No, it's just not going to happen because it's wrong. And we'll do something else to make sure that that doesn't happen and that we can provide secure, affordable housing for people like that couple and their child. Thank you, Deputy. Thank you.