{"id":260018,"date":"2025-12-31T15:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260018\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:25:08","slug":"opposition-criticises-tanaiste-over-comments-allegedly-linking-homelessness-to-immigration-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260018\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposition criticises T\u00e1naiste over comments allegedly linking homelessness to immigration \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>, Labour<\/a> and the Social Democrats <\/a>have called on T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> to withdraw remarks he made allegedly linking homelessness<\/a> to immigration<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In an interview with the Irish Times, <\/a>Mr Harris said a \u201csignificant number\u201d of people in emergency accommodation for homelessness \u201cdon\u2019t have a housing right in Ireland\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Harris claimed he was \u201cshut down\u201d when he said in November that Ireland\u2019s \u201cmigration numbers are too high\u201d as he doubled down on comments linking immigration to the high rate of homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, or certainly some people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, don\u2019t have a housing right in Ireland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Eoin \u00d3 Broin<\/a>, the Sinn F\u00e9in spokesman on housing, said the remarks were an attempt to link \u201crising levels of homelessness to rising levels of immigration into the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis comments are dishonest and dangerous, and I am calling on him to withdraw them immediately,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe T\u00e1naiste\u2019s comments are a new low in the Government\u2019s deliberate policy trying to displace blame for the housing and homelessness crisis on to others. But this time he has been caught out. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo access emergency homeless accommodation, you must be legally resident in the State. People applying for international protection or recipients of temporary protection are accommodated through IPAS<\/a>, not homeless services. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been confirmed by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. Their statement to the Irish Times flatly contradicts the T\u00e1naiste\u2019s remarks<\/a>,\u201d the Dublin Mid-West TD said. <\/p>\n

\u201cConflating the issues of homelessness and immigration is not only dishonest – it is dangerous. As we have seen in the past, it puts front-line homeless services workers at risk from far-right elements and has resulted in arson attacks on buildings earmarked for accommodating people experiencing homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s housing spokesman Conor Sheehan also criticised the T\u00e1naiste\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe should withdraw it and also know better; to have the T\u00e1naiste make such misleading statements at a time when things are so febrile in relation to immigration is unhelpful and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour Party councillor Darragh Moriarty said he has submitted a motion on the comments to be debated at Dublin City Council next month. <\/p>\n

The motion calls on the council to reject the T\u00e1naiste\u2019s claims and condemn his \u201cblatant efforts to scapegoat and demonise migrants for his Government\u2019s decade and a half of failure to meaningfully address the housing and homelessness crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats spokesman on housing Rory Hearne accused Mr Harris of \u201ctrying to deflect from his Government\u2019s housing failures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Hearne said evictions by landlords from the private rental sector is the main cause of families being made homeless. \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t Mr Harris call out the real cause – landlord evictions, rather than blaming victims of Government housing policy failures?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Mr Harris has been in the last Fine Gael-Fianna F\u00e1il governments that \u201creneged on their commitment to hold a referendum on a right to housing. It\u2019s ironic he now cites housing as a right to try divide those in need of a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is understood that representatives of the Local Government Management Agency gave a presentation to a Cabinet sub-committee on housing earlier this month during which they outlined the increase in the number of people from outside the EU who are presenting as homeless. <\/p>\n

The briefing said that people from outside the EU presenting as homeless had increased significantly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of non-EU people in homelessness rising from 971 in January of 2022 to 3,114 in June of 2025. <\/p>\n

The briefing said that people from outside the European Economic Area accounted for 27 per cent of homeless households by June of 2025. Ministers had been told at the meeting that people arriving from abroad were starting to impact homeless numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in, Labour and the Social Democrats have called on T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris to withdraw remarks he made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,30062,13,14,6,24081,19,56707,17,9171,11,12,15,16,19614,5,44,47,7,8],"class_list":["post-260018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-eoin-o-broin","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-ie","tag-international-protection-accommodation-services-ipas","tag-ireland","tag-labour-party","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-migrant-crisis","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-sinn-fein","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115814879870570263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260018","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=260018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}