EU enlargement has led to a "wholly avoidable tragedy" where homelessness in this State was concerned, a national conference of the Caring for Carers Ireland group was told yesterday in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
It was also told "there is too much emphasis on research and reports", where homelessness was concerned, "with the numbers employed directly or indirectly in these activities probably greater than the numbers sleeping rough every night in Dublin."
In a keynote address to the conference Alice Leahy, director and co-founder of the homeless agency Trust, said "the enlargement of the European Union, which occurred with much fanfare during Ireland's EU presidency, has produced one wholly avoidable tragedy - a very big increase in people from the accession states finding themselves homeless in Ireland when they moved in search of a better life."
She continued that "the growth in the number of people becoming homeless from the EU accession states has served to draw attention to the serious problems that already existed in how we seek to deal with the problem of homelessness in Ireland.
Reform was urgently needed, she said, stating that it was "inexcusable after so many years of prosperity that the most fundamental human right of all, the right to be treated with dignity and respect is denied quite unnecessarily to so many."