Director of Advocacy, Mike Allen, said “We look forward to working with Minister Murphy and wish him well in the new role. He can rest assured that Focus Ireland will be doing everything in our power to collaboerate to overcome the current housing and homelessness crisis.

“However, the lack of continuity in the housing Ministry is not helping to solve the crisis. The appointment of Minister Murphy means that there has now been five ministers for housing in six years [1]. Families are now staying in emergency homeless accommodation for longer than Ministers are staying in the Custom House. Every one of the recent Ministers has approached the role with the energy and commitment that a crisis of this scale requires.

“Progress has been slower than we hoped, but housing and homelessness are complex problems that require not only commitment but persistence if they are to be solved. We hope that with the new Minister, the many positive elements of Minister Coveney’s ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ strategy will be pursued with even more vigour, and that the lessons about its weaknesses are taken on board.”

The new Minister’s top priorities now should be to agree a credible plan to end family homelessness and to mobilise resources to speed up delivery of new homes.

[1] Willie Penrose (March-November 2011), Jan O’Sullivan (2011-14), Alan Kelly (2014-16), Simon Coveney (2016-17, Eoghan Murphy 2017-

ENDS