Who to blame for homeless crisis
As the lord mayor pointed out, the recently released figures from the Homeless Agency indicate that there are 2,714 people homeless in Dublin. This is a 4% increase from the last comparable survey in 2005.
The lord mayor is correct in highlighting the fact that a large number of these people are trapped in emergency accommodation. In addition to the human impact of living in temporary accommodation, the cost to the exchequer is significant.
However, what the lord mayor does not mention is that the reason why so many people are homeless and trapped in emergency accommodation is because the Government is failing to provide adequate social housing and support measures to help people to secure a home.
Indeed figures from the Department of Environment released only a few weeks ago show the numbers of households on local authority housing waiting lists has increased 37% in the last three years, from 43,000 to 59,000. And why does the lord mayor not mention these facts? It is because her party, Fianna Fáil, is in government and it is their abject failure that forces so many people to live in substandard and overcrowded accommodation or, even worse, to be homeless.
The lord mayor should focus her criticism on the Government rather than blaming those people, whether employed by statutory bodies or the voluntary sector, who are working at the coalface providing vital services to people in need and cleaning up the mess created by her party colleagues in government.
For the lord mayor to contribute to ending homelessness she should lobby the Government to increase access to long-term housing, with supports where necessary, and to divert savings made into measures to prevent people becoming homeless in the future.
Terence Flanagan TD
Fine Gael Spokesperson on Housing
Dáil Eireann
Leinster House
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
