-----introducing rent controls and, crucially, stopping evictions into homelessness.

Why are they going to food banks if they are all doing so well?

Tell that to the people going to food banks.

Israel is involved in a brazenly naked illegal occupation of Palestinian land and territory. This week, its cabinet authorised further illegal settlements on land that, under international law, is designated for the Palestinians. In the first month of this year, 50 Palestinians died in what was the deadliest month we have seen in decades, with the Israeli army running constant military raids into Palestinian territory, as they did last year. International human rights organisations have said, categorically, that th…

What is the point?

Israel does not recognise Palestinian elections.

Palestinians in Jerusalem do not get to vote at all.

For a very long time, some of us campaigned for the Government to introduce a policy of using public money to buy the homes of people threatened with eviction. Very slowly, and not very consistently, the Government has started to do that. It is not doing enough. A cohort of people is not getting any benefit from this, namely, those who happen to be over the social housing income thresholds. This is because the Government will not sanction the purchase of homes if these people are not on the social housing list. The…

The tenant in situ scheme.

Can it apply to people over the threshold?

People who are over the threshold are being evicted. They are not entitled to anything.

Because it is not a full eviction ban.

I accept that the Minister has taken measures, but it is self-evident that they are not working. We have 600,000 people living on or below the poverty line, hundreds of thousands utilising food banks, hundreds of thousands in arrears with their energy bills from last year, and the highest number of people in emergency accommodation that we have ever seen. The numbers mask the reality of the dire housing crisis we face. The Minister must do a hell of a lot more but the Government seems reluctant to do so. I thank Si…

As the Minister knows, huge numbers of families are being hammered with the cost of living, energy costs, food prices and so on, and the centrepiece of the Government's response to that has involved telling people to get exceptional needs payments. Pre-Covid, if you needed something like that, you would have a face-to-face meeting with a community welfare officer, CWO, whereas that is no longer the case. As a result, people desperately in need of support have nobody to talk to, and that needs to be remedied. It is …

I will give the Minister some examples, the first of which involves a couple in their 60s. The husband, who used to work, developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease. They were on a big top-up arrangement, which people on the housing assistance payment, HAP, should not have to pay, and as a result they fell into arrears, given the cost-of-living hikes. We eventually got an exceptional needs payment for them but it was not enough because at no point could they meet an individual to explain the complexities of their ca…

If I can help progress those cases, I will certainly send them to the Minister. My point is that many of the cases of desperate people are complicated. The case of somebody who has fallen into arrears on his rent because he is paying a HAP top-up, that is, someone whose wife has Alzheimer's disease, who used to work and whose HAP tenancy is based on an income he no longer has, is complicated. It is very difficult to explain on a form or a phone call. You need to be sitting with an individual to explain those comple…

I will continue where I left off because the question is on the same topic. I will further elaborate the problem. The Minister is saying that community welfare officers, CWOs, are there and people can get appointments. I am telling her that is not the experience that is being relayed to us. That is not happening. In the old days, people could go down to the CWO without any prior notice and queue up to see them. They cannot do that now. We need to go back to face to face.

I will elaborate on a further example. I mentioned the man with early-onset Alzheimer's, who is also in a housing assistance payment, HAP, arrangement where he had to pay a top-up. Before getting Alzheimer's, he was working and could make the top-up. Since he got Alzheimer's, he cannot work or make the top-up and is falling into arrears. No appointment was possible. With our assistance, eventually an application with all the bits and bobs goes in and a cheque arrives for €600, but the arrears, which are not the fau…

I will certainly do that. The other case I mentioned is also complex. I will not go over the details again but, just to be clear, it concerns a woman with cancer whose husband cannot turn down the heat and so has big bills. Because she is on illness benefit, she is not entitled to fuel allowance and, therefore, got none of the extra payments for that allowance. This is terrible stuff. The husband of that woman has been in my office about six or seven times saying he cannot get a face-to-face meeting with the CWO. I…

Many damning facts and statistics show the shameful failure of this Government to address the diabolical housing and homelessness crisis in this country. I will use some of my time to tell the Ministers of State about the human reality of their failures and the misery it is inflicting on people. Watching this debate at the moment is a woman called Jackie. Jackie and her husband are in their late 50s. He worked all his life and worked for a semi-State body. They have two teenage daughters, one of whom has special ne…