Nobody could condone homeless children, Taoiseach tells Dáil

Nobody could condone children being homeless, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dail.

He said that following the collapse of the construction sector, the demand for housing was at an all time premium, particularly in Dublin.

He expected, he said, that the Government’s construction 2020 proposition would result in social housing demand eliminated by that year, with the allocation of almost €2.2 billion in funding.

"Clearly there is an emergency here for many of these cases and nobody wants to see a family out on the street, much less children on the street,'' Mr Kenny added.

He said the issue was a priority for Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly and the Government and the resources were being made available to deal with it in the best way possible.

“Until you get to the point where you actually provide sufficient social housing, you cannot lessen the scale of demand here,’’ he added.

The Taoiseach was replying to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who referred to an article by journalist Kitty Holland in the Irish Times on Saturday which "laid bare an appalling and shameful scandal in present day Ireland'', relating to the number of homeless children, particularly in Dublin.

“Tonight, Taoiseach, essentially 700 children will sleep in hostels, hotel rooms and other forms of emergency accommodation,’’ he added.

Mr Martin said there was only one reason for it: their parents could not pay the rent for accommodation. "It is a countrywide problem….there are 118 families outside of Dublin in this situation,'' he added. "But it is particularly acute in Dublin.''

In May 2013, there were 58 adults with children in emergency accommodation; in November of last year there were 128 adults with children in similar circumstances, said Mr Martin. By October of this year, there were 421 adults with about 700 children in emergency accommodation, he added.

“By any standards, that is shameful, particularly if we are meant to be cherishing all of the children of the nation equally,’’ he added.

Mr Martin said the fundamental issue was the rent allowance caps, introduced by Tánaiste Joan Burton, which had exacerbated the situation beyond belief. “Essentially if you are on rent allowance, you can only pay a certain amount of rent,’’ he added.

He said that those involved were low income families who had never experienced homelessness in their lives. “The anxiety, stress and trauma caused to the parents is enormous and to the children themselves,’’ he added.

Mr Martin said the problem could not be solved on a case-by-case basis, adding that the most effective emergency response would be to raise rent caps.