At the International Women's Day protest, one of the biggest issues of concern to people was the housing crisis. We have had extensive debate about the Government's decision to lift the eviction ban. One of the features of those who are going into homelessness is how many of them are women and children and the impact that has on children. I will give the Taoiseach an example. What are people like this supposed to do? Is anything going to change? I have a constituent who is four years in emergency accommodation with…

Does the Taoiseach have any answer to my question?

I found the Taoiseach's answer to my previous question rather evasive. I will frame the question again. It is not just about the individual case; it is about how that case epitomises the failure of the Government to understand what is going on or its wilful denial of what is going on. What is not particularly specific to this case is that there is somebody trapped in homeless accommodation. Somebody who gets up every day to work has been in homeless accommodation for four years. Does that not in and of itself make …

I am finished.

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. The barbarism and criminality of Vladimir Putin is plain to see and he should be investigated and prosecuted for his undoubted war crimes and crimes against humanity. Of course, an incredible irony is at work when Joe Biden also suggests that is a good idea, given he represents a country that refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the ICC, possibly because that country might then have to issue arrest warrants for US political and military figures in respect of the same crimes aga…

They are the leaders of the Israeli Government and they should be arrested for war crimes, which Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have rightly said are crimes of apartheid and illegal occupation, and for the crime of passing new laws yesterday to re-legalise illegal settlements, as well as the fact that the Israeli Government has committed to more illegal settlements of Palestinian territory, the illegal transfer of people under occupation and the collective punishment of the people of Gaza. There are no sanctions or…

They can change them.

I hope the public respond to the Government's cold-hearted decision to lift the eviction ban by coming out in their thousands on the demonstration on 1 April outside the Dáil. I genuinely want to know what the Minister has to say to people in my area, where currently there is no family emergency accommodation at all. For his information, there is a six-month waiting list. If people are made homeless in our area, they are sent to the other side of the city. A woman wrote to me last week who is in a hostel in Drumcon…

Is it in place now?

The attitude of the DUP to the Windsor Framework and the Stormont brake, which was a major concession to the party, just shows that it will do absolutely anything to cling onto the sectarian bandwagon and maintain the sectarian status quo . When we see that, does it not suggest that if we need a force that can challenge the sectarianism the DUP seeks to perpetuate, the place to look is the public sector strikes in the North, where we have seen health workers and teachers, Catholic and Protestant, united, fighting f…

The Friends of the Earth report, which is still left out in the cold, is just the latest report we have, from either environmental or anti-poverty groups, that points out that the grant system for retrofit is massively skewed in favour of the well-off and is of little, if any, use to low-income households, particularly those in the private rented sector, although similar things could be said about those in social housing. Private rental tenants have no say whatsoever over whether they get their house retrofitted an…

I am not a Minister.

If well-being and quality of life are to mean anything, they must surely mean that people have some security about the place where they live. I do not see how someone can possibly have either of those things if they do not have security about where they live. The Government's decision to lift the eviction ban means approximately 750,000 people in rented accommodation in this country have now confirmed they will have no security, and many of them will face eviction into homelessness and have nowhere to go. Earlier, …

He is running late.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. It is already clear that the Government has no respect whatsoever for any decision that this House might make to maintain an eviction ban as we in the Opposition wish to do because it has already ignored a Bill that was passed four weeks ago by People Before Profit, calling for the maintenance of the eviction ban for as long as the housing emergency is with us. That has been completely ignored and will no doubt be buried by the Government in the same way that it wants to b…

Hear, hear.

Under pressure to do so.

The Government's decision to lift the ban on evictions is absolutely unforgivable. Rather than engaging in constant deflection, justification and enunciating the Government's supposed successes in housing policy or its plans for the future, the Tánaiste needs to very simply tell the people who are facing homelessness what they are going to do. Most of the people who are facing eviction want to remain anonymous because they are scared, humiliated and terrified of the consequences of their situation for their childre…

I will put something on the record about the Tánaiste in a moment.

Believe in them?