‘The State has failed homeless people’, says charity

Homelessness charities and politicians have criticised the Government’s inaction over homeless deaths, saying the State has ‘failed people in homelessness’.

Deaths of people in homelessness rose by 61% in Dublin last year according to the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE), but no statistics are recorded for other localities around Ireland.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has said that lack of information on homeless deaths is a “shocking thing”.

“I get the sense the Government is sitting on its hands and are not proactive but reactive,” said Mr Tóibín.

Aontú are calling on the Government to record the number of homeless deaths around the country because “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”, Mr Tóibín said.

“There are people dying on the streets from homelessness,” he continued. “There’s no efforts made by Government to record all of those figures or to understand why it happened so that we can figure it out.”

Mr Paul Sheehan, spokesperson for homelessness charity Cork Simon, said that the State has “failed every person who has become homeless first of all”.

“We know that people experiencing homelessness die younger,” Mr Sheehan continued. “There are reasons that can be identified as to why that person died… and we want to know if there’s some way that could be addressed in the future.”