Focus Ireland states the Government is using our unprecedented national resources to provide a short-term fix
‘Homelessness’ not mentioned once in Budget 2025 speeches
Focus Ireland said that they were deeply concerned that, despite the commitments in the pre-amble to Budget 2025, the reality is that the Government is using our unprecedented national resources to provide a short-term fix to the problems people are facing rather than investing in the lasting solutions we need.
Focus Ireland Director of Advocacy Mike Allen said: “Focus Ireland’s perspective on the budget is based on how it will be seen by a family who have been living a single room for years, a single person trapped in a homeless dormitory or a single person with a Notice to Quit from their rented home. In the two Budget announcement speeches from both Ministers, ‘homelessness’ was not mentioned once and there is little outlined to give hope to families and individuals. While we welcome record high employment rate and the strong economic outlook, we also have record high homelessness and this needs urgent and targeted actions from Government.”
He added: “While Minister Donohoe’s vision of Ireland as ‘the best country in the world to be a child’ is very welcome and admirable but it does not reflect the reality of a country with 4,419 children living in homeless emergency accommodation, and the 400 families who have been homeless for over 2 years.”
“This budget could have directed our available resources towards a targeted drive to reduce homelessness, but there is little announced today which gives any reason to believe that homelessness will be any lower at next year’s budget than it is today.”
“The housing measures continued to focus on helping people deal with the cost of housing failure rather than tackle the failure itself. While tenants will welcome an additional €250 tax relief, the measure will do nothing at all to deal with the long-term structural problems in the private rental sector. Equally, the extended ‘help to buy’ fund will continue to be welcomed by those who benefit from it, while pushing up house prices and doing nothing to deal with what the Housing Commission called ‘failures which are fundamentally systemic’. The funding for ‘10,000 new build social houses’ gave no indication of when those units will be available while the projected social housing output for 2025 at 7,400 is significantly lower than was committed for in Housing For All.”
“The allocation of €1.25bn to the Land Development Agency for what the Minister referred to as ‘affordable housing’ is presented as the major measure to deal with the housing crisis, but in reality represents a distinct silent shift in housing policy away from the delivery of social housing towards ‘affordable’ housing. While the LDA is building homes on public land, the majority of the homes it produces are for sale on the market or for cost rental to people whose income is above the social housing thresholds. This means that families homeless are very unlikely to benefit in any way from this investment. If the funding had been made to Local Authorities or Approved Housing Bodies the outcome would be very different and more in line with the Government’s claim that tackling homelessness is its top priority.”
“The problem with a give-away budget is that what it gives away is the resources we need to provide lasting solutions.”