Prefabs must not become long-term, say homeless charities

Homelessness charities have expressed concern that temporary prefabs, which Dublin City Council has said it may provide as an emergency housing measure, may become a permanent fixture.

The council revealed, in a report in this newspaper yesterday, it is “seriously looking at” using prefabs on derelict sites to house homeless families.

But Focus Ireland, which provides advocacy and services to the homeless, said it believed longer-term solutions were to be found elsewhere.

The Simon Community, which provides similar services, said it too was worried "that temporary measures will become long-term".

Separately, Tánaiste Joan Burton said she didn’t believe prefabs were an appropriate solution, and she called for the council’s stock of “a couple of thousand houses which have been boarded up” to be reopened.

Responding to the proposal, Focus Ireland’s Roughan McNamara said the charity would not object to the prefabs being used as an emergency measure but it believed the longer-term solution lay elsewhere.

He said the problem of homelessness urgently needed to be addressed by giving tenants better access to security of tenure, through increasing the rates of Department of Social Protection rent supplement, and through a budget provision of €500 million for social housing. “The focus should be on how to stop the flow of families into homelessness”, he said.