Kelly says he’s doing all he can as homelessness surges
ALAN Kelly i nsisted he’s doing all he can to resolve the housing crisis – claiming proposals he put forward to tackle the property shortage in the capital were ‘rejected’ by Dublin City Council.
But as the Environment Minister pointed the finger at DCC, a councillor who sits on the local authority’s housing committee said the proposal he put forward was to house people in an area ‘not fit for human habitation’.
Although Mr Kelly said funding was available to tackle the problem, Dublin City councillor Dáithí Doolan of Sinn Féin insisted the minister has not made funds available to the council to sort out the problem.
Figures released yesterday show the extent of the homelessness crisis, as the number of families made homeless has risen by 55 per cent since the start of the year.
Separate figures yesterday showed 77 Dublin-based families, including 155 children, became homeless last month, with 70 of them never having suffered homelessness before.
After this data was realeased, Mr Kelly faced repeated calls to cut his holidays short to outline the action being taken.
In the first seven months of the year, 466 families became homeless, which almost equalled last year’s total. It comes amid soaring rents, increased home repossessions and a slowdown in new house building.
Responding to the wave of criticism levelled at the Government this week, Mr Kelly said yesterday more resources than ever had been put into tackling homelessness, but said he did not ‘personally have all the levers to control this myself’.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, he repeatedly called for co- operation from local authorities and said they were looking to purchase buildings in Dublin aimed at housing families as an immediate action.
Mr Kelly said a decision to increase the rent supplement was a matter for Social Protection Minister Joan Burton, but warned that if the supplement was dramatically increased, it would have the effect of increasing the cost of all rents.
He claimed that the Government was facing a ‘perfect storm’ regard- ing homelessness, but insisted he was working with other departments to ensure families don’t have to sleep on the streets. He said: ‘I put proposals f orward in r elation to O’Devaney Gardens [in Dublin 7], which was rejected by the local authority. Local authorities and local councillors do have power now from a budgetary point of view in relation to local property tax.
‘There was some proposals put forward last year to ring-fence a certain amount of that for homelessness, it was rejected.’
He added: ‘There is no issue in relation to the budget in Dublin, the funding is there and if there is a need for further funding we will supply it.
‘Its about having processes in place to ensure that people are intercepted... There’s a number of issues which I as minister do not necessarily control.’
However, Councillor Doolan, who sits on DCC’s housing committee, last night told the Mail: ‘Yes, we did reject the proposal of O’Devaney Gardens because it was totally unacceptable, wholly not fit for human habitation.
‘It’s in the process of being detenanted and also then you’d have ended up with a huge [number] of homeless families with all their needs concentrated on a site that’s like a building site. That’s unacceptable to them and to us.’
Mr Doolan claimed Mr Kelly had not made funds available to the council to tackle homelessness.
‘Far from being the solution, Minister Kelly has become part of the major problem of providing housing in the city,’ Mr Doolan said.
‘We don’t have a homeless crisis – we have a housing crisis, and he [Mr Kelly] is the main orchestrator of that because he’s not making funds available. ‘Give us the money, let us do our job,’ Mr Doolan added.
But in a statement, Mr Kelly’s department said there was no shortage in funding for emergency accommodation in the Dublin area.
Dublin City Council was allocated €37.2million, of which €23.5million was spent to the end of June.
Focus Ireland said the number of people seeking homeless services in Dublin reaches a new crisis point every month. The charity said more than 1,300 children and their families are homeless nationwide – with more than 1,100 children in Dublin.
‘A number of issues
I don’t control’