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Ten years ago, Ireland’s homelessness crisis was branded an “emergency” by then-Minister of State for Housing Jan O’Sullivan, with 3,258 people, including 749 children, in emergency accommodation.
Fast forward to July 2025, and the figures reveal that over 16,000 people, including an unprecedented 5,014 children, are now trapped in emergency shelters, marking the first time the number of homeless children has breached the 5,000 mark.
As reported by The Irish Times recently, this escalation under the stewardship of six housing ministers from three parties reflects a systemic failure that shows no signs of abating. The crisis is therefore not just persistent; it is entrenched, endemic, and increasingly intractable, exacerbated by a government unwilling to confront the significant strain caused by record levels of inward migration and international protection applicants.
Successive governments have leaned heavily on rhetorical commitments, announcing strategies with bold titles and glossy launches, but rarely submitting themselves to hard accountability when targets are missed. Each plan has been presented as a turning point, yet the figures show an unbroken upward trajectory. The political cost of failure has been absorbed without consequence, leaving civil society groups to repeat the same warnings year after year.
The Irish Times article also underscores the relentless climb in homelessness figures since 2014, through its reference to the fact that the number of people currently in emergency accommodation represents a near fivefold increase in a decade.
Ber Grogan, executive director of the Simon Communities, insists the crisis is “100 per cent solvable,” attributing its persistence to government policies that treat housing as a commodity rather than a right.
Focus Ireland’s Pat Dennigan echoes this, arguing that the mantra of “increasing supply” is inadequate without a focus on social and affordable housing tailored to low-income families. Yet, and quite clearly, successive administrations have failed to deliver meaningful progress, cycling through plans like Rebuilding Ireland and Housing for All, which have fallen short of their ambitious targets.
The Oireachtas Library and Research Service’s report, Tackling Homelessness (March 19, 2025), provides further insight into the complexity of the issue.
As of October 2024, 14,966 people, including 4,645 children, were in emergency accommodation, a 1,787-person increase from the previous year. The report also highlights structural factors like the lack of affordable housing and issues in the private rental market, with “notice of termination” and “relationship breakdown” cited as primary reasons for new entrants to homelessness.
While the Housing First model, rolled out nationally since 2018, has shown promise in addressing complex cases, its implementation remains inconsistent, and the broader strategy of increasing social housing supply has not kept pace with demand.
It is also the case that while structural issues like insufficient social housing and rising rents are undeniable drivers, the government’s reluctance to acknowledge the impact of unprecedented inward migration is a glaring omission.
Ireland has seen a surge in international protection applicants and migrants, with the Department of Integration reporting over 30,000 asylum applications in 2024 alone, alongside significant legal migration driven by economic opportunities in tech and other sectors.
This influx has placed immense pressure on an already strained housing system. The Oireachtas report notes that 61% of adults in emergency accommodation are male, and a significant proportion are non-Irish nationals, reflecting the demographic diversity of those affected.
Yet, despite this, official narratives rarely connect these dots, preferring to focus on domestic policy failures while sidestepping the resource competition exacerbated by migration.
Fianna Fail party TD Naoise Ó Cearúil raised this issue in a parliamentary question, pressing the government on its strategy to address homelessness among international protection applicants. Ó Cearúil highlighted the lack of tailored accommodations and the reliance on emergency measures like hotels and B&Bs, which are ill-equipped for long-term stays.
With 7,388 homeless adults in Dublin alone, many in private emergency accommodation, the system is clearly buckling under the weight of demand. The refusal to openly discuss how migration strains resources risks fuelling understandable levels of resentment.
The Irish Times article also details a litany of policy missteps over the past decade. The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), unchanged since 2016, has failed to align with soaring market rents, leaving low-income families vulnerable to eviction.
The tenant-in-situ scheme, designed to prevent homelessness by allowing councils to purchase properties from landlords, remains underfunded. Indeed, in 2024, only 4,265 new social homes were built, acquired, or leased, far short of what is needed to curb the crisis.
The human toll of this crisis is staggering. Over 5,000 children now live in emergency accommodation, facing long-term trauma, as Grogan notes. The elderly, too, are increasingly affected, with the over-65s forced into unstable living conditions. This is an aspect of the crisis that is regularly highlighted by ALONE, the older persons charity.
Writing on the issue in 2024 Furthermore, ALONE drew attention to alarming trends, “including the increasing number of older people renting with no safety or security of tenure, growing reliance on local authority housing, declining rates of homeownership, and an increase in older people grappling with mortgage arrears.”
Speaking at the time, ALONE CEO Seán Moynihan said “We have been seeing housing issues increase over the last 10 years. The most important questions to be answered are how renters will pay their rent in retirement, and how will they compete and find housing as tenants in an increasingly competitive rental market. It’s the lack of a credible answer that is causing homelessness in older people today and will continue to do so for people in their 40s and 50s when they reach retirement at growing levels each year.”
Beyond the statistics, frontline reports describe families shuffled between hotel rooms and temporary shelters with no stability. Children face disrupted schooling, lack of space to study or play, and long commutes from emergency accommodation to their schools. Charities warn that this instability is setting up a generation for long-term disadvantage, with the psychological impact of precarious housing as damaging as the material deprivation itself.
The Irish Times also cites Pat Dennigan’s call for a “reset in approach,” warning that without a focus on social housing, low-income families will continue to cycle through emergency shelters.
The normalisation of homelessness clearly threatens to entrench social divisions, with inequality becoming a defining feature of Irish society. Moreover, the government’s failure to address migration’s impact risks further societal fracture.
While migrants are not the cause per se of the crisis, the lack of transparent capacity planning or their integration into an already overstretched housing market fuels perceptions of scarcity.
The Oireachtas report cited above points to Finland’s Housing First model as a success story, where homelessness was reduced through rapid rehousing and wraparound services.
Ireland’s version, while promising, lacks the scale and funding to match. The government’s €6 billion commitment for social and affordable housing in 2025 is a step forward, but as a recent Dáil motion noted, the estimated €20 billion needed annually to deliver 50,000 homes only serves to underscore the size of the funding gap.
Without addressing HAP rate stagnation, expanding tenant-in-situ schemes, and prioritising social housing, the crisis will persist.
Critically, the government must confront the migration question head-on. This does not mean scapegoating immigrants but acknowledging the need for coordinated planning to balance housing demands.
A failure to do so risks further eroding public trust and exacerbating rising social tensions.
There is virtually no way of seeing Ireland’s homelessness crisis as anything other than a damning indictment of a decade of policy failures.
The Irish Times and Oireachtas reports lay bare the scale of the problem: over 16,000 people in emergency accommodation, a fivefold increase since 2014, and a government unable to deliver on its promises or tackle rising rents. These factors and the unspoken impact of record migration levels can no longer be ignored. That being said, Irish mainstream politics and successive Irish governments have demonstrated an infuriating ability to do just that.