Last week in this Chamber the Government announced budget 2020 with the support of Fianna Fáil. At that time, I made the point that the housing crisis had become wrapped up in statistics rather than on the people behind those statistics. Late on Tuesday last, just before midnight a group of volunteers who offer food and clothing to Dublin homeless posted a photograph online. I am not sure if the Tánaiste has seen the photograph. It shows a five year old boy eating his dinner from a sheet on cardboard on the ground in this city. Sam is the boy in the photograph. He is five years old and, like any other child, he attends school, but Sam is homeless. Like thousands of other families in this State, Sam and his mum live in emergency accommodation. The Homeless Street Café, the volunteer group that met Sam on Tuesday night, made clear that his mother is trying her best to provide nutritious home-cooked meals for her children, but like so many parents of the homeless children of this State, they live in emergency accommodation that strictly forbids them cooking meals for their children.

This is Sam's life, without a home or the comfort and security that should be a right for every child in this State. This is the life of nearly 4,000 children who, like Sam, have been condemned to this type of nightmare. There is only one place our children should be on a Tuesday night, namely, safely tucked up in their beds in homes with their families. The moral stain of child homelessness in Ireland is creating a lost generation. Children are having their childhoods stolen from them right before our eyes. Homelessness is stunting their development, harming their education and exposing them to hardships that no child deserves and no society should accept.

Behind the statistics with which the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, tries to bamboozle the public, there is a stark and dark reality of our housing crisis, a crisis manufactured by this Government and from which many are profiting from the suffering of others. At the end of August last, more than 10,000 people were recorded as homeless. August was the seventh month in a row in respect of which that number of people were recorded as homeless. There has been a 365% increase in homelessness during a five-year period of unending, uninterrupted economic growth. These figures do not provide the full picture. They do not include the women and children living in domestic violence shelters funded by Tusla, adults and children living in hostels that are not funded by Departments, and those still living in direct provision despite having secured their leave to remain.

This is the republic that the Tánaiste and the Government is building. The Government is failing parents and children like Sam. This is not a republic of opportunity that cherishes all of the children of the nation equally. It is a national shame. How can we, as a nation, accept this? How can the Government stand over it? What does the Tánaiste have to say to Sam and his parents and the many other children like Sam who find themselves in this situation?

First, I do not accept it and nobody in this House should. No five year old child should be eating his or her dinner from a piece of cardboard on the street. We live in a country that does not accept this, and that is why it is being raised in the House today, as it should be.

The budget allocation for homeless services next year is €163 million. When I became Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, the allocation was significantly less than €100 million. Ultimately, we need to ensure that Sam and little boys like him have security, safety and predictability in terms of their parents having a safe tenancy or a home of their own in which to look after their families. This is what we are working towards. It makes me angry that the supports being put in place are not succeeding in ensuring that little boys like Sam do not find themselves in the position Sam was in a few nights ago.

We are making progress in regard to homelessness but, significant numbers continue to come into homelessness. For example, in 2018, more than 5,000 adults exited homelessness into homes, which is an increase of 8% on the previous year. In the first half of this year, 2,825 adults exited homelessness into homes, which is a 21% increase on the previous year. Next year, we expect that in excess 5,000 adults and families will exit homelessness into homes of their own. It is not just about homes, it is also about supports for many families who find themselves in vulnerable positions.

In response to the Deputy's question, this is not acceptable. This will remain a priority for Government until we can ensure that a five year old boy eating his dinner on the street is an absolute exception that angers people. That is how it should be and how it is. This is not necessarily the case in many other countries, but in this country homelessness, particularly for children is not acceptable. We will continue to prioritise it from a policy and spend perspective to ensure we bring it to an end, but that cannot be done overnight. It will take some time. This year, we will add more than 10,000 social housing units to our social housing stock. Next year, we will add more than 11,000. We will continue to provide this number of houses and more until we get on top of the housing pressures that are being contributed to by an increasing population and a broken housing market, which we are in the process of fixing over time.

Sam is not alone. There are other photographs of children who are homeless eating their dinner on the steps of the GPO, the same place where the leaders whose busts are displayed around this Chamber came together and proclaimed an Irish republic and that Ireland would cherish all of the children of the nation equally. The Government has let down those leaders and, more important, it has let down our children. The Tánaiste once again rhymed off statistics, but he failed to mention that child homelessness continues to grow. Included in those statistics are children like Sam who are forced into these situations.

The Government has blocked the solutions that could be delivered and would result in serious changes in society. It blocked the Focus Ireland amendment that would have prevented families and children like Sam becoming homeless in the first instance. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil also recently voted against the right to housing being enshrined in the Constitution. Many families are forced into homelessness because of escalating rents. Again, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have blocked the Sinn Féin proposal for a rent freeze. These are real solutions. This Government has no answers. The budget announced last week provides for a €20 million increase in funding for homelessness services, which is an acceptance that the crisis will worsen. It is not a policy or a solution. The Government needs to take on board the proposals we and others, such as Focus Ireland, have been putting forward.

What does the Government propose to do in the here and now for Sam? What does it propose to do for the other children like Sam also eating their dinner outside the GPO? What does it propose to do for the children being given sleeping bags instead of a home or emergency accommodation because neither is available? These are the questions that the nation is asking having become aware of this terrible situation where children are forced to eat their dinner from cardboard on the ground. This is not acceptable. As a nation we want to reach out and provide comfort. This Government needs to implement policies and take action to ensure this never happens again.

Nobody has moral superiority on this issue. We have and continue to prioritise homelessness and housing in terms of a response. As Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government I introduced the rent pressure zones to limit rent inflation when that was needed. Approximately 60% of rental properties in this country are now subject to those provisions. We have debated in this House some of the solutions proposed by Sinn Féin.

The problem with those proposals is that the majority of Deputies believe they will not work. They make for a good headline on the floor of the House but if we do not believe they will work when they are tested, we cannot introduce them.

They do not work for the landlords.

Or the private sector.

What we are doing is introducing policies in housing that are delivering where there is a need for delivery. That is in the context of supply right across the board, whether that is social housing, affordable housing, more rental accommodation or the private purchase market. Supply is being increased in all of those areas, in most instances quite dramatically. The idea that all of this can be solved by putting a provision in the Constitution without the homes to back it up is just nonsense.

We are saying that the amount of money should be doubled.

I have no problem with changing our Constitution when it comes to housing but I do have a difficulty with stating that it is going to solve the problems of Sam, the five year old child to whom the Deputy referred.

Nobody suggested that.

We need to put in place practical, emergency solutions-----

Stop relying on the private sector. Let us build social and affordable housing.

-----while we develop medium and long-term solutions to correct the supply problem in the housing market. The Deputy knows this only too well.