Ireland's homelessness crisis: the official figures only tell part of the story

Regan Kelly

The Department of Housing recently released its data, showing a staggering 17,517 people living in emergency accommodation, which included 5,571 children.

These are indeed depressing numbers, and they are constantly referenced by both the media and politicians.

There are hotels, bnb’s, hostels and guesthouses across the country that people have no choice but to call their home.

These figures only just touch on the reality of the situation, as they are the only concrete official numbers we have on homelessness in Ireland.

When you look at some of the other statistics around housing in Ireland, it only seems to get worse.

According to data released by the CSO, 41% of people aged 18-34 still live at home with their parents. These figures are from 2022, so this is almost certainly now higher.

Looking at figures released by the European Commission, countries like Denmark see only 16% of 18-34 year-olds still living at home, and this figure drops significantly in the 25-29 age range.

These figures show us the people who have somewhere to call home, and this is sadly one of the most common agreements for people of this age group in Ireland.

Often under-reported are the numbers of people experiencing hidden homelessness in Ireland, the numbers of which are estimated to be around 75,000 people.

Essentially, the term hidden homelessness means people who are staying with friends or family because they have no place of their own.

It also includes people who are living in cars, vans or other non-residential places. This could include squats or unsafe room, or rentals without legal contracts.

Simon Community, one of Ireland’s largest homelessness charities, conducted a poll in 2024 across the island of Ireland.

From the responses in this poll, they found that hidden homelessness affects more than 30,000 households across the Island.

It found that 24,000 households in the Republic of Ireland and 8,500 households in Northern Ireland are affected by hidden homelessness.

We spoke to Ber Grogan, Executive Director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, and she outlined some of the problems she has seen over recent years.

She said: “Every month we prep our press releases for an increase in the number of homeless people, because there isn't a let-up in the demand for our services.

“It's just constant, and it is awful. It's so much worse than it used to be; there are people who are going to Local Authorities and are not even getting a housing needs assessment done, and just being turned away.

“This is because there is simply no emergency accommodation anymore.”

As the Simon Communities of Ireland are one of the largest charities, they often engage with the Government and ministers on what can be done.

Ber explains some of the challenges that arise from these meetings.

She said, “It's so frustrating because when the rent changes were brought in, it didn't deal with affordability.

“Landlords will say that their constitutional rights are being infringed, and it's like, at what point do the constitutional rights of the 5,000 children in emergency accommodation matter?”

There are many different reasons as to why this crisis has gotten to the point it has, but one thing is clear: it has gotten out of control, and that looks to continue to be the case.

On the possible causes for this crisis, Ber said: “We have been calling this a crisis for the last ten years, as soon as we started to see a rise in family homelessness, and that is down to the private rental sector and notice of terminations as well as no fault evictions.

“There are just no affordable alternatives for people. It's the simple economics; if you hold back supply, then demand increases and the price goes up.

“The amount of voids that there are in Local Authorities around the country, there should be absolutely zero voids. If they have a housing need, why are there voids?”

Ber continued: “The short-term lets around the country are a massive factor; the regulation that they were bringing in for that got watered down.

“There are enough vacant properties across the country to house everyone who needs it. What has gotten worse over the last five years? Is it greed?

“Is it an acceptance that some people deserve to have loads of properties and profit, and others don't. It's the financialisation of what should be a basic human right.”

This crisis has been slowly building for many years, and many people feel powerless over what they can do.

The crisis is beginning to reach all corners of society, and Ber gave her thoughts on what she thinks can be done to put pressure on the government.

She said: “Loads of people have said to me, why cant we do what we did for the fuel protests for housing?

“Change does happen, it just happens very slowly. We saw it with the HAP review; this is something we have been calling for for years.

“I just think it would be great if more people mobilised around homelessness. I think until we have that ground swell of movement, it remains the same voices.

“We need that public outrage, I think.”

Ber argues that we need more accurate figures released with regard to people experiencing hidden homelessness, similar to what we have for emergency accommodation.

“There are preventions happening, there are exits as well, but they are just not on a large enough scale.

“Unless we start seeing figures like the emergency accommodation ones every month, we won't know.

“I think we have something like 56,000 people on the social housing waiting list, we also have 17,000 people in emergency accommodation and 5,000 people in IPAS accommodation who have been granted leave to stay.”

Ber has been beating the drum on homelessness for a long time now, but she believes other organisations have an important part to play.

“The Irish Property Owners Association and other organisations, it's not good enough if they are going into a meeting saying that more regulation is going to make us leave.

“They need to be coming up with solutions. The government are always talking about using all the levers at its disposal.

“We would argue that they are just tinkering around the edges. I think sometimes it's easier to have a scapegoat of a minister.”

At the moment, the crisis continues, and despite all of the negative stories and conversations surrounding homelessness in Ireland, Ber remains hopeful that things will change. Albeit very slowly.

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