Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. A leading pediatrician has issued a stark warning about the dire impacts of child homelessness. Dr. Aoibhinn Walsh has said that children are presenting with rickets, anaemia, faltering growth, extreme tooth decay and skin conditions like scabies. Children with autism or intellectual disabilities experience additional trauma from overcrowded noisy emergency accommodation. She told The Irish Times, "They may be nonverbal, faecal smearing in hotel rooms, bed-wetting, refusing to eat, not sleeping." There is an enormous body of research that tells us that homelessness is disastrous for children's health and well-being. As far back as 2019, a study from the RCSI warned that 40% of homeless children experienced clinically significant mental health and behavioural difficulties. At the time, that report rightly garnered major headlines and media attention. It was also raised repeatedly in this House.

Five years later, Dr. Walsh's warnings about the catastrophic impacts of homelessness on children have largely gone under the radar. She is concerned that as a society we are becoming numb to the appalling damage being done to children. Why? Under this Government, thousands of children in homelessness is increasingly viewed not as a crisis, but as the norm. There are now 4,316 children living in emergency accommodation. At the end of this month, we will likely find that the figure has increased again. Since this Government took office, the number of children in homelessness has increased by 63%. Never before have so many children in the State been without a secure home. Never before have children been spending so long in emergency accommodation.

Of the nearly 1,500 families in emergency accommodation in Dublin in May, 26% of them had been homeless for two years or longer. Once families enter homelessness, it is getting harder and harder to get them out. That is why we must stop children and families becoming homeless in the first place.

The new Labour Party Government in the UK has said it will ban no-fault evictions. This will leave us as one of the few countries in Europe where these evictions will still happen.

Nobody who is a good tenant and who is paying their rent should be made homeless. If the Tánaiste really wants to tackle child homelessness and prevent more children going into homelessness in the next week, in the next month and over the recess, why will the Tánaiste not stop this from happening? Will the Tánaiste introduce a no-fault eviction plan?

Because that would make the situation even worse. Supply is the key.

First, I acknowledge that, without question, homelessness and emergency accommodation can be very detrimental to children's health and to people's health in general, but particularly for children. There is no argument there. The response is not one of the norm. Rather, it is one of a multifaceted approach to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first instance, and particularly families, and then exiting families, and children in particular, from homelessness as quickly as possible.

The Department of housing worked with local authorities to bring an additional 2,000 beds into use in homeless emergency accommodation over the course of 2023. During the first quarter of this year, about 650 households exited emergency accommodation. That is an increase of 7.2% on Q4 of 2023 and it is in increase of 18.5% on Q1 of 2023. During the same period, over 1,000 households were prevented from entering emergency accommodation by way of a tenancy being created. That is a 59% increase on Q1 of 2023. Close to 7,000 adult preventions and exits have been achieved over the course of 2023 and that is a 25% increase on what happened in 2022. There is progress in terms of the exiting and the prevention side of homelessness. That will continue. The tenant in situ acquisition scheme has been particularly effective with the number of preventions achieved increasing by more than 45%, partly as a result of the introduction of that scheme.

Very substantial funding has being made available to homelessness-specific supports in terms of proper and far more supportive accommodation than hotels or anything like that. The emergency and the family hubs, in particular, have been far more effective in that regard. There is quite a substantial number of those.

However, nothing can be more advantageous to a child's health than the provision of a home, and supply is the key to that. Since the Government came in, we have managed to facilitate the building of 110,000 homes. Last year, up to 12,000 social homes were delivered. That is the key.

There are growing numbers, and in some instances coming into the country directly to avail of emergency accommodation from Europe. That happens. In that context, we have a challenge in terms of them, under the framework, not being eligible for social housing. That requires emergency accommodation.

There are many factors but the key, in my view, is prevention and then rapid exit from homelessness as quickly as we can. The most effective way to do that is the supply of more houses.

This week a primary school teacher told me about an incredibly upsetting incident in their classroom where they asked the children to draw out their house and mark the name of the rooms as Gaeilge and one child got very upset and whispered to their teacher that they could not do the exercise because they did not have a home. That is one of the 4,316 children who are homeless. The damage that is being caused as a result of this will be lifelong. The upset, the stress, the lack of proper nutrition, the cramped and unsuitable accommodation, the noise, the inability to have friends come over to play, the lack of security and the lack of a home is causing major trauma and one would swear from the Tánaiste's reply that there was not a 63% increase in child homelessness since this Government took office. Where is the urgency? With that backdrop and that context, the Tánaiste dismisses the desperate need for a ban on not-fault evictions without being able to explain why Ireland is so different to every other country in Europe. It is outrageous.

The Tánaiste says banning evictions for people who pay this rent would cause chaos or make the situation worse. Can the Tánaiste explain how it is the norm across Europe and Ireland is somehow different?

I do not dismiss anyone's arguments. I do not dismiss any issue. There should be an acceptance and an acknowledgement that elected representatives in this House, irrespective of party, have the same degree of concern and urgency about the homelessness crisis and housing crisis as the Deputy or anybody else does.

Hear, hear.

We do not have the same degree of responsibility the Tánaiste does. That is a nonsense thing to say.

The Housing Commission report, for example-----

Which the Government is sitting on.

-----talks about the reactive policies of the Oireachtas and Governments to the rental market. I would include the policies of the Deputy's party as part of that reactive approach-----

How is Ireland different to the rest of Europe?

-----which would reduce the amount of rental properties available, which would make the housing-supply problem worse and which would make the homelessness issue worse. We have witnessed over the past while an increased number of people with houses for rent exiting the rental market or pulling out because of the kind of initiatives and proposals that the Deputy has put forward.

No, because of your policies.

We need to expand the rental market, and the supply in the rental market, not depress it-----

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Tánaiste. Táimid thar am.

-----and we need to do that on a number of fronts.

The Opposition is in charge now.