Home > HR4Homelessness: Country report Ireland.

Stanley, Wayne (2021) HR4Homelessness: Country report Ireland. HR4Homelessness.

[img]
Preview
PDF (HR4Homelessness - Ireland)
435kB

There has been a substantial increase in homelessness in Ireland since 2013, driven by a severe shortage of affordable and accessible rental accommodation in the private rented sector and the low levels of public housing provision, due to the depletion of public housing by help-to-buy schemes in the past decades. Housing subsidies have failed to compensate the stark increase of rents on the private market. The increase of homelessness is largely made up of an increasing number of families becoming homeless. Within the homeless population, a distinction is drawn between those experiencing long-term homelessness whose needs are often more complex, and other homelessness such as families in emergency accommodation. Those experiencing homelessness were found to be much more likely than the domiciled population to use drugs and to develop and experience problematic drug use. There is a complex causative relationship between drug use and homelessness. While drug use can be a factor for some in becoming homeless, drug use can also be commenced by people who are homeless as a coping mechanism, or drug use can be exacerbated by homelessness. 

Needle exchange facilities are available in Ireland, however, unevenly available: while provision is generally good in larger cities, in rural towns needle exchanges can be limited. Similarly, substitution and addiction treatment and detox services provided by the Irish Public Health Services are focused on larger cities, with very limited and difficult access for those from rural areas, and particularly homeless people. The Safe Injections Site, successfully piloted in Dublin in 2018, was commissioned as permanent service but is not yet in place, mainly due to political obstacles and localized planning objections.

Repository Staff Only: item control page