Dublin City Council boss has slammed support groups that provide tents to homeless people, calling them "merely virtue signallers".
Council Chief Executive Owen Keegan said these groups "continue to promote and sustain rough sleeping". Mr Keegan, who is due to step down from his role in 10 months' time, said the council fundamentally disagree with the provision of homeless services on the street.
Mr Keegan told the Irish Times: "The council does not support the provision of homeless services on street and we disagree fundamentally with those groups – some well-intended some merely virtue signallers – who continue to promote and sustain rough sleeping."
Read more: Housing activists outraged after eviction of 'homeless camp' in Dublin 8
While the number of people using homeless accommodation continues to rise, the number of rough sleepers in Dublin saw a 3% decrease down to 91 in annual figures released the week before Christmas. One-quarter of those were using tents.
"The supply of emergency accommodation on most nights has exceeded demand, and accommodation is available to all in need of emergency accommodation. In these circumstances, where emergency accommodation is available, the city council has no hesitation in removing tents while working intensively with the tent occupants to ensure they avail of that emergency accommodation."
He added that the council worked closely with the gardai and homeless agencies to "keep control on tent numbers". He said that he didn't want Dublin to turn into "downtown San Francisco".
DCC is set to begin a major land-purchase scheme targeting church-owned and other institutional sites. Mr Keegan said the council would be open to considering purchasing any well-located sites that were not currently zoned for housing to avoid paying a premium for residentially zoned lands.
He said: "We have a huge programme of over 15,000 social, affordable and cost-rental units at various stages in the system. It is clear, however, if we are to maintain housing output beyond 2026, we are going to have to start acquiring land. We don’t have a huge window to acquire it so we need to get moving on that."
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