Homelessness: Statements (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22 ============================================================ Joe Flaherty (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach I welcome the Minister back to the Chamber. At the outset, I commend him on all the work he has been doing. I think he has made some of the most significant strides we have seen in trying to address the housing deficit in this country, possibly over the past 15 to 20 years. I commend him on his work and tell him not to listen to detractors and keep doing what he is doing because I think he is making real progress. We have certainly seen that in the first quarter this year. Notwithstanding that, we have to admit that we still have a homelessness challenge. The numbers, at face value, do not reflect well on us as a society. Every family is entitled to a home and a roof over their heads but sometimes, we do not get sufficient credit, or indeed the Minister's Department does not get sufficient credit, in those figures. It is not necessarily the same 15,000 every month that is homeless. There are an awful lot of people coming into the system homeless and who are then coming out the other side quite quickly, as a matter of fact, in a home and a proper, secure social housing support at home. There are an awful lot of people across local authorities the length and breadth of Ireland working very hard in homeless services, often in combined teams across a number of counties, to address this. They are working tirelessly to address that. The Minister might use his time to paint a picture of the dynamic of that homeless figure of 15,000. What makes that up? How many people are in the system over the long term? It would be reasonable to say that there are very few. You could probably count on your two hands the number of families who are more than 12 months in a homeless situations. In many of those cases, I think it would be reasonable to say that some of those people would probably have status issues in the country and it might be a challenge getting them out of homelessness. On the whole, I think we are making real progress. Ultimately, the solution to homelessness and all our housing problems is delivery. It is like any business in retail; if you have not got the product, you cannot sell it, and if you have not got the houses, you cannot sort homelessness or get people into housing. However, I think the Minister has shown that there is no restriction on his ambition. He has not been afraid to take on new programmes and initiatives. He has shown that this week with teach beag, which is a great initiative. Needless to say, the critics will deride it but it answers what an awful lot of parents were asking us for. I could probably count ten times the people who have come to me and asked if it would be okay if they put up a modular unit in the field behind the house or the back garden. I told them that if they went to the planner, they will tell you no but if your neighbours are not going to make an issue with it you are probably as well to do it. It is great to see those people being brought in and that their situation is going to be regularised. This not a panacea; it is not going to sort out the homelessness problem but it is just one more measure the Minister has been willing to embrace. I know within our party and indeed with the other parties, he is having ongoing discussions and taking on board ideas. We have a collective responsibility, ultimately, to sort the homelessness problem. We will get there but we also have to acknowledge that we are one of the fastest growing, most dynamic economies and countries in Europe. It is inevitable that our population is going to increase. It is increasing dramatically and is putting additional pressures on our housing stock and supply. Ultimately, it comes back down to that most salient point: everything humanly possible has to be done to ramp up supply. At the minute, we are totally dependent on the Minister's Department. There is probably not a housing development in the country that is not dependent on state aid through an element of social and affordable housing to get it off the ground. When people say the Government is doing nothing about the housing problem and homelessness, it is simply not true. It is a fallacy and very unfair to the Minister's Department, officials and the local authorities the length and breadth of the country. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-22