Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has stated that homeless families and their children having to present themselves to Garda stations is shameful.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD expressed his concern after it emerged that 12 homeless families were told to present to Garda stations recently as no emergency accommodation or beds were available in the Dublin area.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cEmergency accommodation is seen as a last resort for many families who find themselves homeless, but the situation these particular 12 families have found themselves in is beyond belief.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable that families and children in this situation, many through no fault of their own, should have to resort to going to a Garda station for their own safety and to put a roof over their heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat has transpired is unprecedented and highlights that our housing and homeless situation is still light years away from being resolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Housing and Minister Coveney must act to resolve this shambolic situation as quickly as possible, and see to it that this does not happen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year\u2019s Census identified 189,000 empty homes (excluding holiday homes) across the State, with 40,000 of them in the Dublin area. Surely with a little imagination and a different approach these empty homes could be used to help solve the current homeless crisis.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cEnda Kenny has left an unprecedented legacy that has seen homeless figures increase by 300% under his watch. When he assumed office in 2011 there were 641 homeless children, last month the amount of children sleeping in Department of Housing funded emergency accommodation had rocketed to 2,563.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies and vulnerable children should not be spending nights in Garda stations, on the streets, or in public parks. It raises significant child protection concerns and will possibly further traumatise children who are already in an impossible situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have put the rights of the child on a constitutional basis and they should be paramount. Yet it is very clear that a child centred approach is not being taken in relation to these homeless families.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has stated that homeless families and their children having to present themselves to Garda stations is shameful. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD expressed his concern after it emerged that 12 homeless families were told to present to Garda stations recently as no emergency accommodation or beds were available in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homelessness","category-housing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3137"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3139,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions\/3139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}