Cllr. Éilis Ryan
The Workers’ Party have warned that the latest figures which show officially over 1,000 people are homeless in the capital is “only the tip of a deadly iceberg” and that the real homeless figures are much higher.
Dublin Workers’ Party Councillor Éilis Ryan said that were it not for the many households providing friends and relatives with temporary accommodation on settees and floors combined with the dedication of a small army of voluntary workers the situation would be much worse.
Cllr. Ryan said that the government is no longer even trying to perform fire-brigade type action in relation to housing and was relying on a paper-thin network of hostels, hotel rooms and night shelters to keep the figures down. This is clearly not working.
“It is a sobering thought that as nights are beginning to get colder the streets of Dublin are becoming home to more and more people who have fallen through the cracks of a broken system. For them talk of a programme to stimulate housing construction is meaningless. They need a bed tonight and a place they can call home. At best to them government means a corner outside a building to bed down in if they’re not moved on by security or locked out by rails and spikes”
Cllr. Ryan said that additional emergency accommodation must be provided, but at best it is a band-aid for a problem that is not going to go away. “The state must take action to begin an extensive home construction programme built by the state and available at genuinely affordable rent.