Fine Gael ‘beauty contest’ taking focus off homeless, Dáil told

The Government is focusing on a “beauty contest between two failed Ministers” rather than on the homelessness crisis, it has been claimed in the Dáil.

Bríd Smith made the allegation after a number of homeless families were told to go to gardaí for emergency accommodation.

The Government also voted down a People Before Profit Bill to introduce emergency measures to prevent families sliding into homelessness. Ms Smith said there were nearly 200,000 empty properties in the State, rents were up 66 per cent on 2011 and “last night 30 children were left homeless in Garda stations and parks”.

Ms Smith asked: “What sort of society are we living in when the focus of this Government and the media is on the beauty contest between two failed Ministers - one who’s failed us on health in the past and continually fails us in social welfare and the other who is currently failing us utterly on housing.”

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Her party colleague Richard Boyd Barrett accused the Government of hypocrisy for voting against a Bill "that would enact emergency measures that would prevent people from sliding into this dire situation". He claimed the Government and Fianna Fáil who also opposed the legislation did so "because you want to protect the landlords and the vulture funds who are evicting people, protecting the so-called market".

But Minister of State for Housing Damian English since that since last December when the rent cap was introduced 800 families who were homeless had been housed and thousands were now in secure tenancies, but he told Ms Smith “you only want to focus on the negative”.

Suitable sites

Earlier Minister for Housing Simon Coveney said he had asked local authorities to publish the 700 sites across the State that they owned that was suitable for housing. The authorities are to produce development plans for each with “an affordable element” where it would be a certain percentage of social housing, a certain percentage of affordable and a certain parentage of private housing.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald said it was unacceptable for garda stations to house homeless people but she said the demand for accommodation was exceptional on Tuesday night

“It was out of the ordinary, I do want to say this, compared to 2017 to date,’’ she added.

She said from Wednesday night Dublin City Council had more than doubled the volume of emergency contingency capacity available to any family presenting in an emergency situation.

Fianna Fáil housing spokesman Barry Cowen said the crisis was getting worse rather than better.

Research from Focus Ireland had confirmed an overwhelming number of homeless families had their last stable home in the private rental sector, he added.

He said they had to leave as the landlord was selling up and an increasing number of property owners accepted rent supplement.

Some of the families without accommodation ended up sleeping rough on Tuesday night, he added.

Mr Cowen said it was over three years since Fr Peter McVerry had described the situation as a humanitarian crisis.