Twenty Homeless People Died In Dublin In First Four Months Of 2023

Five of those who died were under the age of 30, in data released to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín

Twenty homeless people have died in Dublin in the first four months of 2023, including one person who was aged under 17 years old, documents released to the Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín show.

The figures, seen by Kfm, show one male person under the age of 17 died in homeless services this year, while four people aged between 20 and 29 died. The figures were released to Tóibín by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive.

Three people between the ages of 30 and 39 died, and 6 people between the ages of 40 and 49. Four people aged between 60 and 69 died. The figures were for the period of January 2023 to April 2023.

In 2021, 68 deaths in homeless services were recorded in the full year, while there were 46 deaths in 2020, 27 in 2019, and 25 in 2018.

Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín commented: "These are harrowing and distressing statistics which have been provided to me by Dublin City Council. Behind each one of these statistics is an individual and their family and friends.

"The ages at death are  deeply concerning. Of the twenty people who died while homeless in Dublin so far this year, one of them was under the age of 17, four of them were aged between twenty and 29 years, and a further ten were aged between 30 and 49 years. Its chilling that over two thirds of these deaths were of people younger than me.

"Aontú has long been campaigning for an investigation into the spike in homeless deaths. Indeed it was on the back of my raising the matter in the Dáil that an investigation was announced in 2020.

"The reason I called for the investigation is because I was concerned that deaths tend to spike so much over the winter, I didn't know then that we would be waiting three years for that report".

"The findings as published by the Department of Health last week, produced by the Health Research Board make for sad reading. Substance abuse and mental ill health were big factors here, but the report cites how "the deaths were primarily the result of the social determinants of health, including inadequate accommodation, poverty, lack of employment, child and adult trauma and imprisonment."

"We know the causes of the deaths and what we need now is urgent implementation of solutions - we need the Departments of Health, Justice, Children and Education to work together on this - from DEIS schools to psychologists, to social workers and prison officers.

"It is a scandal that people are dying homeless in Ireland in 2023 at this rate and that the government has taken so long to look into it.

"We also urgently need the government to begin to record homeless deaths in other counties and local authorities - these statistics I have only relate to Dublin - if we don't quantify the problem around the country we cannot get near solving it!" concluded Tóibín.