Number of homeless children in Ireland has trebled in three years

The number of children homeless in Ireland has trebled in three years.

A record total of 9,872 people are now homeless across the country with new figures from the Department of Housing revealing that 3,824 of these are children (in 1,754 families). In June 2015 there were 1,318 children homeless and living in emergency accommodation. Focus Ireland's CEO Pat Dennigan has warned against the government normalising these figures. He said:

"We must never allow the constantly rising number of people becoming homeless each month to become the norm and there is a real risk that this is starting to happen. "Only 3 years ago in June 2015 there were 1,318 children homeless.  This was seen as shocking at the time but the total has now trebled."

Dennigan added that the number of families homeless has risen by 170 percent in the same period, from 650 in June of 2015 to 1,754 in June of 2018. Similarly, last month, 92 families in Dublin became newly homeless. This is the highest figure ever recorded for June. Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has said that Ireland's homeless figures are "stabilising." RTE reports that Minister Murphy compared this year's increase from May to June (26 people) to the same period last year (242 people). He also added that there were no "miscategorisations" in the latest figures by the government. Focus Ireland has called on the government to work on reducing the number of people and families becoming homeless every month. They suggest increasing the amount of social housing and reconsidering proposals to allow vacant properties across the country to become available as accommodation.