'Significant number' in emergency accommodation 'don't have housing rights' — Tánaiste

Kenneth Fox

A “significant number” of people in emergency accommodation for homelessness “don’t have a housing right in Ireland”, Tánaiste Simon Harris has said.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Harris claimed he was “shut down” when he said in November that Ireland’s “migration numbers are too high” as he doubled down on comments linking immigration to the high rate of homelessness.

The Fine Gael leader said he was not trying to create controversy, and nor was he dismissing the State’s “duty of care”, “but you have to have a right to housing in Ireland to be housed."

He said that an examination of monthly homelessness statistics showed there was a “significant number ... that don’t have a housing right”.

“A lot of people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, or certainly some people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, don’t have a housing right in Ireland,” he said.

His view, however, was challenged by Mary Hayes, chief executive of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) which manages homelessness services across the four Dublin local authorities.

Of the claim that people with no housing rights were a “significant” factor, she said: “That is not my experience. Anyone who presents for and is provided emergency accommodation has a right to housing or establishes that right very quickly.

“If they can’t establish a right to housing, they do not get emergency accommodation and are sent on their way.”

Latest DRHE figures showed more than 12,000 people received emergency shelter in Dublin, including 8,141 adults, and 3,883 children. Of the adults, 5,031 were single with no children.

“The main driver of family homelessness continues to be notices of termination from private rental, and the main driver of single homelessness is [refugees or people with leave to remain] leaving direct provision in the preceding eight months,” says the DRHE’s October report.

The main driver of spiralling homelessness figures is not migrants, say sources within the sector, but the ongoing “crisis in the private rental market”.