Families in hotels, B&Bs seven times higher here: FF

THE Government and Fianna Fáil have become embroiled in a fresh row over the severity of the homelessness crisis gripping the country.

Fianna Fáil yesterday produced a comparative study of homelessness in Ireland and the UK that claimed the problem is far more serious here.

The analysis showed that families living in hotel and B&B accommodation is proportionally seven times higher here in terms of population than the UK.

It further claimed that almost seven households per 1,000 nationwide were living in temporary homeless accommodation in September of this year, compared to three per 1,000 in England.

The main Opposition party produced the analysis to expose what it described as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s “spin”, after he was criticised for claiming Ireland has one of the lowest levels of homelessness by international standards.

Fianna Fáil’s housing spokesperson Barry Cowen said: “These figures show that the situation here is significantly worse than our next-door neighbours. We want to build a decent society that every Irish person has a stake in, not the ‘Republic of Photo Opportunities’ the Taoiseach seems to be obsessed with.”

Misleading

But in a lengthy statement, a spokesman for Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy accused Fianna Fáil of providing misleading data. The spokesman said some of the figures were incorrect and that Fianna Fáil was using stats for England alone in some of its data and the UK overall to back up other claims.

The Department of Housing singled out the use of the 6,660 figure for households living in “B&B-style accommodation” in England as one particularly serious flaw.

“England has a different approach to the provision of emergency accommodation and an alternative range of temporary accommodation whereby B&B accommodation accounts for less than 9pc of all temporary accommodation,” it said.