Homelessness: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel

It feels as though I am banging my head off a brick wall when I am talking about housing and homelessness. It feels like Groundhog Day every month when new homeless figures are released on a Friday afternoon to avoid maximum media exposure. More than 17,000 people are recorded as homeless. Those represent lives on pause, lives stunted, children living in hotels and doing their homework on hotel floors and not being able to play with their friends. It involves shame for people that does not belong to them, as well as poverty and exclusion. It also involves trauma that we have to deal with collectively as a society. People living in homelessness are more likely to become sick. They suffer chronic stress levels that we in this House or in the Houses of the Oireachtas cannot imagine.
I will talk about some other statistics which may show that many people within the Oireachtas are out of touch with what is actually happening in relation to homelessness. Only 3% of Members of the Oireachtas are renting, that is, eight people, according to a survey by The Irish Times last year, compared with one in three households in Ireland. One in five TDs or 25%, identify as landlords, as compared to between 5% and 7% of the general population. One in three TDs own a second property, be that a home, another rental or land. In the real world, this is simply not the case. We need to ensure we are in touch when making legislation affecting people's lives. One in five children in this country are living in poverty. One in eight people over 65 are living in poverty. That rises to 40% for those renting. We need to protect renters to ensure they are not falling into homelessness. There were 20,000 evictions in 2025. Single people are the fastest group falling into homelessness. I do not know what we are going to do but this is not moving in the right direction.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-15