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GE2024Emergency AccommodationDARRAGH O’BRIEN HAS been criticised after saying he will not publish the latest emergency accommodation figures before the day of the General Election.
The official figures from the Department of Housing look at the number of people accessing emergency accommodation services over the last week of each month, and are published at 2pm on the last Friday of the following month.
October’s figures are due at 2pm on polling day, Friday 29 November.
The latest figures for the end of September show there were 14,760 people accessing such services, including 4,561 children – record highs for both metrics.
The figures do not include people sleeping rough, those that may be couch surfing or homeless in hospitals or prisons, and those in a shelter for asylum seekers or domestic violence centres.
O’Brien, who is the Minister for Housing, said on Thursday that he could not bring forward the publication of October’s figures.
The Fianna Fail candidate for Fingal East representative said he did not have control over their publication.
Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin described O’Brien as the “minister for homelessness” and said it would be better if the figures were published on Thursday.
“There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Darragh O’Brien will publish those figures before polls open on Friday. Why? Because he knows the figures are going up – and they’re going up because he’s the Minister for Housing.”
O Broin said homelessness has increased to levels “people never thought imaginable” under O’Brien.
“So while I think it would be better we published them on Thursday, I think most people are expecting the numbers will rise,” he said.
“We will have more adults, more children, more pensioners, more singles, and more families in emergency accommodation than ever before.
“Why? Because Darragh O’Brien has consistently missed his social housing targets, targets that were too low in the first place, isn’t delivering a sufficient volume of affordable homes and if you read the Fianna Fail – and indeed the Fine Gael manifesto – it’s more of the same.
“There is nothing that these two parties are offering that will give any comfort to people in emergency accommodation, people at risk of falling into homelessness, but also, crucially, for renters.”
Aontu leader Peadar Toibin said it was important that the public could make a decision on who they vote for based on “what is happening in real time”.
“If a particular minister has the individual figures, logic would dictate that the minister would sure make those are provided.
“If he’s not, he is withholding information from the general public and one can only suspect that he’s withholding information because it will have a negative effect on Fianna Fail’s electoral chances.”
He also called for the figures of homelessness deaths outside of Dublin, something he said was not officially published for any other county.
Asked on Thursday if voters deserved more transparency from his Department, O’Brien said he had been “extremely transparent” throughout his term.
He said to publish them on the Thursday before the election would be to “change a process that’s been in place for over four years”.
“We’ve been consistent, totally transparent, more transparent than previous governments as well, with our quarterly reports with regard to homelessness, our exits, our preventions, those who enter into emergency accommodation.”
O’Brien said the figures would be published as normal on Friday next week at 2pm, adding that the process was independent of himself.
Pressed on whether he could give indicative figures before their official release, he said: “I couldn’t because the figures have to be independently verified.
“They’re not just figures that I settle on. They’re figures that are independently verified, independently published and it will be done like every single other month at exactly the same time on the last Friday of the month.
“No change on that whatsoever, and completely transparent.”
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iPad is without doubt one of the best devices I have ever owned, I love it.
You love it? Wow.
I would guess most people had held out for the last 2-3 months on buying an iPad as the new models were being announced last week.
iPad sales had seen a massive drop in their last earnings report too. It will be even bigger this time next year, people don’t own large-screened phones and use tablets too, it’s pointless. I could see the point of owning both when the iPhone screens were tiny, not now though.
I would imagine people change phones more often than they change a tablet, so the top-end of the tablet market may be suffering some saturation at the moment before it settles into a normal renewal cycle.
I’m genuinely surprised how little iTunes contributes to their income.
Android is still too buggy , there are too many cheap android devices that can’t perform basic tasks.
Anyone can operate an iPad whether they are 3 or 83 , the older generation have embraced apple tech much easier than android!
Get yourself a Samsung. So much better. Ive used ipads before the Samsung. So slow. Im not surprised sales are falling.
I would totally agree.
The fact that you cannot add SD card memory was my turning point.
The 10.1″ Galaxy NOTE 2014 would kick any IPad in performance.
I prefer using the Samsung. Haven’t used the ipad since.
Tablets are used more for watching TV on. Ipads are far too restrictive in what you can and can’t watch.
An android with mobdro and you’re good to go.
Writing this on an iPad that’s 3 1/2 yrs old although it can’t be updated anymore it’s still one of The best bits of Tech I’ve ever owned
I wish they’d change the iTunes interface, it’s such a pain in the hole.
Is the large version of iphone 6 being used as an alternative to the ipad mini?
Yes, I would imagine you are correct. Certainly wouldn’t be a massive difference now between the phones and the iPad mini.
Great phone by the way, the Samsung killer I would say.
Is Apple the cult Tom cruise and John travolta are involved in. (Wrote on my iPhone)
Some people might be holding out for the new iPads, but Apple has been losing ground to Android-based tablets for the past two years: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/Android-dominates-tablet
I’d say they’re fine losing market share to the €100 Android tablets that you see knocking about, the people buying those were unlikely to get an iPad. I’d like to see a breakdown of the flagship tablet market.
Wasn’t Apple heavily dependant on iPod sales at one stage too…
Love Apple computers, don’t like their phones!
That’s odd in the last apple story there was a guy who’s friend worked in a mobile phone shop and apparently they couldn’t sell any iPhones at all.
I was sure that was a reliable source for sales figures.
Being a user of both, I can definitely say that Apple is to restrictive and therefore useless in a lot of ways. Once they have you, they want to enslave you into buying all their products. To many frustrations. Would definitely not recommended Apple. Don’t become an Apple zombie!
Have both myself also , but do not find any real restrictions on IOS. Depends how you use them I suppose. Both are great, but if generally find Apple a better interface and build quality.
I haven’t come across an interesting new app for ages. It’s good to see the hardware improving but the software people seem to have hit a brick wall. It seems to me that the industry needs more personal information from us to develop but we are getting more careful and taking the privacy option where possible. The U2 album fiasco showed that what we want is not what they want to give us. We want to draw back from the always on connected world and to pick and choose how we interact.
Htc have a new range of tablets Comming out on November 3rd and if they are anything like the HTC One M8 phone They will storm the tablet Charts.Sd card will mean a lot more storage freed up on the tablet itself.
HTC One M7 & M8 are great phones but unfortunately they do not sell very well HTC made a big loss on the M7, have improved with the M8, but still nowhere near the likes of Samsung.
Don’t really like Apple myself(except I-tunes, where theres no choice) think Sony is much better all round.
I think the fizz has left Apple recently, it’s not big news anymore.
Always used iPhones but today i upgraded to an S5. Vodafone are out of stock with no date for new iPhone 6 handsets and it would have cost me 250 blips. S5 is free with the same if not better specs. Total no brainer
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