Fianna Fáil say the budget needs to be a housing budget as Government TDs and Ministers have been out this morning to defend their record when it comes to dealing with the homelessness crisis.
Simon Harris says the housing crisis is the biggest scar left by the financial crash, and he wants to know the full details of what happened with Margaret Cash and her children.
“No mother takes her children to a garda station lightly.
“So we’re going to continue as a government to absolutely prioritize increase the stock of social housing and continue providing funding to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and others to make sure emergency accommodation can be provided in the interim.”
While the Housing Minister is away on holidays, other TDs say he is regularly in touch about the situation.
Fianna Fáil has criticized the government’s approach to building homes, with TD Pat Casey saying there needs to be a ramp-up in social housing construction.
“This will be a housing budget,” said Mr Casey.
“And while we talk about social housing and the importance of social housing. The other key aspect of the housing thing is affordability.
“There is a whole generation now of people who have lost the ability of owning their own home.”
Other TDs have admitted they’re aware of more cases when families had to sleep in Garda stations or other inappropriate housing outside of Dublin.
Fianna Fáil’s housing spokesperson Darragh O’Brien called for the establishment of a task force on child homelessness, calling the current situation “shameful”.
“The number of children living in homelessness has been steadily on the rise, that’s even clear from the Department of Housing’s own data,” said Mr O’Brien in a statement.
Despite these rises the Government have continued to turn a blind eye to the problem and tolerate the consistant neglect of homeless children.
“I have contacted the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy TD and have arranged a meeting to urge him to support our call for the establishment of this task force.
“There are of course other abject failures occurring in housing more generally but child homelessness is a crisis that must be urgently solved. The welfare of children in this State must be protected at all costs.”