Homelessness records have been broken yet again under this Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green government, as 12,411 found themselves in emergency accommodation in May, while working people now make up 25% of Dublin’s homeless.

Despite the crocodile tears that we may see from housing minister Darragh O’Brien and the the government following this announcement, it is their policies that are responsible for the ever-worsening housing crisis. Their commitment to the private market means that they can offer no way out of it. Their pals, the landlords and private developers, are laughing all the way to the bank as working people struggle to find affordable housing.

Public land sell-offs, the right-to-buy, a refusal to mass build public housing – these are the politics of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens, and record-breaking homelessness figures are the consequence.

Fine Gael, despite their claims, are not the party of people who get up early in the morning. They are in a government responsible for putting working people into homeless. The working homeless in Dublin includes cleaners, security staff, taxi drivers, van drivers, lorry drivers, scaffolders, electricians, construction workers, healthcare assistants, carers, shop workers and retail staff, barbers and bar workers. These people are our friends, family and neighbours, and they play an important role in keeping society functioning. The government, however, would rather that the rich get richer than these people having homes.

The private market, while benefiting the landlords and the developers, has failed working people. The only solution to the housing crisis is a mixed-income and universally-accessible system of public housing. You can read the Workers’ Party’s public housing policy at workersparty.ie/housing