Councillor Daithí Doolan, Chair of Dublin City Council's housing committee, has hit out at the Government's rural resettlement scheme, following a number of reports regarding the initiative.

In a statement, he said: "Government proposals to introduce a rural resettlement scheme to tackle homelessness in Dublin totally misses the point. No amount of spin or press statements will distract from the fact that this Government have failed, utterly, to tackle the homeless crisis in Dublin.

"We have a homeless crisis not because people have not moved down the country but because consecutive governments have starved local authorities of essential funding to build social housing.

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"The rural resettlement scheme was successful in the 1990's. It was hugely popular by giving Dublin families a chance to experience a new rural based life and brought new life to many rural towns and. But to dress it up now as the silver bullet to homelessness just proves how out of touch this Government really is.

"We now have twice as many people homeless in July this year than we did in June 2014. In July this year 770 adults with 1,185 children were homeless in Dublin while in June 2014 this number was 346 adults and 567 children.

"The Government must take action and introduce rent controls, increase rent allowance and release funding to local authorities so they can commence a building programme to meet the needs of the 21,000 housing applicants on Dublin City Council's housing list."

(JP)