Call for 'emergency' response as Laois housing list hits 1,677

A Laois Councillor hit out at the Government for failing to declare Ireland’s housing crisis an emergency. 

Sinn Fein Cllr Aidan Mullins described the council’s cost rental and affordable housing targets as “laughable”. 

He looked at the number of homeless people in Laois at present. 

“There are seven families and thirteen single persons homeless. That could be 30 or 40 people homeless here,” he said. 

“We have 1,677 on the housing waiting list,” he said.

He welcomed the refugees from Ukraine but asked why the same onus isn’t being put on housing the homeless in Ireland. 

“Constructing 42 modular homes in Rathdowney for people coming here from Ukraine, I said all along, I support that but the Government is refusing to call our housing situation an emergency,” he said. 

“They call it a crisis because if they call it an emergency it is going to trigger a different response,” Cllr Mullins claimed. 

"It is an emergency except when we are talking about our own people on housing lists, then it's a crisis and we deal with it differently,” said Cllr Mullins. 

“You can’t bypass any laws and build modular homes. I do not understand why we are not doing that here for people who would be suitable on our own housing list,” he said. 

“I don’t care what anyone says to me about this. That I am creating divisions of us versus them. That’s not the case and I don’t care if I am excoriated or if somebody jumps all over me for saying this because there is an issue here that we need to confront,” he insisted. 

“While a lot of people are saying it most people will not speak it. It is a question of when we hit our capacity to handle people coming into the country, refugees or asylum seekers and whether it is today, or a year’s time, the time does come when you hit capacity because  you can’t say we can take in a million or two million. I think we have hit that limit,” said Cllr Mullins. 

“I see in the report today that the council is beginning discussions with the council under which 102 Syrian refugees will be relocated to housing in Co Laois next year. Where are we going to house them?” he asked. 

“Then they wonder why somebody comes and says, how come there is an arrangement for people coming into the country as opposed to people on the housing list? That’s the reality,” said Cllr Mullins. 

He said people mightn’t be happy to hear it but that is the message public representatives are hearing on a daily basis.  

“Portarlington is a dumping ground for asylum seekers, that is what I am being told,” said Cllr Mullins. 

“The local hotel, closed down pubs, closed hairdressers” were all being used to house asylum seekers, said Cllr Mullins.  He claimed developers were outbidding local buyers for private houses. 

“It is being saturated. I don’t care who comes down on me for saying this. That is a fact,” said Cllr Mullins. 

He claimed there was “no spotlight” on the homeless in the council’s monthly managers report.  He said people are being accommodated in 750 tents in Laois which he described as “horrible” conditions. He said nobody should have to endure that. 

“It is not me being radical or far right, people are feeling the impact of the huge numbers coming in,” he said. 

“The whole issue, we are hiding it under the carpet. We are not confronting it,” he said. 

Cllr Mullins said nobody was voicing the concerns. 

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The issue was discussed at the latest meeting of Laois County Council.