Sinn Fein says the Government's housing scheme has failed, after it was launched two years ago this week.
'Rebuilding Ireland' committed to providing homes for 135 households by 2021, and promised action to reduce homelessness.
However with record homeless figures and a low housing stock, Sinn Fein claims that the scheme has actually made the crisis worse.
The party says homelessness has increased by 50% since 2016 and that the main reason the scheme isn't working is because social housing targets are too low and the pace of delivery is too slow.
Sinn Fein's Housing Spokesperson Eoin O'Broin says time's up on 'Rebuilding Ireland' and that the government needs to abandon the programme: 'We need to see a doubling of capital investment in social and affordable housing in Budget 2019. We also need to see a range of measures both to protect renters, to ensure rent certainty, to get people out of emergency accommodation, to prevent people from becoming homeless, as well as utilising the current stock'.
“Rebuilding Ireland was launched at a time when we thought the housing and homeless crisis couldn’t get much worse.
"Since then, homelessness has increased by 50%, with a 63% increase in the number of homeless children and a 54% increase in pensioner homelessness." - @EOBroin pic.twitter.com/JDkglvIKUv
— Sinn Féin (@sinnfeinireland) July 19, 2018
