233 children homeless before Christmas in south west

Cork continues to set new homelessness records with 736 adults in emergency accommodation in the run up to Christmas while 233 children remain without a home in the south west.

The latest figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage show that 24 more adults were accessing emergency accommodation at the end of November than at the end of October in Cork.

Meanwhile, the number of children in emergency accommodation across Cork and Kerry increased by three over the same period.

In total, 522 men and 277 women in Cork and Kerry were living in emergency accommodation in the last week of November. Of these, 99 were between the ages of 18 and 24.

In the wake of the latest figures, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould has called attention to the amount of money spent by the state on emergency accommodation last year up until the end of November which came to €25,906,484.

Deputy Gould said: “€70,000 every single day is being spent on keeping children and adults in hotels and B&Bs. This cost is extortionate and shows once again that the Government’s failure to deal with the housing emergency has huge impacts on people’s lives and on public funding.”

To tackle the issue, he called for the money to instead be spent on returning vacant council homes back into use.

He said: “Every single day, two council homes could be returned to use for the cost of this bill. That means that in three months, all homeless families in Cork and Kerry would have somewhere to live.

“There are people getting rich on the trauma children in homelessness face. That is a horrific thought and one that cannot be dismissed.”

In Cork and Kerry, 133 families were in emergency accommodation at the end of November, up significantly from 109 at the end of October.

Mr Gould continued: “The state has allowed this bill to spiral out of control and instead of housing these children, the funding is used to keep them in emergency accommodation.

“I am calling now for a lifting on the cap on vacant home return and a Value for Money assessment on existing emergency accommodation contracts in Cork and Kerry. These families don’t want accommodation, they want a home,” he concluded.