T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has said that while he does not wish \u201cto be in any way divisive\u201d, there is a correspondence between national homelessness figures and immigration.<\/p>\n
Mr Harris was speaking to The Echo on Friday in Macroom, after record-breaking homelessness figures showed 16,766 people \u2014 11,492 adults and 5,274 children \u2014 were in emergency accommodation at the end of October.<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste defended the Government\u2019s housing policies, but accepted that homelessness is \u201cat an unacceptably high level, and there is a housing emergency in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n
Citing new measures in the revised National Housing Plan that relate to child and family homelessness, Mr Harris said while more social housing was now being provided than at any time since the 1970s, homelessness was still increasing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the new housing plan is a request for local authorities to look at the allocation priorities for their social-housing schemes, particularly to target children and families in homelessness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSecondly, we\u2019ve also brought in a new fund to allow the local authorities to purchase homes to take families off the homelessness list. I think those two things will make a difference.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThe third point, and I say this very conscious of not wishing to be in any way divisive, but the third thing is now we\u2019re seeing in our homelessness figures, nationally anyway, a correspondence in relation to people coming to Ireland and wishing to make Ireland their home, and our homeless figures,\u201d said Mr Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who come to our country have every right to be treated with respect, but we do need to make sure we have a migration system that is functioning, because our population is growing at such a pace now at a time that we do have a scarcity of housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do just need to make sure that there is a fairness in relation to all of these rules, and I think that some of the measures that [justice minister] Jim O\u2019Callaghan has already considered over the last number of days will help ensure that we can really have a laser-sharp focus on helping those who come to our country and need assistance, ensure that we can continue to bring in the many people that we want to come to our country to work,\u201d said Mr Harris.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIndeed, they play a very important role in Cork\u2019s economy and Ireland\u2019s economy and our society, but also just to make sure that we\u2019re not out of kilter with other European countries.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the coalition parties, and Mr Harris in particular, have been accused by opposition parties of a right-ward shift in immigration policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has said that while he does not wish \u201cto be in any way divisive\u201d, there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[781,11983,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-210816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-cork-housing-crisis","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115648195880181389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}