Even while there’s a shortage of housing for Dubliners, companies have converted residential apartment blocks in the city into holiday lets for tourists.
Dublin City Council and the Department of Housing are looking at further regulating Airbnb, amid concerns it could be contributing to the housing shortage.
First announced back in 2014, the effort to get a group of households to build a home on a vacant city-centre site has been chalked up as good idea, wrong time.
Rough sleepers and people living in emergency accommodation are counted as homeless. But couch-surfers, squatters, car-sleepers and many others are left out of the statistics.
Some councillors argue that Dublin City Council carries out unnecessary and costly works on vacant council homes, when they’re in decent condition and tenants are eager to move in.
When Dublin City Council released its vacant sites register this month, it was entirely blank. Some ask why the council didn’t at least list its own sites.
But did the government push Apollo House residents to the front of the queue? A look at Dublin’s two-tiered system of emergency accommodation for homeless people.
