Housing Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-25
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Eoin Ó Broin (SF), Dublin Mid-West

It is simply not the case that the Minister’s Department is already undertaking the key actions recommended in this report. If that were the case, we would not have wasted our time producing the report. Month on month, the number of adults, children, single people and pensioners falling into emergency accommodation is growing. That means the core recommendation of the report that we now need an emergency response seems to be ignored by the Government. There is an explicit call to fully reinstate the funding for social housing acquisitions, including for housing first and tenant in situ, and to remove the restrictions, something the Minister has set his face against, which is why the number of such acquisitions halved last year on the year before, resulting in many more people becoming homeless.
Crucially, the volume of social homes that is being delivered is not meeting the need. In fact, on the basis of the most recent summary of social housing needs assessments, it will take 55 years to clear current and emerging social housing need. People are waiting ten and sometimes 14 years plus. I would really encourage the Minister to put in place a plan because if he is to have any hope of ending long-term homelessness by 2030 there needs to be a plan with clear targets. That is not in place at the moment and that is why our committee has recommended the 14 points in last week’s homelessness report.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-25