I call Deputy Paul Murphy on behalf of the Technical Group.

Today, a young couple, Alan Murphy and Kelly Gilsenan, are before the High Court. They are not before the court because they committed a heinous crime, but because they are homeless. They are homeless due to the decisions of this Government. The Government has shown the same disregard to people on rent supplement, who are facing massive hikes in rent, as it has shown to lone parents.

Alan suffers from serious epilepsy. He was in a coma in Tallaght Hospital and had to quit his job. Kelly is now his full-time carer. They are two of the nicest people one could meet. Their previous landlord sold their house so they were forced to move out. Like many others, they did everything they could to find somewhere else to live. However, they simply could not find a landlord who would accept rent supplement or a rent they could afford. As no suitable accommodation was offered by South Dublin County Council, like others they were forced to sleep in a tent. They decided to bring the problem to the council's door by sleeping in its offices overnight a couple of weeks ago. The council went to the High Court to seek an injunction to force them out of the offices. Is this what we have come to? Does the Tánaiste stand over a situation where councils are going to the High Court to seek injunctions against homeless people because they do not have sufficient emergency accommodation for them?

Since a court case a week and a half ago, the couple have been sleeping in a tent in Seán Walsh Memorial Park. They have also stayed in emergency accommodation. The conditions in the emergency accommodation are horrific. In the first place they stayed, the entrance was blocked with rubbish, the mattresses were covered in urine and mould was growing on the windows. In the next place, there was vomit and food on the floor and unwashed mattresses. Alan and Kelly are not criminals. They are simply homeless as a result of decisions made not by them but by others. However, they are treated like criminals. Their situation, as Alan described it to me yesterday, is like an open prison, with curfews, no cooking facilities and no individual freedom. They are not alone. There are 3,000 people in a similar situation, 1,000 of whom are children. The Tánaiste is responsible for a significant part of this problem by refusing to increase the rent supplement caps while also refusing to introduce rent controls. Will she now review this decision?

Meanwhile, there is a hole of €18.5 million in Dublin city's budget for homelessness services. Will the Government give a commitment to fill that hole? Will it investigate the conditions in emergency accommodation and commit itself to improving them? Finally, will the Tánaiste take note of the housing activists who have taken matters in their own hands? They have taken over a hostel owned by Dublin City Council on Bolton Street, which was just left there. They have refurbished it and are opening it to house homeless people. If they can do that with no resources and as volunteers, given the hundreds of empty NAMA properties throughout the State and in south Dublin why cannot the State take the same action to provide emergency accommodation and social and affordable housing?

First, with regard to Alan and Kelly, if the Deputy has been advising them as constituents, I strongly suggest that he ask them to get in touch with the community welfare service in the area. That has been the consistent advice to people in housing difficulties. They should go and talk to the community welfare service, which has complete discretion with regard to the amount of rent that may be paid. At this point, there have been well over 1,000 cases dealt with by the community welfare service. A total of 1,200 cases are in the Dublin local authority areas and 700 to 800 are throughout the rest of the country. I am surprised if the Deputy has been dealing with the case, as I would hope he would advise the couple to contact the community welfare service. In addition, in the six months of this year so far, there have been 6,000 renegotiated or new rent supplement tenancies.

The bulk of these are in Dublin. It is not the best option to go homeless. It is much better to deal with the community welfare service to see if a property can be accessed that suits the needs of the individuals in question. As I stated, we have done this in approximately 6,000 cases so far this year, specifically for people under threat of homelessness for the reasons the Deputy outlined. We have done it specifically in approximately 1,200 cases in the Dublin local authorities.

I met recently with representatives of the Simon Community, Threshold and other housing bodies, all of which agree that the protocol is working well. Therefore, I strongly recommend the protocol to Deputy Murphy and Alan and Kelly as a way of perhaps assisting them. I do not know what Alan and Kelly's precise requirements are but given that Alan has been ill, the couple probably needs specific provision.

On the overall provision for homelessness, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, has provided €55.5 million in Exchequer funding for homeless services managed by housing authorities and overseen by the Department.

The local authorities have not received any of that money.

Dublin City Council has a shortfall in funding for homelessness.

The Minister is out of touch.

Some 6,000 families and individuals have been housed through the rent supplement scheme in the first six months of this year. This is a significant number and a further 2,000 protocol arrangements have been reached to prevent homelessness by renegotiating tenancy arrangements for families at risk of losing their homes. This is also significant. The community welfare service is available to assist with cases, as is Threshold and a number of the housing organisations.

The Deputy referred to the local authority, Dublin City Council, closing a premises that could be used for homeless people. The practice by local authorities of closing up and voiding premises that become vacant is wrong, as the Minister has indicated on many occasions.

The local authorities in Tipperary do not have one cent to spend on this and the Minister has not had a single home built in the county.

We have given substantial funding to open up all these voided properties. Significant funding has been provided to open up unfinished estates in different areas, including Tipperary. We need to get every available house and apartment available for people with a housing need.

Where are these available homes?

In the meantime, as Deputy Murphy is aware, the Government has made the largest ever capital funding allocation for a housing programme, including social housing.

The Tánaiste should try telling that to the local authorities.

Order, please.

The Government has made more announcements about housing, house-building, social housing and so forth than any other Government in the history of the State. However, according to the records available from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the number of local authority social houses built under this Government is the lowest in the history of the State. Every single year in this Government's term has seen fewer social houses built than in any other year on record. That is the truth. The Government can make all the housing announcements it wants but building local authority houses to get people off the housing waiting list, including the 8,500 people, Alan and Kelly included, on South Dublin County Council's waiting list, is the only way to fundamentally address the housing crisis. The Government is doing nothing to solve the problem apart from making announcements.

In terms of the case of Alan and Kelly and 3,000 other cases, the Tánaiste's advice is to recommend that people avoid going homeless. We, too, recommend to people that they should not go homeless and people recommend to themselves that they should not go homeless. People do not want to be homeless and they do not end up in homelessness lightly or without having made contact with a community welfare officer and doing everything else they possibly can. However, when a landlord is selling a property, the tenants must move out and many are unable to find somewhere else to go. Alan and Kelly are in contact with South Dublin County Council on a daily basis. They currently have emergency accommodation because other people were cleared off the homeless list, which will now fill up again. The advice they are receiving is not that they will be allocated a house but that they should find a landlord who will take the housing assistance payment. They cannot find any landlords who will take the HAP and they are not the only people in that position.

It is a national problem.

A recent survey published by the Simon Community found that only 12% of available properties were within rent supplement and housing assistance payment limits. Landlords are refusing to take rent supplement or the HAP.

The position is the same in every town and village.

This issue will explode because people like Alan and Kelly and those who opened up the Bolt Hostel are not willing to wait for more announcements and the continued lack of housing to deal with this issue. More and more people will take matters into their own hands. How many more will be injuncted to prevent them from staying in council premises if they bring the issue to their local council's doorsteps, which is where people first interact when they have a housing problem? Other housing activists will take over, open up and bring people into National Asset Management Agency buildings. The crime in this case is that the State is not doing this with empty properties. Despite NAMA having control of 12% of hotels in the State, the Government has not opened these properties to deal with the crisis. It should then build homes to deal with the long-term housing and homelessness crises.

I feel terribly sorry, as I am sure everyone does, for anybody who finds themselves in Alan and Kelly's position consequent to the crash in construction, banking and everything else we have worked to resolve in the past four years. The suggestion I made to Deputy Murphy to help Alan and Kelly, which he carefully avoided answering, was that in cases such as those of Alan and Kelly, whom he indicated had been on rent supplement-----

That scheme is for rent increases.

-----we are helping individuals and families on a case-by-case basis through the community welfare service. Deputy Murphy carefully avoided stating whether he is prepared to-----

The Government has withdrawn community welfare officers.

Organisations such as Threshold and the Simon Community are using the structures of the community welfare service. The Deputy asks for flexibility on rent supplement. The way to do this is on a case-by-case basis through the community welfare service.

That is the good old Irish way - deal with problems on a case-by-case basis.

I am suggesting that the Deputy have another conversation with Alan and Kelly to find out if they have approached the community welfare service. I am not certain from the Deputy's answer if that is the case.

They did.

Perhaps the community welfare service could be of assistance.

We bring the information to all the right places in every case.

It would also be helpful if the Deputy would provide the couple's details and we will try to find out to what extent they can be assisted. Many rent supplement payments are being negotiated and I have provided the relevant figures. As I also stated, we have negotiated in 1,200 cases where people were at risk of losing their homes for some of the reasons the Deputy describes. That is a significant number.

The couple lost their home.

The number of homeless families has doubled since Jonathan Corrie died. The Tánaiste should get that into her head.

Order, please.

The reason for that is the decision by the previous Government to stop building social housing. This Government has begun the process of building social housing.

The Tánaiste needs a reality check. She clearly does not deal with many cases of homelessness.

She is on a different planet.

The solution is to build more houses.

That is why the Government has allocated €3.5 billion of funding to this.

Hear, hear.

It would be helpful if the Deputies in the Opposition whose parties have members on the various local authorities would ask their members to co-operate to get the social housing programme under way, to get voids reopened and to use the substantial amount of funding that has been made available to the local authorities.

If they had the funding, they could do it. They are not getting the funding. This is all a spoof.

Questions and no answers.