‘Failed’ housing policies slammed as record numbers on the streets

A new record of 10,264 homeless people is triggering calls for the upcoming local elections to be treated by voters as a referendum on the Government’s “failed” housing policies.

Stinging attacks on the Fine Gael-led Government saw it accused of wrecking the lives of almost 4,000 children who are among those living in emergency accommodation.

Fianna Fáil’s Dara Calleary led the charges in the Dáil, noting there are almost 4,000 more homeless people now than when the Government launched its 2016 Rebuilding Ireland plans.

“There are 6,480 adults and 3,784 children in emergency accommodation. Those figures, as we know, do not tell the full story. They have been massaged and managed to try to keep them as low as possible,” he said.

Mr Callleary noted that the United Nations had “hammered” Ireland’s housing policies — that local authorities still have no discretion to build small or medium estates and that people have to be evicted into homelessness before they can access housing payments. Rebuilding Ireland is “not working”, he said.

Tánaiste Simon Coveney defended the Government’s record, insisting that 50,000 new social homes will still be built by 2021 under Rebuilding Ireland.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy will also bring more plans to Cabinet next week to protect tenants, the Dáil also heard.

Mr Coveney insisted that more social and private housing is being built but that the problem is that these numbers are “not overtaking the pace” at which people are coming into homelessness.

“It is important to deal with the facts as well as the emotion,” he told angry TDs.

Mr Calleary said that Dublin City Council only built 72 houses last year and vulture funds are “buying apartments en bloc before they are released to the market, renting them out and driving up rental prices.”

He added: “In July 2016, under this Government’s watch 6,500 people were homeless. That figure has increased to over 10,000.”

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty said that the new figures are “an absolute and utter disgrace” and that they represent “a national scandal”.

“Maybe there is not enough emotion in this debate, we’re talking about real people,” added the Donegal TD.

Those children’s lives have been “wrecked even before they had begun,” he told Mr Coveney.

Solidarity-PBP TD Richard Boyd Barrett called for tenants, those on housing lists, people with mortgage problems and in emergency accommodation to join a national demonstration on housing on May 18.

He also called for people to voice their opinions in May’s local and European elections:

We will appeal to everyone who is in mortgage distress to come out on to the streets and ensure the coming election is a referendum on the failed housing policies of the Government.

Mr Coveney pledged that the Government will fix the “broken” rental market but he said the Government can not overnight freeze all rents as this would “fundamentally undermine the capacity to increase supply in many parts of the country”.

Meanwhile, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has faced equally robust criticism over the new housing figures for February.

Homeless campaigner, Fr Peter McVerry, said that figures for the homeless are closer to 15,000, but that the actual figure is “irrelevant” because the trend is “going up and up and up”.

He said that a recent report from Dublin City Council predicts the figures are going to continue to increase for the next three years.

“That’s not providing accommodation or building houses, that’s just getting people into beds for the night in hotels, bed and breakfasts or emergency accommodation,” he told RTÉ.

“We’re in this mess because councils stopped building and pushed people into the private sector with HAP,” he said.

He repeated his call for a moratorium on evictions, saying: “Just for three years until we get a grip on the situation. The alternative is putting thousands of families through the trauma of homelessness.”

He also warned that “coming down the road” are 40,000 people in mortgage arrears. If half of these are repossessed, as is predicted, “this country won’t be able to cope with the homeless crisis”.

Focus Ireland said that landlords evicting families so they can sell a property is the biggest single cause of family homelessness.

Mr Murphy, speaking to RTÉ, said the Government cannot force a private homeowner who wants to sell their house to keep tenants in situ.

He said the increase in homeless numbers is very disappointing and that a number of people are at “the very blunt end of the housing difficulties”. He reiterated that the root of the problem lies in the need to build and create new homes.

Labour’s housing spokeswoman, Jan O’Sullivan, said the Government needs to admit that ReBuilding Ireland is failing.

She called on the Government to ensure that people can stay in their homes as well as meeting targets to build social and affordable housing.