The latest homelessness report from the Department of Housing confirmed 17,482 were living in homeless accommodation. This includes a record 5,620 children.
Spending on emergency homelessness accommodation rose by over 16% last year to nearly €500m, as the Government has been accused of putting €1bn “down the drain” on temporary housing solutions last year alone.
Figures from housing minister James Browne show that spending on emergency accommodation has doubled since 2021 and increased by over €400m since 2011.
The latest homelessness report from the Department of Housing confirmed 17,482 were living in homeless accommodation. This includes a record 5,620 children.
The homelessness figures only count those who are living in emergency accommodation. It does not account for those living on the street or couch surfing.
The data provided to Aontú TD Paul Lawless confirmed €448.78m was spent on emergency accommodation in 2025 under Section 10 of the Housing Act. This legislation allows local housing authorities to provide homelessness supports.
This was up 16% compared to 2024, when €385m was spent.
The figures show that spending on homelessness accommodation has been consistently rising by tens of millions of euros each year.
In the space of just four years, spending more than doubled from €223.5 in 2021 to €448.78m in 2025. Since 2011, €2.6bn has been spent on emergency accommodation, with €1.6bn spent in the last five years alone.
In addition to the emergency accommodation, some €482m was allocated for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) in 2025. An additional €101m was allocated to the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS).
HAP involves local authorities paying rent to a landlord, with tenants then paying a contribution towards the rent to the council. RAS operates in the same way, but the local authority sources or contracts the accommodation.
Mr Lawless argued that with these funding streams and the spending on emergency accommodation, over €1bn went towards temporary housing measures in 2025.
"Last year saw the highest expenditure on accommodation with nearly a half a billion spent in just one year, representing double what was spent in 2025,” he told the Irish Examiner.
“We are currently in the teeth of the worst housing crisis since the famine. We have 17,482 people homeless in the country right now; shamefully, 5,620 of them are children.
“The whole system around how we deal with homelessness is extremely flawed.