Parnell Park could be filled twice over with new homeless figures

Over 17,000 people were availing of homeless accommodation in Ireland in February, the highest figure since records began.

17,308 people were confirmed to be in homeless accommodation by the Department of Housing in the most recent round of figures, enough to fill Parnell Park twice over.

The figure is an increase from the 17,112 people figure for January 2026.

Of the figure, 5,457 are children, enough to fill Dalymount Park.

When the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/independents government took office in January 2025, the figure stood at 15,286 people.

The figures mark a dramatic increase from May 2016, when the 32nd Dáil met for the first time, when 6,189 people were in homeless accommodation.

The temporary introduction of no-fault evictions in late 2022 saw a pronounced drop in homeless figures, with the figure dipping below 12,000; the lifting of the ban in March 2023, in controversial circumstances, directly coincided with a rise in homeless figures since then.

Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin has questioned whether the government parties have the political will to address the crisis.

Based on the current trajectories, 20,000 people are likely to be in homeless accommodation in Ireland by the time the next general election takes place.

Ó Broin predicted that cuts to the tenant-in-situ scheme at a local level and the controversial market rent reset will see homeless figures climb even higher in the coming months.

“How many more people will be forced into homelessness before Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael realise that it is their housing policies that are driving this crisis and that until these policies change, the problem will continue to get worse?” the Dublin Mid-West TD asked.

“Homeless services are being overwhelmed. Despite doing incredible work, they simply cannot keep up with the scale of this crisis.”

The Sinn Féin housing spokesperson said, “the government has shown no urgency or ambition to tackle this devastating crisis.”

“There are measures they could implement today. We need an emergency ban on no-fault evictions now, and we need an emergency package of measures to both prevent homelessness and get people out of emergency accommodation more quickly,” he stated.

Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne said, “the cause of this crisis, which continues to spiral out of control, is government failure to treat this situation with the urgency and gravity it demands and progress policy and legislation that will adequately address what has become a defining disaster for this generation.”

“Instead, the government introduced disastrous rental measures on March 1st, the lead up to which saw a dramatic increase in evictions, the likes of which have not been seen since the famine – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policies are directly contributing to a stark rise in homelessness,” he said.

The Soc Dems housing spokesperson predicted, “at this rate, we could be faced with a quarter of a million evictions in the coming decade if major policy changes are not introduced at speed and at scale.”

The Dublin North-West TD said, “landlords are kicking out tenants as they’ve been incentivised by Government policy to do so in order to hike up rents, tenants who are not covered by the lease protections introduced, which only apply to new tenancies.”