The president of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Mr Noel Clear, has called for "urgent and effective active action to deal with the worsening housing crisis".
"Our members experience firsthand the crisis in local authority housing where 40,000 households are in need of housing," he said.
Mr Clear called for the establishment of a National Housing Commission "consisting of the social partners and others who could contribute in a valuable way to designing a structured plan to deal with this crisis".
Speaking yesterday at the opening of a new eight-unit extension to accommodation for older people at Bethany House, Sandymount, Dublin, he said the society together with other agencies was concerned at what is now recognised as a housing crisis in Ireland.
For a growing number of people the basics of decent and affordable housing were becoming unattainable, Mr Clear said. "Young people, even those with reasonably good jobs, are finding it almost impossible to buy suitable accommodation and are having to resort to the private rented sector."
Very high rents were being charged in the private sector for poor accommodation which in most instances were supplemented by the health boards to the tune of £98 million a year.
He thanked the Sisters of Charity who donated the 1.3 acres of land on which the new units are built and the Department of the Environment and Local Government for a grant of £288,000. The opening ceremony was performed by the Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Robert Molloy.
The following are some of the housing problems dealt with by the society:
A young couple in their mid-20s with a six-month-old baby were evicted from private rented accommodation in Dublin when the landlord decided to sell the house. They had nowhere to go. A friend of the young man's father was not using his car for two weeks so he lent it to them as a place to live. When contacted by the Vincent de Paul they had run out of money, had nothing for the baby, "and were in appalling circumstances".
A man, his wife and two children are living in private rented accommodation in a run-down Georgian house in Dublin where the damp is "soaking through the walls. The smell is awful." They have one bedroom, livingroom, kitchenette, "and a very poor bathroom". Rent is £80 a week, with the Eastern Health Board paying £60 of that.
A lone mother in her late 40s with two school-going children. They live on the top floor of an old four-storey private rented house near Dublin city centre. Accommodation consists of a bedroom, livingroom, bathroom in bad condition and kitchenette. Rent is £75 a week, of which the EHB pays £55.
