Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister stated that last April the Housing Agency made the recommendation to discontinue this directive. I find that hard to believe when we are in the midst of an emergency. In one week in August this year, there were 6,611 people who were homeless. The issue has continued even in spite of the decision and people still report as homeless. The problem will get worse. There are more than 1,200 children in emergency accommodation and the last count of those who sleep rough was up as well. What is the decision based on? I cannot understand how we are allowing this when there is a crisis because of so many homeless people. Why have we discontinued the direction to allow 50% of allocations go to those who are homeless? I understand that we do not want to go down that road indefinitely but we must do something by continuing the direction.

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