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MORE THAN 12,000 people slept in emergency accommodation around the country in August, including a record-high number of children.
8,796 adults and 3,895 children, bringing the total to 12,691 people, accessed emergency accommodation last month, according to newly released figures from the Department of Housing.
The number of children is the highest recorded in a single month since 2019.
The overall figure is lower than the total of 12,847 announced last month — however, officials have stated that the decrease is due to correcting an error that was made in processing data on homelessness and does not reflect any significant change in the number of people accessing emergency accommodation.
The Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) has appointed an independent reviewer to examine data for the Dublin region and the County and City Management Association has agreed to an external review of data collection procedures across all nine regions used to count homelessness.
In a statement, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said that “reliable, accurate and accessible data is vital to the work of my department and in maintaining public trust”.
“Any statistical errors are concerning and we have put in place a number of processes to ensure the integrity of the data going forward,” he said.
“I will review and expedite any recommendations arising from this work to uphold robust data collection in this vital area.”
The data for August shows that the number of children living in emergency accommodation surpassed a previous record of 3,873 in September 2019.
Responding to the figures, Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan said the government is “not using anywhere near enough of the new social housing supply coming on stream to drive down homelessness”.
“Families and single people who are long-term homeless need to get a fairer share of the new homes that become available,” Dennigan said.
Of the 8,796 adults in emergency accommodation, 6,305 were in Dublin, 577 were in the south-west, and 438 were in the mid-east, with the remaining adults spread throughout the country.
More than half — 53% — are between the ages of 25 and 44. 28% are aged 45 to 64 and 17% are between 18 and 24, while just 2% are aged 65 or older.
FFG legacy.
@Davy: any chance some people should hold off having kids till they are in a position to provide for them and not be looking for hand outs. Can you honestly say they have no family they can stay with. No they go into these facilities to try and speed up the housing list. I know of a relative who was on a housing list when he never even applied. So somebody is messing with the figures to create larger waiting lists.
@Mr Inbetween: it wasn’t an uncle, it was a cousin. When a letter came in about it he removed himself off the waiting list. All I am saying it’s a fact, so you can keep cough to yourself.
@Brian Hoey: working classes shouldn’t be allowed have children. Children are only for wealthy people. Welcome to Ireland 2023
It’s sound.. we found a billion for Ukraine. I’m sure there’s another billion for Ireland. Oh wait.. nobody gives a toss anymore as this won’t be highlighted on the world stage.
The Ukrainians coming here need to be means tested like everyone else that claims a payment from the DSP. Six months bank statements which Irish people have to supply every year as well as savings, pensions and property owned. Simple as.
@Moonshine:
Tell us how it could be stopped without Ukraine giving in ?
@Tallpat62: it can’t and it’s too important for global grain allow russia to gain power over one of the bread baskets of the world and not just strangle oild and gas prices but also grain whenever they fail to get their own way. We need to smarter on housing the government has failed how many houses could we have built for what we are paying for the children’s hospital? No it’s time to interfere in hoslusing declare it as a threat to put nationa security as it is a threat to our economic security and embark on a new deal housing building stratagy. People are holding off having kids because they can’t have them in their parents house which will place undue strain on current tax payers as the population ages. Lack of housing is an economic threat we need to tackle.
Houses in Belfast – 2 hours up the road from Dublin – are HALF the price of houses in Dublin, as a SocDems TD highlighted. How are they achieving this? We need to stop landlords from resource-hoarding. And then landlords are getting the tax breaks? Instead of the tenants who pay for all the landlords’ mortgages. FG are more focused in house prices increasing than houses increasing. There were a little over 3000 homeless people when they came to power.
@9QRixo8H: yet homeless per capita is war worse in NI
@Peter Barnwallace: Send your complaint to Westminister.
@Peter Barnwallace:They use a more extensive criteria for calculating the homeless figures up north, if we used their more inclusive system our figures would be four times higher at least.
@David Corrigan: Westministers fault?…always the same excuse.sf get what’s know as a budget(not a blank cheque) to perform their duties in housing and they can’t do it.There will be no blank cheques down here either to fix everything (despite what they think)who are they gonna blame down here?
@Frank Cauldhame: No they don’t.that absolute rubbish.ours is actually one of the most extensive in the world.
@9QRixo8H: Nearly every second car I see in the car parks of building sites in dublin are northern regs……way more work and opportunities in dublin vs Belfast…there is one reason why.
@John Terry:Nearly every car you see? lol
@Frank Cauldhame: Read it again numb nuts….I said every second car on a building site.
@uUleRhCu: actually I said ‘nearly every second car on a building site’….you obviously don’t work on building sites or work at all.
@uUleRhCu: When you are annoyed you shouldn’t react by name calling, play the ball not the man ;-)
Thanks in advance !
@Frank Cauldhame: Try reading what people say then instead of making up your own version and making a fool of yourself…..Thanks in advance.
@uUleRhCu: Practise what you preach and stop letting people who disagree with your version of life into your head, its good for your mental health ;-)
@uUleRhCu: In fairness John, it was fairly ridiculous anecdotal evidence that you presented. Whether you said “every second car” or “nearly every car” is a mute point.
Surprised the comments section are open on this topic what with the propaganda that this rag spouts.
Why do you spend so much time viewing and commenting here if it a “rag”
Yet you’re here day in day out talking out of your hole.
I turned on the radio this morning to a headline of over reporting in Dublin and the homeless figures are not as bad as reported, nothing said about the record high number. Roll on next GE
Somebody should have been building houses for the past 15 years,
I don’t know who to blame…
The government or the boogeyman?
@KTH: current Govt has only been in office since June 2020, and from that point onwards there has been large scale delivery of new homes
@Peter Barnwallace: Government either FF or FG have been in office for over 100 years, but since the financial crash of 2007 they just stopped building homes, both to blame not just the current FFG coalition.
@KTH: I can guarantee you if the next government get in and start throwing houses around like confetti the housing list will just get bigger.I’ll be the first to stick my three kids on the list as well and tell them not to bother doing what daddy and mammy did.
@uUleRhCu: With the unaffordable cost of housing now because of the crazy policies of the FF FG over the past 15 years of doing nothing, I’ve no doubt the housing list will get longer,
Your kids might not have any other option but to join that list,
Even if they get in and build hundreds of thousands of homes it will take well over a decade maybe even two for any sort of balancing to take place to affect the current crisis in housing.
@uUleRhCu: Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but are you saying don’t build an adequate supply of houses for all the people who need them? Also, I don’t think we get to put our children on housing lists
According to Darragh O’Brien the figures were wrong…Not a peep from him since…On a different subject why was there no reporting on the latest scandal involving NAMA… RTE the new transparent station gave it all of 10 seconds in Morning Ireland…Like O’Brien not a word since.
@Donal Desmond: the fella is useless
Why is it that in the 70s and 80s people in the inner city where living in tenements . Six to seven families where living houses that where built in the 19th century . They consisted of one room and all the families shared one toilet . These people where not considered to be homeless . Is homeless really as bad today as it ever was or is it that people have higher expectations today of what a home is .
@Jack Moss: well the main thing here is we no longer build tenement housing, due to the well known fact they cause societal issues and ghettos to be formed with squalid conditions. Which is why most social housing built now is a mix of private/social/affordable to some ratio.
@Jack Moss: Your timeline is a bit skewed (that was long before the 70s and 80s)..
@Brendan O’Brien: Everything Jack says is skewed, he’s an English troll who loves putting down the Irish and twisting facts to his peculiar narrative all the time.
Ignore him.
@Brendan O’Brien: have an oul Google there and see when the last tenements closed in dublin
@Sean Murphy: keep going with that social-affordable/private mix and soon it will be all social and affordable….who in their right mind will pay full market value for their home and dean and Jacinta move into a free one next door(and yes it is free if you are ‘paying’for it out of benefits)it won’t be long before everyone will want one handed to them……And I fully expect the housing list to rise instead of fall when the next government get in.
@Brendan O’Brien: actually it’s not . I grew up in the Dublin one area . As a family of four we lived in a one bedroom flat in a building that was built in the 19th century that consisted of a front room a scullery and a toilet . People that lived in houses at the time in the area where still living in houses with a toilet in the back yard . Tenements in the Summerhill area where not demolished till the 1980s .
@Jack Moss:
Your mixing “tenements” up with “bedsits”. My grandmother grew up in a tenement on Ushers Quay in Dublin 1 through the 1930′s & 1950′s
Bedsits were banned in the noughties.
@Jack Moss: Dublin one?
That’s the first time in my life I’ve seen Dublin 1 being written like that (apart from the name of a hotel),
Totally true story bud.
@Sean Murphy: this is still common practise across Europe. Unfortunately it’s a few people that cause all the hassle in these facilities. I don’t think it’s fair that somebody went to the bother of saving for a mortgage and then paying for one for the next 30 years to looking at a neighbour paying vastly reduced council rent for a similar house and get repairs etc carried out for them
Government should be looking after their own first
@Pauline Cahill: Our own should be looking after themselves first.
Oh there was an error. The only error is FF/FG politics.
Get them all new Ukrainian passports and they’ll all get a nice new house problem sorted. The politicians should hang there heads in shame allowing our own people to be housed last.
Why?
Why so many?
Incompetent leaders I’d say
If people can’t feed em, why are they breeding em?
Well, stop having kids that you can’t afford bringing a child into this world, with no fixed abode living in Hotels that’s not a life that’s terrible Parenting and I think these people need to get educated again, yes we have a housing crisis. Yes the government are doing absolutely nothing. Yes there are hundreds of thousands coming into the country now we definitely need to look after our own but these parents should also have a bit of Cop on not be bringing more children into the world , only expecting the taxpayer to pay for everything I think their selfish
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