FURY OVER MURPHY’S ‘DO LESS’ HOUSING SPENDING
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HOUSING Minister Eoghan Murphy has been slammed for the “do less” Budget as the homeless crisis grows.
He held a press conference yesterday morning to showcase what he considered to be the bonuses from Tuesday’s document.
Last year’s Budget was meant to be the “housing” one.
But in the past 12 months we have seen rents continue to spiral out of control, house prices rocket and more people becoming homeless than ever before in the history of the
State.
There are more than 10,000 people who have no place to call home every night, including a shocking
4,000 children.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said at the €140-a-plate Fine Gael President’s dinner last Saturday that the crisis was a “stain on our society”.
Yet when it came to putting their money where their mouth is, the Government has only allocated €20million extra towards trying to remove it.
To put it in perspective, the total allocation for homelessness for 2020 will be €166million.
With a total Budget in excess of €60billion, that represents just 0.25%.
And when you look at the increase for next year €20million is the equivalent of one eighth of a quarter of 1%. Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin criticised the Government’s paltry investment and questioned its commitment to reform.
He said: “Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were saying that Budget 2019 had to be the housing budget and they made a big play of all the things they were going to do on housing.
“A year on, homelessness is up, rent is up, social housing output is glacial and if you want to buy a house, particularly in Dublin, you don’t have a chance unless you’re buying it at over €380,000 or €400,000. So, €20million extra for homelessness, that’s an admission that emergency accommodation stays are going to increase, no extra money for social housing.
“It was a ‘do less’ budget at a time when the crisis is escalating for renters, for people on council lists or for first-time buyers in the big cities.”
Mr Murphy was asked by the Irish Mirror why there wasn’t more invested in the area of homelessness.
He said: “The mistake would be to look at this in isolation and I think that happens sometimes, people silo it. Anything we do in housing has an impact on another area in the sector.
“So the main support we’re putting in place for people who are either in housing in secure accommodation or in emergency accommodation is the social housing supports, the 27,000 we are going to support next year.”