Last Monday night Conor Skehan, the former Chair of the Housing Agency outlined to me his concerns for a new, emerging housing crisis which he believes could strike Ireland later this year. This new crisis, says Skehan, could be sparked by, amongst other things, an over-supply of housing to the market and complications of affordability.
However, it was his comments on homelessness which triggered the huge response to his interview on Claire Byrne Live. "We continuously allow ourselves to be goaded by people in advocacy, which in any other field would be called lobbying, into trying to ignore the fact that we have equivalent levels of homelessness, which is an incredible human tragedy, to every other major country in Europe. It’s normal", he said. It was these last two words which stood out. So is "it normal"?
"We continuously allow ourselves to be goaded by people in advocacy, which in any other field would be called lobbying, into trying to ignore the fact that we have equivalent levels of homelessness, which is an incredible human tragedy, to every other major country in Europe. It’s normal"
Just under 10,000 people are homeless in Ireland today according to the official, but contested, figures. Given the disputes and recent reclassification in Ireland as to what counts as "homeless" it is tricky to work out like-for-like comparisons when measuring Ireland against other European countries. But even if we had, per capita, the equivalent numbers of homeless here as in, say, Sweden or Poland, does that make it normal?
Reacting to Conor Skehan, Dublin City Council’s Deputy’s Chief Executive Brendan Kenny commented to Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio One later in the week that in Dublin there are "1,295 families in emergency accommodation, there are 2,000 single people in hostels in the city centre and there would have been about 50 people sleeping rough on the streets last night...that’s not normal".
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Dublin City Council's Brendan Kenny talks to Miriam O'Callaghan on RTÉ Radio One
Comments from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s in November 2017 caused a similar furore to Conor Skehan’s when he insisted that; "We are actually a country, by international standards compared with our peers, that has a low level of homelessness". This State spends over €150 million per annum trying to directly address homelessness, however the numbers of homeless have increased by 13% since the Taoiseach’s comments 14 months ago.
So where does Ireland sit now on the international league tables of homelessness in 2018 and should that even be relevant in how we understand and deal with the issue? The debate continues.
The housing problem in Ireland stretches beyond those who simply have no roof over their heads or who are in emergency accommodation. Many believe the rental market is dysfunctional, leaving tenants in high demand areas feeling vulnerable to rising rents and using large proportions of their income to pay the landlord.
This Monday night, 14th January Mike Allen, director of advocacy from Focus Ireland joins me live in studio for his perspectives on the issues.
I hope you can join us on RTÉ One Television Monday at 10.35pm
#CBLive @ClaireByrneLive
