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THE TAOISEACH HAS told an Oireachtas Committee today that the housing and homeless crisis is a national emergency.
Yesterday, the government published its latest report for February, with the figure for homeless adults at 6,052 and the number of homeless children at 3,755, meaning just shy of 10,000 people are now homeless in Ireland.
Leo Varadkar said the latest figures show a “disturbing increase” in the number of families becoming homeless.
He said he had no difficulty in describing the crisis as a “national emergency”.
However, he said making such a declaration will not speed-up the number of houses that are built.
“Yes it is an emergency, but declaring it an emergency doesn’t solve the problem,” he said.
The increase in figures is “extremely frustrating”, said Varadkar, adding that dealing with the issue is a government priority.
‘You’ve some cheek on you’
“You’ve some cheek on you,” Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty told the Taoiseach, who suggested that the opposition’s proposals would make the homeless crisis worse.
Doherty said calling the crisis a national emergency means that emergency actions should be taken.
TheJournal Politics / Twitter‘You have some cheek’ says Pearse Doherty to Varadkar. He says he can’t take the Taoiseach seriously because he won’t take the emergency steps to deal with homelessness. He tells Taoiseach a state-owned bank told the committee last week they have 1,000 houses lying idle pic.twitter.com/HrdgsP2tMm
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) March 29, 2018
Varadkar said the issue of homelessness is something he is going to “pay a lot more attention to” in the coming months.
Some members of the committee questioned such a statement, adding that the issue should have been a primary focus for the Taoiseach over the last year.
Evictions
Doherty said evictions is one of the reasons behind the increase in family homelessness.
Evictions are a matter for the courts, said the Taoiseach, though he did state the government do intend to bring in new laws to protect families from evictions and empower courts not to evict families.
He added:
There are some circumstances where people have the money to pay the rent and they don’t.
Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath said he did not get the impression that the government is on top of the problem. “Promise after promise have been broken,” he said.
“I won’t contend that homelessness isn’t getting worse, that is evident,” replied the Taoiseach, adding:
The trend is in the wrong direction over the last couple of months.
The Taoiseach made an observation about the boost in construction – pointing out that a lot more hotels and student accommodation is being built.
While he said residential construction is on the rise, it is not at the same pace as commercial property.
The government now needs to question why it is seen as economically profitable for builders to build commercial property and not residential, he told the committee.
Over the next couple of weeks the Taoiseach said he plans to find out why this is the case and to ensure that any government policy is not inadvertently making things worse.
He said some government policy, while “well-intentioned might have been counterproductive”.
Later in the Dáil, both the Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and the Tánaiste Simon Coveney faced criticism over the latest homeless figures.
Doherty said the housing minister’s position was “becoming increasingly untenable”.
The Donegal TD asked Coveney was he “embarrassed” by the latest housing figures.
“What level of child homelessness do we need to achieve before Minister Murphy’s position becomes untenable?” asked Doherty.
“It does upset me as an individual, and as a father, as well as a minister,” replied the Tánaiste.
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Helen Mc Entee said she’s ‘delighted’ with the new ‘bands’. But what is the positive/ the advantage of watering down, diluting, the criteria-the percentage required in order to achieve higher grades?
@Mary Linton: Can’t believe I’m doing this but going to defend the minister here. I’m an examiner for state exams and the merit was my main gripe. You have kids with little knowledge getting a merit at 55% yet at the same time, others getting the same merit on 74%. These would have good knowledge of the subject and would previously have gotten a B in the old system. Similarly, many kids who would have gotten an A in the old system, now get a Higher Merit instead of a Distinction as a huge proportion fall between 85 and 89 percent.
Everyone is a winner. Also known as dumbing down the system.
@Mark R: the grade bands have little to do with that. The whole exam has been dumbed down. At least this gives students the same chance their peers had prior to 2017.
Unions will get dog’s abuse this week but we tried to warn you. Trying to warn you about the Leaving Cert now and as usual no one will listen.
@Alan OConnor: by coincidence I had that Fatboy Slim cd on in my car at weekend — ” why try harder?”
@Mark R: not dumbing it down, restoring it to how it was before junior cycle. The highest 3 old grades were, A:85-100, B:70-85, C:55-70. Notice anything? If anything, it shows that the Junior Cycle system is a failure and Junior Cert was better.
@Mark R: that happened ages ago. It’s ridiculously simple now.
@Mark R: It’s to help all the children of our diverse nation.
So, to use a golfing ‘analogy’…..Helen has made it far easier to make ‘the cut’ ?
@Buster Lawless: she has restored what was the system for decades prior to 2017. Should never have been changed.
@Alan OConnor: indeed nothing new in the grading. It’s back to the future LOL. At least fifty years. I imagine the grading goes beyond that to the founding of the state, however that’s just a hunch.
Horray, Helen McEntee is getting the old bands back together! A lot undone but a lot more to undo. Pause the LC change. Publish the JC Reviews.
The new junior cycle is a joke. When it came in a few years back, a friend of mine working for the department said to me to just wait til they redo the leaving certificate.
It’s insane and will inevitably lead to standards dropping in 3rd level too.
It’s to make things easier for all the children of our new nation.
This is mad. I’m already struggling get my teen to study. He is bright but not interested in study. Now his is just laughing. It’s the dumbing down of society. Ridiculous
It’s great to see a load of idiots with no knowledge of the system talking about it being dumbed down. The threshold to have an opinion has been lowered to give the likes of yourselves the opportunity to speak, that’s the real issue. If you don’t have any understanding of the problem, which has been raised by the individuals involved, that have an understanding of the whole system, flaws and all, then just stay quiet. It’s people like these with zero clue about most things, other than surface level misunderstandings, that lead to a society where people know nothing, but think they’re experts.
Nothing wrong with making the exams easier for our teenagers! Too much stress on them a/way!
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