The prolonged Government-sponsored housing crisis is affecting every community in this State, none more so than County Mayo, where there are 2,664 people on the council waiting list, 924 people on the HAP waiting list and 744 people on the RAS list. As a result of the Government’s housing policies, working people, pensioners and vulnerable tenants are being forced out of their homes with nowhere for them to go while private rents continue to spiral out of control. Recent figures from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, revealed a 51% increase in evictions, the highest level since the Famine. Thousands of people are now desperately searching for a place to live. If they find one, they will be paying thousands more in rent each year. If they do not, they face moving back in with family, if they can do that, or alternatively emigrating or homelessness. Michael Davitt was one of County Mayo's greatest people. He fought for land, for dignity and for justice for ordinary people. He believed no person should live at the mercy of insecurity and exploitation, but that is exactly what is happening right now. Today, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have ensured that ordinary families have literally been left out in the cold. I am dealing with a case in County Mayo of a man in his 70s. He is a RAS tenant who is facing eviction after 21 years in his home. He lives with serious health conditions, uses a walker and is on 22 different daily medications. After 30 years on the council waiting list, he has effectively been told to fend for himself in a rental market that is completely out of reach. I ask the Minister of State what I should tell this man. I only want one answer from him today. Where should he go and where should the thousands more like him go? I ask the Minister of State to look at me. Where do they go? I am not being political; I am asking him to tell me where I can tell them to go. The council staff cannot tell them where to go, except to Charlestown in emergencies and there is limited space there. There is no place for people to go when they are being made homeless in County Mayo and across other counties. Can the Minister of State give us a solution right here, right now? We have given the Government solutions in terms of cutting rent, banning no-fault evictions, accelerating delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes, or even expanding tenant in situ so we can deal with emergency situations like this.

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