Government and FF should be ‘hammered’ in local elections over homelessness

The Government parties and Fianna Fáil which supports them “deserve to be hammered” in the local elections for their failures on housing and homelessness, the Dáil has heard.

Solidarity TD Mick Barry said a Government that allowed 3,784 children to be among the more than 10,000 people who are homeless "does not deserve to remain in power".

During Dáil questions to Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, Mr Barry reminded her that in September 2017 there were 2,432 children in emergency accommodation and at that time Ms Zappone said "this should be a wake-up call".

He said the homelessness figures released on Wednesday were more than 50 per cent higher than that.

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“Have you woken up yet?” he asked. “Have the Government woken up yet?”

He said “the Government parties and FF who prop them up deserve to be hammered through the ballot box in May for your failures on housing and homelessness”.

The number one cause of homelessness is eviction from the private rental sector, he said, adding that it was time to accept Solidarity’s Anti-Eviction Bill.

The Bill bans the sale of property as grounds for eviction, a move Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has said he could not accept.

Mr Barry said however that this provision is law in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden and been supported by homelessness agency Threshold.

The Bill also bans “renovictions”, the eviction of tenants for renovations.

If these measures had been implemented in September 2017 “we’d be nowhere near 10,000 homeless, because a lot of evictions would be banned”, he said.

Ms Zappone said she supported Mr Barry’s “objective and ambition” in the legislation.

“It’s very helpful to have your Bill because it adds to the debate in terms of what is required in order to ensure that we do have additional security of tenure private rented sector.”

She said it was a “a wake-up call and it is exceptionally distressing to know that even with that wake-up call the numbers are continuing to rise”.

She said “we need to do more and perhaps to do something differently particularly in the area of the private rented sector”.

But she pointed to successes including the rental pressure zones which limited annual rent increases to 4 per cent.

And she said the Government was developing a new model of cost rental options for low income families. She pointed to the Land Development Agency scheme in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown area where half of units will be rented at a substantial discount.