ABSTRACT
Notwithstanding Ireland’s remarkable post-2015 growth rates, which include some of the highest in the European Union, Ireland has registered the highest rates of market inequality in the OECD. Alongside robust levels of growth and inequality, the country has also been experiencing increasing levels of displacements in its rental sector, or what many commentators in the media and civil society organizations describe as Ireland’s homelessness crisis. The homelessness crisis has been particularly acute in Dublin. The majority of homeless people waiting for social housing are also surplus workers in that they are predominantly unemployed and welfare-dependent households. The state solution to the growing numbers of homelessness reflects the dominant neoliberal approach and its emphasis on marketization, individualization and privatization of housing needs. The Irish and Dublin states’ response to the homelessness crisis was to facilitate self-accommodation in the private sector.
