Record-high homelessness has resulted from record-high evictions, all of which can be traced back to disastrous Government housing policies, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne.<\/p>\n
Deputy Hearne said:<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s figures show there were a record 17,548 people living in homeless emergency accommodation at the end of April. Shockingly, 5,604 of them are children, another devastating record.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have learned there are lengthy waiting lists for emergency accommodation hubs in some local authority areas which are at capacity, unable to take in any more families. Those who cannot secure emergency accommodation are not counted in these figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can therefore assume that thousands of families who are on waiting lists are in hidden homelessness, sleeping rough or couch surfing. Others in housing precarity, such as parents of children with additional needs or elderly people with medical needs, cannot enter emergency accommodation because it is unsuitable, and are therefore not counted as homeless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last twelve months, 22,402 households have been issued notices to quit. This is a level of evictions we have not witnessed since the Great Famine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly corporate landlords and vulture funds are benefiting from Government housing policies, such as March 1st\u2019s catastrophic rental changes, not ordinary people, who have been kicked out of their properties in their droves as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never been clearer that the Government is writing housing policy to appease corporate interests – yesterday, IRES, the State\u2019s largest landlord, claimed that the Coalition\u2019s disastrous rental law changes have had \u2018a positive impact\u2019 on the housing market, predicting that this will boost its business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u2018boost\u2019 is at the expense of struggling families around the country – the Government has sacrificed the Irish public for the bottom lines of REITs and property tycoons. Almost six years on from the Coalition\u2019s first combined housing plan, Housing for All, the number of children in homelessness has more than doubled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way we can stall the disastrous effects of these rental laws is for the Government to introduce a three-year ban on no-fault evictions for all tenancies, and a blanket ban on rent increases, before prices go any higher.\u201d<\/p>\n
29th May, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Record-high homelessness has resulted from record-high evictions, all of which can be traced back to disastrous Government housing policies, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne. Deputy Hearne said: \u201cToday\u2019s figures show there were a record 17,548 people living in homeless emergency accommodation at the end of April. Shockingly, 5,604 of them are children, […]<\/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-18117","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