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`Absence of urgency´ contributing to homelessness crisis - Focus Ireland

The charity said the Government needs to commit `to far more radical and urgent action´.

Focus Ireland has accused the Government of contributing to the homelessness crisis, through an absence of urgency.

The charity said the Government needs to commit “to far more radical and urgent action”, as it revealed it supported a record number of people in 2025.

Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan said: “It is deeply frustrating that the Child and Family Homelessness Action Plan has been postponed while more families continue to enter homelessness every month.

“If the Government is serious about reversing these rising numbers, it must urgently progress the Action Plan, the National Prevention Framework and the review of the HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) scheme.

“There is a terrible absence of urgency about the harm being done to these children.

“These measures are essential to preventing homelessness, supporting families before they lose their homes and helping people move more quickly from emergency accommodation into secure and sustainable housing.”

According to the charity’s newly published annual report, it supported a record high of around 18,800 people, who were homeless or at real risk of losing their homes in 2025, a 4.4% increase on 2024.

The number of children accessing the charity increased by 6.3%, to 4,787, while a total of 2,164 families engaged with Focus Ireland services during 2025.

Mr Dennigan said Ireland has seen a 106% increase in homelessness in five years.

He said: “Behind these figures are thousands of children and adults living with the uncertainty, disruption and trauma of homelessness.

“During the last five years, Ireland has been wealthier than we have ever been in our history, so failing to reduce homelessness over that period would rightly have been seen as a failure.

“It was not reduced.

“Instead, the lack of urgency and flawed policies of successive Governments have allowed homelessness to more than double to the latest figure of 17,527 people.”

The annual report shows that Focus Ireland supported 702 households to exit homelessness and settle into secure accommodation during the year.

This included families, young people and adult only households.

A further 352 households who were on the brink of homelessness were supported to keep their homes.

By the end of 2025, 16,734 people were living in emergency homeless accommodation across Ireland, including more than 5,000 children.

Mr Dennigan continued: “It is vitally important to remember that it does not have to be like this, homelessness is a solvable problem, last year we solved it for two households every day.