Children have ‘borne the biggest brunt' of homelessness crisis
The Ombudsman for Children
Dr Niall Muldoon
is expected to make the remarks during Tuesday's meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing.
The committee, which is to examine the challenges to tackling homelessness, will separately hear that spending on homeless services in Dublin has increased by 337 per cent over the last decade.
In his opening statement Mr Muldoon is to tell the politicians that 'over the past 10 years the crisis of homelessness, but in particular child homelessness, has grown exponentially'.
READ MORE
'As Ombudsman for Children I have made recommendations, met with Ministers and officials, but still every month the number of children who are living in homeless accommodation continues to grow.'
Mr Muldoon will outline how his office published its No Place Like Home report in April 2019 on children's views and experiences of living in family hubs (a form of emergency accommodation). At the time there were 3,784 children in emergency accommodation.
This dropped to 2,193 in April 2021 when the pandemic-era eviction ban was in place.
Mr Muldoon will say the number 'has climbed every April since – 2,944 in 2022, 3,594 in 2023, 4,214 in 2024 and 4,775 in 2025, which are the most recent figures available.'
Overall 15,580 people across all ages were homeless in Ireland at the end of April.
Mr Muldoon will tell the committee that 'the impact of homelessness and unstable living conditions on children is catastrophic' and it 'affects every aspect of their lives; education, wellbeing, self-development'.
[
Number of children in consistent poverty rises by `staggering' 45,000, report shows
Opens in new window
]
He will say that 'housing has been identified by the Taoiseach as the 'number one issue' for the current Government. And so it should be.
'The trouble is that the seriousness of the housing situation has been known for almost a decade now, and because of its longevity the effects have rippled across all of our society.
'Children, however, have borne the biggest brunt of the ongoing crisis and we cannot forget that.'
He adds: 'The move away from local authority housing during the economic crash of 2008 has led to a situation now where we are consistently failing more and more children and families who are falling into homelessness.
'It is exasperating for me to repeatedly have to make these points, but it must be said again and again: even short-term exposure to homelessness can have a lifelong impact on children.'
Separately, the director of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) Mary Hayes is expected to outline the increased cost of providing homeless services in the capital over the last 10 years.
The committee will hear that Dublin provides accommodation and services to approximately 72 per cent of the adults experiencing homelessness nationally.
Ms Hayes says that under exchequer arrangements, local authorities must provide at least 10 per cent of the cost of homeless services from their own resources.
She adds: 'Expenditure has increased by 337 per cent over the last decade, with the majority spent on emergency accommodation.'
A table provided as part of her opening statement shows homeless service expenditure of €73,365,255 in 2015 rising to €320,336,703 last year. The spend in 2025 is expected to be €355,541,935.
Ms Hayes says: 'Emergency accommodation is very costly in both human and economic terms and is where most of the funding is spent each year.
'There is a strong will to move away from contracting from the private sector but that can be difficult when the immediate demand for emergency accommodation is so high.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
A letter from Michael O'Leary: ‘MetroLink is a mad, bad project'
Sir, – Unbelievable!! Only an Irish Times columnist (with no known experience in transport) could waste her half-page column, slagging off Dermot Desmond and myself for criticising the Dublin MetroLink, without once mentioning the projected cost of approximately €20 billion!! Being criticised by Irish Times columnists is always a great compliment. In what crazy country could we seriously consider wasting approximately €20 billion of taxpayer money on a railway line, serving a narrow strip of the north Dublin population from Swords to St Stephen's Green, all of whom are well served currently by bus connections? The cost/benefit of this insanity has never been published, because it cannot be justified. Dermot Desmond's transport view should carry significant weight, given his very successful rescue, redevelopment and sale of London City Airport for approximately $1 billion in 2006. My own, (less?) humble view is based on almost 40 years' experience of growing, what is now the world's largest passenger airline. READ MORE But sadly we are both guilty of 'being rich', so therefore dismissed by The Irish Times 'experts', who know so much more about transport. I wouldn't quibble with a MetroLink from Swords to St Stephen's Green if it was free, but there are far better uses of taxpayer funds, than this white elephant. Muddled thinking, free of any cost/benefit analysis, such as that displayed by Justine McCarthy, is how you deliver a children's hospital (which should have cost €200 million) at a final cost of €2.5 billion and rising. My criticism of the MetroLink is based on the fact, that very few passengers at Dublin Airport will ever use it. It takes passengers into St Stephen's Green, so some small minority of inbound visitors might use it, but the vast majority of Irish originating passengers, who need to get to Dublin Airport early in the morning, or are travelling to/from outside the D2 / D4 area, won't use it. Dublin Airport is just 9km from the centre of the city, and is well served by competitively priced bus connections, which takes passengers to the city centre, and to points all over Ireland at low fares. These passengers won't switch to a €20 billion metro. Your columnist claims that I 'opposed the second terminal at Dublin Airport in 2010. I didn't. Dublin needed a second terminal l and I offered to build it on the North Apron for just €200 million, as Ryanair had proposed. I simply pointed out that the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), wasted €2 billion, building Terminal 2 in the wrong place (a cul-de-sac) and with no ability to future expand. Now that the second runway has opened on the north apron, the chronic congestion in the T2 cul-de-sac bedevils the T2 airlines on a daily basis. I note Ms McCarthy failed to offer her opinion on the Dublin Airport second runway (a project which I also supported), yet which the airlines and our passengers are prevented from using, by a 2007 (Road Traffic) Planning restriction. We elected a new government last November which promised to remove this cap 'as soon as possible', which would enable the airlines at Dublin to grow traffic, new routes, tourism and jobs. Sadly, eight months later the Government has failed to take any action to scrap this cap. More inexcusable delay and inaction from our political class. To summarise, both I and Dermot Desmond believe, wasting €20 billion on a Dublin Airport metro, is an unjustifiable waste of scarce taxpayer funds. I object because the majority of Dublin Airport passengers won't ever use this vastly overpriced service. Dermot correctly suggests that Al and electric road transport will solve the problem at a fraction of this €20 billion over the next decade. The fact that an unqualified Irish Times columnist considers that 'two rich men' are wrong, only renews my faith that this MetroLink is a mad, bad project. Add some more buses to service the citizens of Swords, Ballymun, Collins Avenue, and Glasnevin, and The Irish Times could save Irish taxpayers (me included!) about €19.9 billion rather than squandering these funds, as we have on the world's most expensive, and least efficient, Children's Hospital. If the next time Ms McCarthy wants to offer an opinion on government transport projects, perhaps she could address the cost benefit of the project, rather than slagging off two successful – albeit opinionated – business people. We won't always be right, but we will be right, far more often than the misguided, anti-business Irish Times 'chatterati'. – Yours, etc, MICHAEL O'LEARY. Chief Executive, Ryanair, Dublin.
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on Ireland's AI future: the clock is ticking
Given the scale of the claims being made for artificial intelligence, it is striking how slow the Oireachtas has been to give the subject sustained attention. AI is routinely described as having the potential to transform society, disrupt the global political order and even alter what it means to be human. Yet it was only this year that the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence began its work, holding its first public session in June. This week its chair, Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne, set out his thinking on what must happen next. Byrne believes Ireland could position itself as 'the AI island' but warns that the opportunity will be lost without swift and decisive action. He says he would be disappointed if both a new AI office and an AI observatory are not operational by next year. The office will be tasked with implementing the EU's AI Act, while the observatory will assess the technology's effects, from employment disruption to identifying future skills needs. In Byrne's view, those who embrace AI will displace those who do not, whether they are doctors, architects or lawyers. He welcomes the Government's plan for an AI summit during Ireland's EU presidency in 2026 and argues for clear ethical frameworks in education, where students are already using AI tools. He also points to the technology's current uses in Ireland, from automating recycling processes to analysing tax data. Such calls for urgency are sensible and overdue. But preparing the State for the changes ahead will require far more than offices, observatories and summits. The debate is complicated by the sweeping and often speculative claims surrounding AI, from the elimination of entire job categories to science-fiction visions of superintelligent machines destroying the human race. This discourse is unfolding against the backdrop of a global investment surge, with leading AI companies commanding extraordinary valuations and data centres proliferating at breakneck speed. History suggests such frenzies rarely end without turbulence. READ MORE Byrne's proposals are shaped by the EU's AI Act, which will impose a detailed regulatory roadmap over the coming years. That approach contrasts sharply with the let it rip stance favoured by Donald Trump's administration in the US, and with the UK's less prescriptive, more innovation-oriented strategy. Which philosophy will prove more effective is an open question but the divergence will have real consequences for competitiveness. If Ireland is serious about becoming 'the AI island', it must reckon with the reality that others are moving faster and with considerable resources. Ambition is necessary, but so too is a clear-eyed appraisal of the scale of the challenge and the pace of change. Without that, the island will be an observer, not a leader, in the age of AI.
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
Why would 35-year-old CEO Gareth Sheridan want to be entombed in the Áras for seven years?
You can probably name the big May 2015 referendum, the one about same-sex marriage. Now name the second proposal put to voters that day. It was the effort to reduce the presidential candidacy age from 35 to 21. Even two months out, seven in 10 were against it. More than half the youth group it was targeting were against it. In the end nearly three-quarters of the people voted No. As crazily time-wasting notions go, it could have been worse. Nearly 20 years beforehand, an Oireachtas joint committee had recommended a reduction to age 18. In 1937, Éamon de Valera referred to the president's role and powers as requiring 'the exercise of a wise discretion'. Surely only an insufferably self-important little twerp would deem themselves qualified at 21? It's also true, as Yes advocates were wont to argue, that the age barrier would have rendered Jesus Christ and Michael Collins (dead at 33 and 31) ineligible for the job, but why on earth would such busy, transformative young men have wanted it anyway? READ MORE The same question could be asked of Gareth Sheridan . Why would the 35-year-old co-founder and chief executive of an $80 million Nasdaq -listed company about to hit serious paydirt – Nutriband – want to be entombed for seven years in the diplomatic fustiness of the Áras ? His first outing post-announcement on Sunday was to Tullamore Agricultural Show, where there was a team and badges in evidence but little gladhanding by all accounts. It might have been just a practice run. Like every serious US presidential candidate, Sheridan has a book nicely timed for campaign season. From No to Nasdaq is the autobiography of a Terenure teenager who paints houses to buy a Nokia 3310, a TUD business and management student who spots a gap in the market (patch treatments for delivering medications and pain relief), emigrates to the US and drives an Uber to pay the bills while his wife works as a nanny to snitty rich kids, all while gaining US citizenship, dodging Wall Street sharks, being sued by US Securities and Exchange Commission regulators, and getting listed. He remains in the bottom five per cent of executives on the Nasdaq in terms of compensation – and that's how it should be, he told Hot Press in an pre-announcement interview last week, 'because we're not quite ready. Next year when we get FDA approval, we can see what the company is in a position to spend and afford'. That's when the company's first big product, an abuse-deterrent technology with the FDA-approved fentanyl patch, will be rolled out. The company he co-founded and leads is in big expansion mode and on track to become a billion-dollar business. [ Gareth Sheridan's presidential nomination is by no means certain Opens in new window ] In the context of Sheridan's presidential ambitions announced elsewhere just a few days later, that's the puzzling part. All this excitement – including his goal 'to put manners' on US Big Pharma – is due to unfold during his intended presidential term. Yet at 35, and after seven years in the US, he has chosen to step aside as chief executive to seek a seven-year sentence as Ireland's ceremonial president. There is a manifesto of sorts which so far resembles a Dáil hopeful's manifesto, focused 'on the pragmatic politics' of our old friend, 'common sense'. He had become obsessed, he said, 'with how we can fix this housing issue', and had been meeting lots of people who happened to include lots of county councillors. 'The system is broken. It's part and parcel of successive governments and their lack of foresight and preparation ... I've met with councillors and their frustration level is crazy,' Sheridan said. A couple of them flatteringly asked if he would put housing at the top of the narrative and have a crack at the Áras, he told Hot Press. From which he inferred that it was time for a younger candidate 'to keep these issues on top of the narrative'. And – as he says repeatedly – he's young. No-one could argue with the need to light a fire under housing policy, but this implies, a) that it hasn't dominated every national and local narrative to death for years and, b) that President Michael D Higgins could have tried a bit harder. That forceful, emotional speech three years ago – when Higgins described housing as 'a disaster' and 'our great, great, great failure' – notwithstanding, probably. Sheridan uses the word 'figurehead' for the job so is clearly aware of the limitations. Yet he has been working at it 'for well over a year', finding the time for face-to-face schmoozing with councillors crucial to his nomination. Which means he was dabbling deep in Irish politics well before last November's general election, with time enough to pack all that effort into a run for the Dáil and possible ministerial office from which to wield the fix of real executive power. There is the puzzle. [ 'Don't underestimate this guy': Who is Gareth Sheridan, the pharma millionaire running for president? Opens in new window ] The other question is why the Irish electorate would vote for a relatively unknown businessman to be its North Star. The 2011 candidacy of businessman Seán Gallagher – who almost made it to the Áras as an Independent until his campaign imploded on live TV – resonated because the economy was in ruins, leaving a gaping wound in the national psyche. Gallagher offered a fix, focusing on entrepreneurship and self-reliance. It wasn't poetry but it was a sorely needed dose of positivity. Since Gallagher served as Nutriband president for four years from 2018 to 2022, it's hardly a stretch to think that Sheridan might have at least noted Gallagher's nomination tactics, not to mention his business pitch, as a template when he says things like, 'We need to start looking forward. That's a mentality thing that needs to change.' But Sheridan has been remarkably adamant that he got no advice from Gallagher and told RTÉ that they 'parted ways ... after a year or two'. An advantage of being young is that there are fewer skeletons to fall out of the cupboard. Gareth Sheridan's candidacy will reveal as much about this Ireland as about the man himself. It will get interesting.
