Bannon lashes government for plan to dump homeless dubliners in midlands

Fine Gael TD, James Bannon has hit out at a plan that he says will see large numbers of homeless people “dumped” in the midlands.

Deputy Bannon says the Government’s Rural Resettlement scheme plans to relocate hundreds of Dublin families to vacant homes in rural Ireland to ease the burden on the capital’s housing stock.

He has asked why counties like Westmeath and Longford, which already have high waiting lists for social housing, are being asked to take in Dublin families “because their own local authorities failed to adequately provide for housing them”.

“This is another example of the Midlands being disregarded and other counties’ problems being dumped on our doorstep,” he said, before criticising the Labour Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly, and the Dublin Local Authorities to provide housing for those in need of housing in Dublin.

“If the scheme is initiated, large numbers of homeless people from Dublin will be relocated to the Midlands in order to make further room for affluent people in Dublin,” he said.

He continued: “Dublin is reported to be booming at the present time.  The same cannot be said of rural areas such as my part of the midlands.  Instead of addressing the deprivation in my area, unnamed officials in the Department of the Environment are reported to be considering visiting further deprivation on my area by bringing possibly thousands more deprived people into the area.”