Last week, we saw record levels of homelessness in this country with 5,830 children in emergency accommodation. What emergency action is the Minister taking to immediately stem the flow of families and children into homelessness and the length of time people are spending in homelessness? I have not seen an emergency response from the Minister to this homelessness disaster. What will he do about it?

The Minister knows the main cause of families and children being made homeless is eviction from the private rental sector. He says he has brought in measures that give the strongest tenancy protections we have seen but he knows also that those tenancy protections do not apply to all existing tenants. There are hundreds of thousands of tenants, including tens of thousands of families and children, who are as vulnerable to eviction as they were before the Minister brought in the new measures. We can look at the scale…

This week, I met three different people who are in homelessness in emergency accommodation, in particular, parents of children. Any length of time spent in emergency accommodation is deeply damaging. It is a trauma to a child. The trauma started even before they entered emergency accommodation, with the stress and trauma of being evicted from their home. It is having to take a child, having to take their teddy bears and their few little toys, put them into a bag, bring them and go into a place they do not know, a s…

Tairgim: "Go léifear an Bille an Dara hUair anois." I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The starting point of this Bill is that the housing crisis is a complete and utter catastrophe, and we need something to radically change. Over two years ago, the Housing Commission, an official body set up by the Government, recommended that a right to housing should be inserted in the Constitution. Since then, the coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has let that recommendation gather dust on the shelf, all th…

I thank those who spoke in favour of the Bill, including Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, People Before Profit and my colleagues in the Social Democrats. They all spoke clearly and eloquently and made the case that was needed to be made as to the importance and significance of this Bill. I express my deep disappointment that the Government is opposing this. I am trying to figure out its reason for doing so. I do not think the Minister of State believes these arguments about distraction and that it might “delay delivery…

The Minister of State set out that Ireland would engage constructively with the development of proposals for a potential EU-wide windfall tax levy. She also talked about what the Tánaiste had done on this. The European Commissioner for energy, however, has said very clearly that the EU is not planning any EU-wide tax on windfall profits and actually said yesterday that the Commission will help countries to develop schemes themselves. What is the Government doing here? Who is it kidding? If the Government actually w…

The Taoiseach should ask the Irish people what they think.

I want to raise the case of Roman Slater, a six-year-old boy in my constituency who is still at home. He has no school place. I have spoken to his mother regularly over the past few weeks and she is broken. She has applied to numerous schools but he still has no school place. He has autism and a developmental delay. I spoke to her again today and asked if there was any update. She said it is so draining, that she thought she would have a place for Roman by now and that knowing a school is willing to take him but wi…

I think they could be working more.

They are clearly not doing it sufficiently if he is still at home.

They are not willing to commit the resources.

No, they are not - the NCSE are not.

The Minister and everyone here knows these fares are illogical. We have a cost of-living crisis. Again, the Minister knows and everyone knows that people are really struggling. We want to get people out of cars and into public transport, and the Government doing this by increasing fares. It is completely counterproductive. People are talking about average increases of 15%. In Dublin, the short Leap fare is going to increase by 33%. I have been speaking to people in my constituency. They are very frustrated and angr…

Is it? Why not have a completely public transport system then? Why get private operators? Surely we understand the failure that has happened in the UK with the privatisation of public services. We should have fares as low as possible. People have spoken about places like Luxembourg where free public transport has worked. We need to be reducing fares rather than increasing them and ensure that we have a proper public service. Talking of my constituency, something I have raised with the Minister before is how BusConn…

The Tánaiste is probably well aware that there are thousands of council tenants across this country living in absolutely scandalous conditions with mould and damp. In my constituency, I have been working with a number of harrowing cases. I visited homes and have seen mould and damp on windows and in bedrooms, and the impact on children and babies. How is it right and fair that council tenants living in mouldy and damp conditions in houses that the State is responsible for are now being charged higher rents in the m…

There is extreme concern, as my colleagues have expressed, that really what is going on here is the Government trying to hide the scale of need that it is not meeting and that this is not ultimately about delivering services but about trying to take the political pressure off. It is disgraceful when we look at the waiting lists. Of course, that is the power of the waiting lists. They reveal the level of need that is there. The waiting lists that were released as a result of the great work by my colleague, Deputy Qu…

I support what has been said, and the Social Democrats will not be opposing the motion. We will support what has been put forward on the basis that funding is going to local authorities and AHBs but not with regard to the way in which it has been done. There are serious gaps in what has been proposed and this is a pity because there really was an opportunity here to address the significant issues with defective buildings and social housing. There are also particular issues here. Social housing tenants are particula…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this Bill. It is absolutely true that people across this country really are struggling. This Government appears to be completely out of touch with the scale of their struggling. Barnardos recently released figures from a survey it did on families and children. It was very sad to see the lack of coverage it got and particularly from the Government. That survey found that in one in five families the parents are skipping meals so that their children can eat. This is one of the we…

I am disappointed the Minister could not be here to take the matter but I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, is. I want to raise the case of a child with additional needs in my constituency who, almost a month into the school year when other children are in school - almost four weeks now - still does not have an appropriate school place. I also want to raise the issue of promised schools still not delivered completely, notably Finglas Parochial National School, where children are still at home wa…

I reiterate that it is important that the project is delivered for Finglas Parochial National School as soon as possible. I really do think the parents deserve a very clear date as to when that will happen. My understanding is that it was committed to be delivered in September and we are getting very close to the end of September. It really should be in place. I want to go back to the specific case I raised, which I also raised with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan. I am really disappointed with the Minister …