Dublin City Council is “seriously considering” using prefabricated buildings to house Dublin’s growing number of homeless families.
 
154 families, including 341 children, are currently in emergency accommodation. Currently the only form of emergency accommodation available is hotels, which have serious safety concerns for children.
 
“That’s no place for families to be living. Child protection is a huge issue,” said Dick Brady, assistant chief executive and head of housing.
 
The number of homeless families is growing monthly, with the number of homeless children gone up by 42 since June.
 
The expense as well as the unsuitability of hotel accommodation for families is causing serious concerns for Dublin City Council, who are desperately looking for a solution.
 
“If things get worse I respectfully suggest we may be looking at temporary solutions like the provision of temporary accommodation. I’m talking about some form of cellular accommodation on vacant sites: prefabs. We are seriously looking at . . . what kind of unit we might use here and how it might happen.”
 
Brady explained that the type of prefabs under consideration were thermo-insulated, and have separate cooking, sleeping a living areas, offering privacy and a more normal home life.
 
“I would rather see people living as families in that form of accommodation than in a hotel where they have nowhere to cook and families are sharing bedrooms,” he said.
 
Dublin City Council is currently drawing up a list of potential sites to place the prefabs, though Brady admitted that there could be controversy over their choices. ““The actual location . . . the minute I would suggest it, there would be opposition.” He said.

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