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LAST UPDATE | 26 Aug 2022
TTHE NUMBER OF homeless people in Ireland hit record figures last month, with over 10,500 people accessing emergency accommodation.
The latest figures from the Department of Housing show that there were 10,568 people accessing emergency accommodation in the last week of July, surpassing the previous record of October 2019.
This is a slight increase compared to June, where 10,492 people were recorded as homeless.
July is the seventh consecutive month where the number of people accessing emergency accommodation has risen.
In total, there were 7,431 adults who accessed emergency accommodation in the last week of July. Of those, 4,771 were male and 2,660 were female.
A majority of those people were located in Dublin, with 5,209 homeless adults reported last month.
There were also 3,137 children recorded as accessing emergency accommodation.
Charities have expressed serious concern at the record level of homelessness across the country.
“We are extremely distressed by the ongoing rise in the number of people presenting in emergency accommodation,” said Caoimhe O’Connell, spokesperson for Dublin Simon.
“Last month, we broke a record we never wanted to reach in Dublin and now, devastatingly, the same has happened at a national level. In our fifty years of providing homeless services, the situation has never been this bleak or urgent.”
O’Connell called on the Government to work with Dublin Simon and other non-governmental organisations on a crisis plan to address the homelessness emergency.
David Carroll, chief executive of Depaul, who provide homelessness services across Ireland, said that there needed to be a “renewed focus” on social and affordable housing for single people.
“Single people are some of the most vulnerable we meet coming through the doors of our services and are the ones who find it the hardest to access long-term accommodation,” Carroll said.
“Significant planning and investment in one bed units is required as part of the development of private and social housing developments to break the cycle.”
Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin hit out at Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien for the record levels of homelessness, saying that the Government was “directly responsible”.
“Policies pursued by Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien and his Government are directly responsible for these record levels of homelessness,” Ó Broin said.
He called for O’Brien to make a statement on how the Government will address the “relentless rise in homelessness”, with Ó Broin adding that an eviction ban must be put in place alongside an acceleration of the social housing programme.
Labour’s Housing spokesperson, Senator Rebecca Moynihan said that the current situation was “a national shame”.
“It is a national shame at a time of rising cost of living we also have record levels of people and families without a home. It is not right and more needs to be done. We have the resources but not the political will and that needs to change,” Moynihan said.
“We need to do everything we can to protect people from falling into homelessness in the first place. Government must get real and stop seeing housing as a commodity. Housing is a human right.”
Like Ó Broin, Moynihan called for a ban on evictions as well as a temporary rent freeze.
Cian O’Callaghan, Housing spokesperson for the Social Democrats said that there are “shattered” lives behind today’s homelessness figures.
“Behind these grim statistics are lives that have been shattered by a broken system,” O’Callaghan said.
“When it comes to housing, the Government is completely out of touch. The Government talks about ending homelessness by 2030, but they have no plan, no strategy, no milestones – and the numbers are going up, not down.”
He added that current figures do not take account of people who were currently “sleeping on the street, in tents, on floors and in cars” or those in shelters fleeing domestic violence.
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Ireland breaking all the records, the country is broken.
And a lot more to follow with all these price hikes! Frightening times!
I said it would become a perfect storm, the government needs to listen to its advisors if they’re doing their job that is: a- There should be a cutoff point for Ukrainian refugees to balance out our own homelessness and social housing and the applications for asylum seekers, everyone needs help at some stage and I’m not being against taking in refugees, it’s called a balancing act.
@Noel O’Neill: with 80 thousand extra people here this year, the problem is not the poor folks coming here, it’s the lack of planning for them. It’s been that way for many years now. No health, homes or other facilities upgrades. That’s the issue. We need the government to urgently plough billions into this country.
@Noel O’Neill: There was a similar amount of homelessness in 2019 before the war. People in this country really will fall over themselves to find any excuse to avoid blaming FF & FG.
@Rochelle: no see the Ukrainians are not counted in our emergency accommodation figure. If they were the headline would read 50 thousand in emergency accommodation
@Noel O’Neill:
Luckily Kiev seems to be back to normal, this booking site has many events taking place there
concert.ua/en
Continued governments failing us ….but people think we don’t need change ..huh
@Mick Costello: yeahhhhh.. Shinners will sort it all out.
@JG: unlikely but do you think the current political parties should stay in power even if SF can’t fix this.
Another great legacy of fg and ff governance
@Brian Dunne: Yes. I hope the electorate has learned the lesson finally that this government would rather maintain the rising asset price percentage of property than prevent the destruction of 10,000 people’s entire lives. FF/FG said they would fix it. It was the most important tenet for the electorate. The problem has gotten worse. How can anyone even consider voting for any party with this level of proven consistent ineptitude??
And to increase this winter with the electrical and gas hikes this October
‘He was very honest’ – Darragh O’Brien on Robert Troy resignation.
He made some mistakes. But it has gone on for, you know, eight, ten days, and I think it was obviously having a toll on Robert and his family as well”, Minister O’Brien said.
The minister for housing doesn’t know what “having a toll” means.
10,500 homeless and many mica affected families hoping their homes don’t fall on their children. That’s real stress minister.
In other countries if the health system was in such tatters and the nation was not able to provide basic homes for its citizens (not to mention the long laundry list of cataclysmic failures and ingrained corruption, incompetency and entitlement) the government there would be literally ripped from power. Ireland chose this. Again and again. Chose it and chose complacency and now we’ve run out of runway. It beyond tragic. And the politicians will continue to get away with it while the population watches on and wonders how it all went so wrong. The founders of the State must be rolling in their graves.
Micheal Martin needs to look after the Irish too
When talking about “homeless” the picture of someone sleeping on the street is used which is truly homeless for factor. Many “homeless” are staying in paid for accommodation like Airbnb, hotels, b&b, HAP rentals etc. Landlords are being taxed out of the market. County councils have been offered properties to buy at market rates which they are not responding to.
@David Gill: Yes, and if a ban on evictions goes ahead there won’t be any landlords left. It’s time to stop vilifying them and start helping them to run their businesses properly.
@David Gill: Why do the media and homeless charities only ever depict these folks as sleeping rough? Fact is only about 1.5% of these 10,568 sleep rough.
@Cullen Cullen: no none of these 10,568 sleep rough. This figure only relates to those in emergency accommodation. It does not include rough sleepers or people staying in unpaid accommodation like friends or family.
@NotMyIreland: so you agree with my point of why the article ( and other media and charities) use images of people sleeping rough to highlight people living not rough
Why is anyone surprised. The government don’t care about you or anybody in this country, only their cohorts and colleagues in govt and business. People have short memories though so I wouldnt be surprised to see them voted in again.
Is it mostly irish people that is homeless ?
@Kevin Carroll: Ukrainian refugees wouldn’t be included in these stats. They are mostly in emergency accommodation too though.
@Kevin Carroll: it’s by not just Irish people, it’s Romanians, Africans and other nationalities that came in to Ireland on work visas, or via Direct Provision and got housed in private accommodation; and eventually evicted due to landlords selling up or needing the property for family and genuinely unable to get another property.
And included in that figure are some tenants (both Irish and non-nationals) who may have been evicted due to anti-social behaviour, non-payment of rent or other breach of contract.
In the past people who could not afford to buy houses were housed in flats built by county councils. We need to go back to that system. Let every town and City in Ireland build a few blocks of flats. People can get a flat at low rate and so can save up for a deposit. The number of flat blocks is according to the size of the town population. This is the way lots of countries in Europe House their citizens.
@Eamon Guilfoyle: that’s what Housing For All is set to deliver – an average of ~9k social homes a year
What a shambles….all of those poor people and most properly more poor souls on the verge of homelessness. What shameful failure of government….if landlords and development companies we’re not looked after and the rights and needs of every citizen were looked after we won’t have to see saddening headlines and articles like this. It’s time for a change….
@Colm Hughes: apart from the vulture fund landlords ,most of the one to two house landlords give 47% of the rent back to the tax ,most of them are exiting the market thats What’s also creating the problem Rents are regulated now 2% per year on existing tenancies there are lots of vacant houses and flats around Dublin
There are a lot of empty houses near me in North Kerry, many need fixing up others are in a legal bind but the real issue is that there are few jobs to pull people to the area who would use them. Instead people leave to find work in Dublin Cork, Limerick… where there are already more people than housing.
I’m lucky enough to work from home otherwise I’d have to leave to find work.
Homelessness in state has nothing to do with Ukrainian refugees, it was in crisis long before 6 months ago. It has everything to do with FFG policy of making housing a commodity to be squeezed for as much profit as possible, as per the example set by a junior minister of that government.
Those pointing to refugees are only doing FFG bidding by trying to deflect that responsibility onto something else.
Too many landlords in the Dail, on all sides, for any meaningful legislation to be introduced to fix the housing issue.
Anybody sleeping with a roof over their heads tonight ought to be categorized as housed and not homeless. Those living rough on the streets are the true homeless. Many of these have mental health or addiction issues which are the root causes of them losing their homes. You tend not to hear that much about these people in the media. Bear in mind that many living in so called emergency accomodation are in fact gainfully employed but may have been evicted or cannot afford rent increases. These are still in a privileged category compared to the real derelicts of society. These Ukrainian refugees are also privileged to be living in such a welcoming country as Ireland despite having to abandon their own country, homes and relatives due to the actions of one brutal, tyrannical and mad dictator.
@Mark Reville: exactly. Homelessness needs to be redefined in Ireland. Don’t show us pics of lads living on streets or videos of handing out tea in the same report about 10k living in temporary accommodation
@Mark Reville: All true but there are a few hundred “real derilicts” and far far too many needing emergency accommodation who should be able to fend for themselves but can’t. A minimum wage earner on around 1600 a month is hard put when a room in a shared house can cost more than half of that and a grotty flat is likely to cost more than they earn.
As for the refugees, sooner or later they will be leaving the emergency accommodation they’ve been given as they find jobs and homes or return to a Ukraine free of war.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: In that case the government needs to incentivise landlords to re-enter the market by reducing the penal rate of taxation on rental income and also permitting the re-introduction of bedsits. A doubling of the number of social housing units currently being constructed is also required.
Why do they always show photos of people sleeping rough in articles and ads about homelessness?
10,000 of these “homeless people” are living in properties and about 200 ( on average ) are sleeping rough.
Article placed just above Advert for house €1.2 million: nice touch from the journal there. So many out of touch or lack any understanding!
8 years ago Irish families who were homeless declined homes offered because the home wasn’t on the North side or the South side, next door to the families…. unbelievable!!!
3 families on my road were lucky enough to get homes… Ber A and Solar panels etc…….etc….
We should take in some Ukraine refugees in relation to our population which is 5m. Population of EU is 447m. So do the maths.
@Eamon Guilfoyle: I did the maths. Our population is 1.1% of the EU total. And we have 0.96% of the Total Ukrainian refugees.
I don’t understand why Irish families declined homes 8 years ago in Dublin because the homes weren’t next door to the families… 3 Mother’s and their children were allocated homes with Ber A and Solar panels and this is the problem with Irish homelessness!
@Veronica Conway: it’s unbelievable. In SDCC or South Dublin County Council it was unbelievable, families in hubs, refused housing because housing wasn’t next door to the families and this is the reality unfortunately!
Tadhg your article makes it clear the 10,578 do not include people on the streets so why does the headline phote depict a tent on the streets?
Is it any wonder people think 10k people are homeless on the streets.
Can we have some honest reporting here and not click bait emotive dog whistling?
Time the government does something about tenants right. Check how it’s done one Germany
Jeez, Michael Collins turning in his grave. In this day & age, every man, woman & child should have a home. I often think that If all the government ministers had their salaries taken off em for a year, you could build 10 housing estates.
@Damien Gormley: There’s not enough tradesmen to build the houses which is going to be an ongoing issue. We can’t get workers from abroad as they have nowhere to live. It’s a mess
@Alan Biddulph: its an absolute shame. But the government couldn’t GAF once they’re paid every week.
Enda Kenny had a pint with one of the homeless.
That’s as much as FG have done to eleviate the problem, and he probably didn’t pay for the Pint either, or buy one for the homless guy.
At this stage it’s looking like the doors ajar for the Shinners scary times
The present government know exactly what the results of the next election holds for them. They have nothing to lose by leading the country into further rack and ruin. Sinn Fein should be well aware that if elected into this dilemma. Sitting ducks or lamb’s to the slaughter. This is not the right time for Sinn Fein something that should be actually handed back to the present government to fix. After all the damage was done on their watch. Your day will come Sinn Fein, but not in the turbulence of the present waters. Tell the moron’s in governance to sort out their own carnage they have done. If Sinn Fein grabs the reins they will have handed their own destruction to the present power’s in Dail Eireann. Stand back and watch the present machinations squirming in their own mire. Please Mary Lou and party be careful. In fact be very careful. Oh and no more promises as you will be playing into the hands of those that want you obliterated off the map of Ireland. Stay calm and play them at their own game!!!
And in 6 days, I’ll be joining that number…
@Jane Alford: Sorry to hear that and I hope you get housed.
Don’t listen to the few FFG arse holes on here who will tell you it’s your own fault. Somebody else is buying them a house, no doubt.
Good luck for the future.
Waste of tax payers money, bullish.. t governments don’t care about anything where there is no money to be made. Pushing the problems down the road year after year sickens me but sure we keep voting the same sh.t in :( why should we expect anything else :(
Fingers crossed for you!!!
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