Alan Murphy died on the streets of our city last Friday. He was a man in his thirties, sleeping rough only minutes away from this place. Alan was not the first person to die on our streets and I fear he will not be the last.

Last December, Jonathan Corrie tragically lost his life while sleeping rough minutes from the Dáil. In response to the public outcry, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, who has responsibility for housing, Deputy Alan Kelly, promised action. The Taoiseach gave an emotional message of support to people left homeless, assuring them that they were not on their own.

Alan Murphy died alone on our streets last week. His death is yet another symbol of the failure of the Government to address the housing crisis. Since Mr. Corrie’s death last December the number of families presenting as homeless has increased.

The number of children sleeping in emergency accommodation every night has increased. Rents have continued to spiral upwards and evictions are becoming more frequent. More and more families turn to the State for help but instead of being offered shelter we have the appalling situation of scores of families being turned away every night, unable to source even emergency accommodation. Meanwhile, councils desperately wait for the funds to build the homes these families need and charities desperately wait for funds to provide much-needed emergency accommodation.

What will the Taoiseach do for the families who will not be able to access emergency accommodation tonight? When will the Taoiseach and his Minister release the long-promised funding to allow councils to start building?

Gabhaim mo bhuíochas le clann Alan Ó Murchú, go ndéanfaidh Dia trócaire ar a anam.

The Deputy's party has tabled a motion on housing for debate this evening when this matter can be dealt with in greater detail in the response by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. Clearly, one cannot beat this problem until one supplies more houses and that requires building-----

Yes, four and a half years later.

Settle down, Deputy Higgins.

That means we must continue the programme of social housing and returning so-called voids to habitable use - of which it is expected there will be 2,500 this year - and that the housing construction sector begins to move. As Deputy McDonald is aware, there are numbers of components to this. There is the social housing element, the renovation of units or apartments that are void at present and the private housing sector. Believe me, it is not a shortage of money that has caused the exacerbation here. It is not fit to have children and families in bed and breakfast accommodation or to have children homeless or staying in hotel rooms.

Last year, when the homeless situation became very public from September to Christmas, the Government responded very strongly in respect of the rough sleepers who were homeless, through the acquisition of new accommodation and providing money for extra accommodation, night cafés and constant engagement with people who were sleeping rough on the streets. At the end of that saga, in January and February, there was a bed for everybody who wanted one. Now, it has broadened far more because of the situation where landlords are concerned and people not being in a position to pay rent. The rent supplement scheme operated by the Department of Social Protection is available for any person who is having difficulty with a landlord at present where rent is being increased and who are likely to have uncertainty about being able to stay in their home. A total of 4,000 individual cases have been helped under this scheme.

I note the Deputy's comment about the capital programme today, in which she indicated that it appeared as if the Government is reducing the amount of money being made available for social housing. In fact, the programme extends out to the budget of October 2020, which will be for the year 2021, and an extra €500 million is allocated there. I bring that to her attention for her information. It is not being shortened, but is being extended and broadened.

What will happen this evening for people who are homeless and on the streets? It is a very difficult situation and is not satisfactory. However, we cannot and will not be able to deal with it until we provide more houses on the ground. This morning the Cabinet agreed to the Minister's proposition for modular housing and to move immediately with 150. The Deputy might have seen and visited these units. They are in different shapes and forms. They are very acceptable and are guaranteed for insulation, warmth and comfort. They are also for families, so they are not in bed and breakfast accommodation or hotel rooms. The Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government have met and engaged on a range of opportunities that will help us to move this forward and to provide more houses. The Minister for Finance has referred to the opportunities that might exist with NAMA's land bank and the possibility of more housing there.

No matter what happens, however, we cannot deal with the situation effectively until one starts to put blocks and concrete on the ground. We hope to start on that very strongly in the time ahead.

The Taoiseach must have been off looking for water on Mars for the past four years.

Settle down, Deputy.

Are we for real here?

Deputy, your party spokesperson is due to ask questions, so do not interfere with Deputy McDonald in the meantime.

The sum total is that the Taoiseach has no answer for families who will seek emergency accommodation tonight and will be sent away. Some of them will sleep in cars. Some of them have slept in parks. The Government has acknowledged that we have what amounts to a humanitarian crisis at this stage. There are 130,000 households on the housing waiting list. The Taoiseach cannot claim with a straight face, or with any level of honesty, that any real progress has been made in terms of social housing provision. The Taoiseach, I and all of the families on the waiting list know that.

It is curious to hear the Taoiseach say that it is not a matter of funding and that money is not the issue. The facts do not bear that out. It appears that the Taoiseach lays the blame for this crisis at the feet of almost everybody. The Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, blames the local authorities, the Tánaiste has blamed the planning process and, at times, it almost appears as if homeless people and families are being blamed. The Government's record is that it cut the social housing budgets in its first years in office. It has not released the funding for local authorities to build the homes so desperately needed, despite the fact that there are shovel ready projects good to go since 2013. The fact is that the Government fails to fund appropriate and sufficient emergency accommodation. That is the Government's record.

You are way over time, Deputy. Put your question.

High profile announcements and promises on the never-never are no good. They are no good to the families who do not have a roof over their heads tonight. When does the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, propose to release the funding to local authorities to let the building begin, for work to begin today on the shovel ready projects? The Taoiseach tells us it is not a matter of money or funding.

Deputy, you are way over time.

Demonstrate that and tell us when the money will flow to the local authorities.

It has already been allocated to local authorities. In fact, the Minister and the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government are meeting with the chief executives of all of the local authorities tomorrow to hear their responses in terms of the targets that have been set, the objectives laid out, the money awarded to them and how they are getting on with the job. In some cases, local authorities are not very anxious to get back into direct house building and might prefer agencies to build the houses for them. That meeting will take place tomorrow.

I never hear interviews with a homeless person who has been awarded a house.

They have not got them.

One cannot find them.

Settle down. Watch your blood pressure.

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has issued an order in respect of the allocation of social housing to ensure that 50% of all allocations go to homeless people. I also do not hear interviews with anybody who has been awarded a voided apartment or house that has been renovated and made fit for living in again. There will be 765 of those in Dublin by the end of this year, with 633 provided to date.

The social housing budget has already been set out. The Deputy might have been misinformed in her comment on it, but it has been extended from what she said. The money for Dublin city amounts to €37 million for 2015. By the end of August, €33.4 million of that had been expended. That leaves money available for further expenditure to deal with housing.

As I said, the chief executives have all been called to Dublin tomorrow by the Minister. Some 70% of all the funding allocated has been allocated to Dublin.

The Taoiseach is living in cloud cuckoo land.

How many houses is that?

Sorry, Taoiseach, we are over time.

For any person out there now who is under pressure from a landlord who says, "You will have to get out because I am going to increase the rent", the scheme that has already helped 4,000 cases is there for them. The Department of Social Protection will deal with each of those cases individually according to their circumstances and extend the remit it has of their tenancy so they do not have to become homeless.

A further 80 families are becoming homeless each month.

As a public representative, Deputy McDonald is in a position to talk to many people who might be in that category and to tell them the Department is there with money to help them now.

I speak to them every day. In that case, there is no crisis - we are just imagining it.

Between that and rent supplement, modular housing, the allocation of tenancies to homeless people and the results that are now going to come through in the proposals from the Ministers for Finance and the Environment, Community and Local Government, I hope it can have an impact on this in the immediate future.