Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne has described the increase in the number of older adults falling into homelessness as a ticking timebomb for the State.<\/p>\n
Deputy Hearne was responding to today\u2019s publication of a report by the Simon Communities of Ireland examining older people\u2019s experiences of homelessness.<\/p>\n
He said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report highlights significant gaps in policy and service implementation, with more older people becoming homeless due to structural factors and individual life-course experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to successive Fianna F\u00e1il\/Fine Gael governments, there has been a significant increase in the number of adults living in private rental accommodation \u2013 something that was apparent in the 2022 Census. This is because of their failure to deliver enough social and affordable homes or provide ringfenced funding streams for housing schemes for older people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crisis is driven by senior citizens being forced to pay unaffordable rents as they hit pension age. If they lose their homes for any reason, this extremely vulnerable cohort find it next to impossible to source alternative accommodation due to having reduced incomes \u2013 even the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) won\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report provides further evidence of the need for a ban on no-fault evictions so vulnerable people are spared the indignity and hardship of becoming homeless later in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment inaction is leaving the State facing another ticking timebomb of homelessness as our population ages. Shamefully, older people are too often forgotten about when we talk about the housing crisis \u2013 but they must be more than just an afterthought when it comes to housing policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 19, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne has described the increase in the number of older adults falling into homelessness as a ticking timebomb for the State. Deputy Hearne was responding to today\u2019s publication of a report by the Simon Communities of Ireland examining older people\u2019s experiences of homelessness. He said: \u201cThis report highlights significant gaps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[663,10,7,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homelessness","category-housing-crisis","category-press-release","category-rory-hearne"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n