Programme for Government
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-04
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

The number of people in emergency accommodation in this country is shocking but I want to highlight in particular the issue of family and child homelessness. The number of families in emergency accommodation has gone up by 100% since 2016, which is absolutely shocking. Many if not the majority of cases coming into me now of people stuck in emergency accommodation involve families with children, often with special needs, in there for long periods because of the lack of three- and four-bedroom houses. There is a problem with one- and two-bedroom houses but there is an even bigger problem with three- and four-bedroom houses because we are relying so much on private developers, who tend to build one- or two-bedroom units because they can make more profit from them. There is not the delivery we need of three- and four-bedroom units, and that is contributing directly to child and family homelessness being disproportionately bad in terms of keeping people in emergency accommodation. What is the Government going to do about it?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-04