The Aontú leader has questioned the reliability of the homeless figures released by the government today, and says that they underestimate the true figure by some 725 people.
Speaking today, Deputy Tóibín said: “These record homeless figure are shocking. If a large sized town with the same number of people was made homeless it would a national emergency. However these eyewatering figures underrepresent the scale of the crisis. On 27th March this year I wrote to all local authorities in the country to ask how many people were in homeless accommodation in their areas. Not every council answered my question but when we total the figures supplied by the 27 Local Authorities which did reply we get a figure of 16,472. This is 725 more than the official figures released today. I believe that this government are not counting the figures properly or they are misleading the public in relation to housing and homelessness. It is not the first time, before the election thee knew they wouldn’t meet their housing targets but kept saying they would”.
Deputy Tóibín continued: “This is a very serious issue. The failure to tackle the housing crisis, the constant attempts to overstate their efforts and manipulate statistics shows their incompetence and lack of concern for the reality of the situation for many. I know of many many people who are facing eviction in the coming weeks and months who have nowhere to go. These are people with jobs and stable income, but there are just no homes for them”.
” The Minister for Housing needs to explain the discrepancy between the official figures and the figures I have been given by the Local Authorities around the country. He needs to explain how his data is collated. There are very serious questions to answer here”, concluded Tóibín.
