Advertisement
Housing

Irish housing chief says homelessness is ‘normal’

Housing agency boss says emotion must be removed from the debate about the problem

Conor Skehan, the chair of the Republic of Ireland’s Housing Agency, has been condemned for describing homelessness as “a normal thing.”

Skehan told RTE’s Moring Ireland radio show: “Homelessness is a dreadful thing when it happens to someone, but it is a normal thing, it happens.”

Rejecting the term “crisis,” the government advisor explained: “When we started to realise we are the same as all the other countries in Europe, we start to take the emotion out of this argument, because emotion is the enemy of this.”

Critics accused him of complacency, pointing to the nation’s official statistics that show a rising number of homeless people.

Sinn Féin’s deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the government was attempting to “minimise” a growing “emergency.”

Might the housing chief have a point?

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

Skehan suggested that handwringing and continual talk of crisis might be a barrier to coming up with solutions to ease the problem.

“The word “normal” is the enemy of the word “crisis,” but once you normalise it you can start to give people challenges to ask are we dealing with this as effectively as we could do,” he said.

We have a low level of homelessness compared to our peer’s countries

The row follows a claim made by the Republic of Ireland’s new Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (pictured above) that the country has a “low level” of homelessness compared with other countries around the world.

“That is a good thing in Ireland, that we have a low level of homelessness compared to our peer’s countries,” Varadkar said.

Niamh Randall of the Irish homelessness charity the Simon Community insisted “the narrative must be challenged.”

Randall said it was difficult to compare the Republic of Ireland with other nations because the number of people officially counted as homeless did not include rough sleepers, reflecting only those in emergency accommodation.

Just over 8,300 homeless children and adults were found to be living in emergency accommodation by the Department of Housing in September, a slight increase on the previous month.

Photo: European People’s Party, licensed under Creative Commons

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

Read All
How taxing private landlords helped 1.1 million renters become first-time buyers
a row of UK houses
RENTING

How taxing private landlords helped 1.1 million renters become first-time buyers

Renters' Rights Bill must become law 'as soon as possible', housing minister says
Labour housing minister Matthew Pennycook in a Renters' Rights Bill parliamentary debate
Renting

Renters' Rights Bill must become law 'as soon as possible', housing minister says

Zarah Sultana calls for MPs to be banned from being landlords
placards reading 'Power to the Renters' and 'Homes 4 All'
Housing

Zarah Sultana calls for MPs to be banned from being landlords

Single-parent families almost four times more likely to be homeless than families with two parents
a father and daughter washing hands
Homelessness

Single-parent families almost four times more likely to be homeless than families with two parents

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue