Warning that a whole new cycle of homelessness was being created, Mr Brendan Ryan (Ind) castigated the Government which, he claimed, was exacerbating the problem by giving increased tax relief to speculators.
The number of people sleeping rough was rising again, said Mr Ryan, a long-time activist on behalf of the homeless. Of the huge number of housing units built last year, about half had been bought by speculators who wanted to make money. Large-scale investment in the housing market was beginning to cause a new living-on-the-streets crisis.
People in what were meant to be temporary emergency shelters could not find anywhere else to go. There was a rapidly diminishing supply of affordable accommodation in Dublin for those needing resettlement.
The fundamental thrust of housing policy ought to be to maximise the development of lowcost, affordable housing in the private and public sectors.
The single biggest scandal had been the halving of the Capital Acquisition Tax rate in the last budget, guaranteeing a flood of speculative money into the housing market. As long as that remained in place, there would not be a substantial reduction in the terrifying growth in house prices.
"We must be in a society with a sense of collective insanity if we end up in a situation where The Irish Times can report this week that a young couple with a combined income of £100,000 a year are having difficulty finding housing accommodation that they can afford to pay for."
Dr Maurice Hayes (Ind) said one of the problems was that the very economic growth which had made life better for 80 per cent of the population had made it worse for 20 per cent, who were largely made up of homeless people. He was glad that the Housing and Urban Renewal Minister, Mr Robert Molloy, had proposed conducting a new survey. This would also have to probe the extent of hidden homelessness - the number of people in prison or other institutions who would not be there if they had a place to go to.
Ms Mairin Quill (PD) described as terrifying a statistic provided by one organisation catering for the homeless that there had been a six-fold increase between 1994 and 1996 in the number of under-18s approaching it for assistance.
As public representatives, they must be particularly concerned about the vulnerability of these young people who had cast themselves on the streets and who were prey to every kind of exploitation, whether it be drugs or prostitution.