Deputy Eoin Ó Broin: I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."I am sharing my time with a number of colleagues. Finbar and Mary are a working family. Finbar has a full-time job and Mary has a part-time job. They have young children. They are just above the threshold for eligibility for social housing. They were renting accommodation for approximately €1,200 a month but got notice to quit. While there were rental properties available, unfortunately, rents had increased to a level they could not afford, €1,800 to €2,000. Ultimately, because they could not access private rental accommodation or social housing supports, they fell into homelessness.

Danielle is a single mother. She has two young children. She has been homeless before and was in housing assistance payment, HAP, accommodation provided through the local authority. She also received a notice to quit and was unable to transfer her housing assistance payment during the early part of the period of her notice to quit. It was only in the final four weeks that she was able to do so, which was not sufficient time to find an appropriate rental property. She too fell back into emergency accommodation.

Stephen is a constituent whom I remember very well. He had a very troubled life. He came from an abusive home, which led to a serious addiction to heroin. He fought against addiction, got into detoxification treatment and got himself clean. Despite this, because there was no aftercare plan for when he left detoxification treatment and because the only hostels available were low-threshold hostels where active drug users were staying, he had no other option but to sleep rough....

[Full debate is on the Oireachtas site]