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Homelessness record broken again as 12,847 people in emergency accommodation in July

There were 3,829 children, and 9,018 adults in emergency accommodation last month.

LAST UPDATE | 25 Aug 2023

THE NUMBER OF people homeless has once again reached a record high, with 12,847 people accessing emergency accommodation in July.

Figures from the Department of Housing detail how there were 3,829 children and 9,018 adults in emergency accommodation last month.

The figures are an increase of 247 compared to June, where there were 12,600 people in emergency accommodation.

“The summer is meant to be a carefree time for youngsters, but this year a rising number of children are dealing with the trauma caused by homelessness,” Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan.

“We are working with the State to support these children, but it is still the reality that many will soon return to school from emergency accommodation such as hotels and family hubs,” Dennigan said.

“It is wrong that this is happening. As a society we must move beyond acknowledging that it is ‘disappointing’ that this is happening and very strongly agree that not only is it unacceptable but that more can – and must – be done,” he said.

Dennigan claimed that the Government is “not using anywhere near enough of the new social housing supply coming on stream to drive down homelessness”.

Wayne Stanley, the executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, has said the Government has “two clear opportunities over the coming weeks to take some of the steps required to meet their commitment to address homelessness by 2030″.

“One measure is setting new targets for public housing provision and providing the necessary funding in the upcoming budget to meet them,” Stanley said.

“Another is bringing forward an amendment to insert the right to housing into the Irish constitution. The Housing Commission is reported to have completed its work in this area, so the Government is in a position to bring forward this amendment,” he said.

“These two actions in tandem can be a catalyst for the progress on homelessness that is so desperately needed.”

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said the key response to tackling homelessness has to be “supply”. 

“The key issue is for those on the homeless list, we’ve got to make their time in emergency housing as short as we possibly can,” Martin said. 

“There is huge progress being made in house construction, house commencements, and ultimately all direction has to be on getting more supply into the market,” he said. 

Martin said it is “very disappointing that the figures are as they are, but from a policy perspective we’re doing the right things in terms of focusing on supply”. 

Eviction ban

The eviction ban to prevent tenants from being evicted during the winter if their landlords wanted to sell the property or have relatives move in was lifted in March.

Tenants who stopped paying rent could still be evicted as this did not qualify as a no-fault eviction.

Social Democrats housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan has said that the temporary ban on no-fault evictions “was working”.

“It resulted in the first fall in homelessness in over a year until the Government made their disastrous decision to scrap the ban,” O’Callaghan said.

“I am again calling on the Minister for Housing to immediately reinstate the ban on no-fault evictions in order to protect people from the trauma of becoming homeless.”

Michéal Martin told reporters today that he thinks reintroducing the eviction ban this winter “would do more harm than good”.

“I think the pressing issue is to … slow down the exodus from the rental market,” the Tánaiste said. 

“There’s no point in … taking a policy position like that which in our view would undermine, over the next number of years, the broader question of increasing supply.”

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71 Comments
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    Mute Michael Russell
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:57 PM

    Forgive my ignorance of science & biology , but genuine question: just because earth life forms produce methane…. Does it necessarily mean alien life forms do? Can we base the fundamentals of all possible life on what we have seen on earth? (Earth is a very small sample to use in the context of the universe!)

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:09 PM

    I don’t care what they do or don’t find tbh. They continuously blow my mind in what they achieve. They make me feel proud of men.

    44
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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:36 PM

    A tad sexist don’t you think?

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    No. I don’t think it’s sexist really as I’ve had an interest in space exploration for 30 years and I know the stories and names of many people involved from reading about it for years and they’re all men.

    I see your point though.

    29
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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:10 AM

    All men? Niall? Here’s a link for you:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_astronauts
    Valentina Tereschkova? (Apologies for the spelling!)
    And the last several times I saw a launch there were a number of women in the control room, none of whom were handing round coffee or acting as secretaries!

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    I’m talking historically Mary. From landing on the moon to designing the rockets and shuttles – all the way back to the Wright sisters in fact :)

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Sep 20th 2013, 7:23 AM

    Mary, a little lady like you would be best placed catering to your husbands needs, rather than commenting on mens issues like this.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:08 AM

    @Michael

    No it doesn’t. However, life as it is on earth is the only kind we have to go on. If you want to search for another kind of life you’ll first have to come up with a hypothesis of what form it would take and then what indicators that life would produce. Have fun with that!

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 11:58 AM

    No point arguing in troll’s Mary

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:00 PM

    Wouldn’t waste my breath on ‘em.

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:16 PM

    Lol historically speaking that is.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Good. Time to have a look at Europa and Titan!

    36
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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:53 PM

    The Martians are underground here waiting. Do you guys not watch good quality cinema???

    23
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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    Some great documentaries on YouTube bout that but you’ve probably seen them. On a proxy iPhone right now so I can’t link them. Mind blowing stuff.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:15 PM

    Some good documentaries about the structures and pyramids on mars in the area known as cydonia

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:23 PM

    And the face looking at you from Cydonia.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:29 PM

    Richard C Hoagland is the leading investigator on the face , pyramids mars in general dozens of interviews n lectures out there for those who find the topic interesting

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    Yeah , the face disappeared on higher resolution images! Just a mountain after all!

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:12 AM

    Killjoy ….

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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 2:51 AM

    Yeah they took the picture with the mons Olympus camera…

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:11 AM

    OMFG, we’ve regressed to the face on mars dumb-arsery.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:18 AM

    you need to watch this…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:20 AM
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    Mute Jack Mc Connoron
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Bet the martians are saying the exact same thing about earth!

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:23 PM

    No, they are saying “that rover you bought on ebay is outside Ted”.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:03 PM

    Yes but the real question is whether life existed on Mars in the past, not now. If it can be shown that life existed there a long time ago, it opens questions about the origin of life on this planet.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    I doubt the powers that be would tell us if they found proof of life

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    That’s the problem, they treat us like mushrooms.. keep us in the dark and feed us shite.

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    Mute Burch Barlow
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    Sep 20th 2013, 8:04 AM

    And fluoride!!!!

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    Mute Jason Culligan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 10:34 AM

    They’ve already come to the conclusion that it is possible Mars held life at one point. The problem is finding the concrete evidence is quite hard to achieve, especially when your only way of searching for the evidence is by firing probes in the direction of Mars and hoping they work if they get there.

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    Mute Barry Aston
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:15 PM

    Really! Bollix.

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    Mute Sean Mac Gabhann
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:51 PM

    No point going back to paddy power then.

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    Mute Steve501
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Interesting. Ur I bet there is life in a galaxy far far away.

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:13 PM

    With such a thin atmosphere, it’s no wonder that no methane was found. Any life that ever existed would’ve had to have come into being way back when Mars had an active core and magnetic field. Those days are long past, billions of years gone.

    Titan’s our best bet in this solar system.

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    Europa.

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    Mute Mark O Flaherty
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    Sep 20th 2013, 3:32 AM

    Martians don’t fart…that’s what’s going on. A Dutch oven is impossible for them…..women of earth would love a Martian man

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    Mute John king
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:05 PM

    Live on Mars already migrated long ago to a place we call China today ;-.) Not too long now and those aliens (we call them Chinese) soon will take over the world…

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    What?

    14
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    Mute Stephen McMahon
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:47 PM

    That’s not true, the Chinese are a great bunch of lads!

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    Mute Jazz O'Gorman
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Obviously.

    4
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    Mute Virginia Black
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:20 AM

    This is interesting. It’ll be a while still before it reaches Mount Sharp to calculate when life may have been possible. I remember reading about early astronomers who thought they saw canals on Mars’ surface but they were actually just scratches on their lenses they were looking at.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:26 PM

    Mars looks at unhappy, maybe doesn’t like his photo being taken without permission..

    3
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