LAST UPDATE | 28 Mar

THE NUMBER OF people living in emergency accommodation rose last month to 13,841.

According to the latest figures from the Department of Housing, 9,671 adults and a 4,170 children were in emergency accommodation in February.

The figure of 13,841 is an increase from the 13,531 people living in emergency accommodation in January. 

Last month’s figures also saw more than 4,000 children living in emergeny accommodation. 

Reacting to today’s figures, the Simon Communities of Ireland said housing and homelessness must be the priority for incoming Taoiseach Simon Harris. 

“We need to see concrete actions to increase the allocation of social homes to those experiencing homelessness, particularly those in long-term homelessness,” Wayne Stanley, Simon Communities of Ireland executive director, said. 

Focus Ireland has said it will write to Harris next week to ask him to consider setting out “several clear goals” to help end the homelessness crisis. 

These goals include, it said, prioritising homelessness as a key agenda item, setting more realistic targets for home building, and ensuring a fairer share of social housing supply is allocated to homeless households.

Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin has called for a general election “to address the deepening homelesness crisis”. 

“This Government is not capable of solving this crisis. The longer they are in Government the worse the housing crisis is going to get,” Ó Broin said. 

“How high will Simon Harris allow homelessness numbers to rise before he accepts this fact?” he said. 

“We urgently need a general election, a change of Government and crucially a change of housing plan to deliver the volume of social and affordable homes that are needed to tackle this escalating crisis.”