On 14 May last, I asked the Tánaiste a question about the devastating impact on some children of living in inappropriate accommodation as a result of the terrible effects of successive Governments' housing policies or lack thereof.

I was looking particularly at children in direct provision and children living in bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation. One week later, two reports came out that confirmed what I was saying. There was a HIQA report which showed that 14% of children of asylum seekers living in direct provision accommodation were not safe. They were subject and exposed to domestic violence, physical abuse and isolation. The report of the office of the Ombudsman for Children showed that in 2008, 6.8% of children were living in consistent poverty, while today it is 11.7%, which translates to 138,000 children. The quotes I take from the report are: "The Government is tolerating unacceptable levels of child poverty," and "B&B accommodation impacts negatively on family life and children's development." Last week, we had a report from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commissioner, who asked in an article she wrote how the Government would explain and defend the increased poverty rates we see and why many groups already susceptible to poverty and inequality were disproportionately affected by the recession. Children are part of that group.

I cannot but be struck by what I have said here, given aspects of the debate on the commission of investigation over the last few days. One of these was the question of whether the write-down was €110 million or €119 million. The €9 million discrepancy was bandied about as if it were €9. There is no doubt that there has been preferential treatment for the privileged few, while the reality for those who suffered vicious cuts is very different. Housing is one of the casualties. In her reply on 14 May, the Tánaiste gave me various answers to the housing issue, but in the meantime all of the homeless charities have seen families living in unsuitable and risky places. There is also a fear that children will be joining the numbers of rough sleepers. We know the problems, and HAP was presented as one of the solutions. However, the homeless charities are saying there are areas in which HAP will not work, given that it was supposed to match market value. We had another answer around rent control and rent management, and I ask what is happening in that regard. The other aspect is that we have examples of international best practice. Holland is one country in which there are landlords who want to get into the private rented market. Has that been looked at? My general question is this: where is the urgency to address this crisis?

As I mentioned previously in the House, I met at length last week with a number of the organisations that are working very hard to address issues relating to homelessness. I use this opportunity to stress again that if there is anyone out there, particularly families with children but also anyone else, who has a difficulty around rents or tenancies and fears that he or she is at risk of homelessness, I ask him or her to contact the local Intreo social welfare office to seek an appointment with the community welfare service. At this point in time, we have a protocol we operate with organisations such as Threshold, Simon and Focus Ireland on a country-wide basis in co-operation with local authorities to provide an extensive one-to-one service to help people who are at risk of becoming homeless, who are homeless or who have difficulty renegotiating rent or a tenancy. The protocol is working extremely well and we have extended it right around the country and it is available nationally. It is working very well in Cork because of the dedication of the public servants operating the system and of the voluntary organisations, particularly Simon in Cork, in seeking to access accommodation for people. I use this opportunity to stress to all Members that the service is available and that it can respond extremely quickly. However, it means that people must actually go and utilise it. Where we have mobile phone numbers, which we do in many cases, we send out regular texts to remind people that if they have a difficulty with housing and they contact the community welfare service in their local Intreo office, they will receive help and advice. We have done that in a large number of cases.

On the overall issue of housing supply, the only way that will be addressed is by increasing the number of houses being built and the number of houses available to local authorities. Unfortunately, under the previous Government, the building of local authority accommodation came to a standstill because the policy of the Green Party and Fianna Fáil was to rely almost entirely on the private sector.

It has not restarted.

The Tánaiste is misleading the House again.

Deputy Alan Kelly's ministerial PR wrote that.

The Tánaiste is misleading the House.

We are now moving to put extensive capital sums into local authorities. In Dublin alone, we are making very good progress on reopening boarded-up void properties.

When? Where?

The Tánaiste's own party was in control of Dublin City Council for the past seven years.

We have already started them.

I am sure the Deputy is familiar with the fact that Dublin City Council is now producing far more opened accommodation which has been renewed and refurbished for families. The priority at the moment is for families with issues around homelessness to be dealt with as quickly as possible by the local authority. However, it is going to take us some time to come to terms with all of the different elements of the housing crisis. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, will be bringing proposals to Cabinet shortly on areas around rent certainty.

The Tánaiste had better watch out.

He will go to RTE first.

The Tánaiste had better watch him.

Can we have order, please?

AK-47. Watch him.

I would not praise him too much.

I provide statistics from some of the housing organisations. In quarter 1 of 2015, one homeless group worked with 116 homeless children in Dublin. That was an 87% increase on the 62 children they worked with in quarter 1 of 2014. Another organisation tells me that its view is that while it is waiting for the initiatives to make progress, 70-plus children will become homeless every month. I was outside with others yesterday, including Deputy Joan Collins, at the lone parent family protest. They make up 60% of the families in emergency accommodation. In July, a further 30,000 one-parent households will be affected by the last phase of the one-parent family payment reform. There are real concerns among housing organisations that the reform will push lone parents further from the workforce and expose them to a higher risk of homelessness. We know that social housing is a major part of the answer, but it is reckoned that the plan to build 1,700 social housing units by 2017 will provide 2% of the housing needed by those currently on the social housing list, which is being added to all the time.

Focus Ireland ran an e-mail campaign recently on foot of which approximately 4,000 e-mails were sent to the Taoiseach. The e-mails were on particular issues including rent certainty and increasing rent supplement to reflect market value, but there was also a call to provide that when a family is assessed by a local authority as being homeless, the local authority must then provide a place to stay until more suitable accommodation is available. The call was for local authorities to be resourced to do that. The Taoiseach did not reply. I am asking for the Tánaiste's response and I ask her to ensure that this becomes seen as the urgent matter it is. Some of us are in constituencies that are particularly affected by this, including the Tánaiste. Given that we can make other issues urgent, why not the housing issue?

I had an opportunity recently to meet with the various organisations. Unfortunately, because of the general disturbance in front of Deputy O'Sullivan and some of it behind me, I was unable to hear everything she said on the statistics. I understand, however, that some of the statistics were ones I discussed with the Focus Ireland delegation, including its new CEO, who came to see me.

I agree that those statistics are very worrying. What we need to do is to get all the different authorities to come together, particularly Dublin City Council, to open up the closed properties, of which there are more than 1,000. The council has been given the funds to refurbish them. I know that builders are anxious to do the work on them. The key is to make those properties available. As the Deputy said, those families will have a degree of priority with respect to the properties. All of these arrangements have been made with the local authorities, so the key thing is to see that families get those houses.

The Deputy referred to social welfare payments and to the UN committee hearings held earlier this week. I am sure the Deputy knows that because of social welfare transfers and social welfare payments to families we have the largest reduction in the at-risk-of-poverty grouping. Not only is our social welfare system strong, but it is my intention to make it stronger. Part of the strength of the social welfare system is that nowadays it helps families to get into work, whether those are one-parent families or families with two parents. That has been a passion of mine since I first became involved in politics. It is very good to have a strong social welfare system. My work as Minister for Social Protection has been to ensure strong social protection in this country. However, it is even better if a person can get a well-paid job that will give him or her greater financial independence. I refer to the changes currently under way.

One hundred and eight euro a week.

Very significant numbers of people will benefit by between €50 and €150 a week in additional earnings. That might not sound like a lot of money to people in here on a TD's salary, but for a family it is a very significant amount. As with the housing protocol, this policy has been ongoing in the Department for the past three years and already in the past two years 19,000 families have transited. It is a one-on-one interaction and if any of those families also have housing issues they can meet the community welfare service at the same time as the employment officer. It was the case in the past that when an individual went on lone parent benefit the expectation was often that he or she might stay on it for 20 to 30 years. What we want to do now is to offer a service to the families who have been coming in to see us. The outcomes have been extremely positive and perhaps when time permits we will arrange for some of the Deputies who are interested to actually visit and see the system in the social welfare offices, where people are involved in really positive engagements about how to provide a better future for themselves and for their children.