One hundred and fifty modular houses are to be built to deal with the housing crisis, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said. He told the Dáil the modular housing was very acceptable and guaranteed for insulation, warmth and comfort.
“They are also for families, so they are not in bed-and-breakfast accommodation or hotel rooms,” he added.
Mr Kenny said the homelessness problem could not be dealt with effectively until “one starts to put blocks and concrete on the ground”.
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the number of children sleeping in emergency accommodation every night had increased.
“Rents have continued to spiral upwards and evictions are becoming more frequent,” she said. “More and more families turn to the State for help but instead of being offered shelter we have the appalling situation of scores of families being turned away every night, unable to source even emergency accommodation.”
Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly told the Dáil homelessness was his "number one priority and I am determined to try everything and anything I can to help the people and families who find themselves in that awful position".
He reiterated his commitment to rent certainty and said he would be bringing forward proposals to the Government “in the very near future”.
Mr Kelly was responding to Sinn Féin housing spokesman Dessie Ellis who introduced the party's Private Member's motion. He said there are 5,000 homeless people including 1,500 children living in emergency accommodation on a daily basis.
He said 80 new families a month were reporting homelessness. He said there were 130 individuals sleeping rough in Dublin every night.
Mr Ellis called on the Dáil to recognise the scale of the crisis being experienced “resulting from the policies of this and previous governments”.
He said bad planning and bad governance as well as the incentivisation of private sector delivery of social housing needs directly resulted in the horrendous situation that tens of thousands of people find themselves in.
