Homeless charity hits out at 'silly' comments by Labour TD

FOCUS Ireland has hit out at Labour TD Joanna Tuffy after she criticised the charity, along with the Peter McVerry Trust, for not "stepping up to the mark" to build social housing.

The Dublin Mid-West TD asserted that up to €500million in funding for social housing made available by the Housing Finance Agency is being left unclaimed.

However the charity has hit back, accusing the Labour TD of being uninformed on the issue:

"Joanna Tuffy seems to fail to understand that the money she is talking about is actually loans."

"The sad truth is that while Focus Ireland is in the process of borrowing millions of euro to build new homes, it is incredibly cheaper for us to borrow it from commercial banks than from the Government’s HFA fund - even in the middle of a housing crisis," said Focus Ireland Director of Advocacy Mike Allen. 

The charity went on to note that it has provided more than 100 homes this year as well as working with the four Dublin Councils to provide emergency accommodation for more than 550 families every night in the county.

"They call this the ‘silly season’ but it rarely gets sillier than this. Tuffy’s remarks can only be seen as a way of distracting attention from the Government's failure to take the urgent and effective action we have been calling for," the charity said.

"I think we can leave it to you to decide who needs to ‘step up to the mark’ on homelessness."