FOREIGN NATIONALS accounted for 38 per cent of rough sleepers in Dublin this year, compared to 9 per cent in 2005, a dramatic increase noted in a report by the Homeless Agency Partnership this month.
This shift is at odds with the general trend, with the number of adults reporting that they are sleeping rough having fallen by 41 per cent over the same period. But it confirms anecdotal evidence from homeless organisations of a significant increase in the numbers of foreign nationals availing of their services.
Alice Leahy, director of the charity Trust, estimated that up to 50 per cent of Trust users were now non-Irish, with large numbers of men between 30 and 50 years of age using its services.
"We hear terribly sad stories of people who have lost their jobs, lost their partners, and many of them have been badly treated," she said.
Among Trust's foreign clients are many who speak no English and ran out of savings before they could find regular work.
Immigrants' entitlements are limited by the habitual residence condition, a measure introduced by the Government in May 2004 due to fears of "welfare tourism" among citizens of the 10 states that joined the EU that month. It means that, in general, foreign nationals cannot claim unemployment benefit or other social assistance payments unless they have been resident in the State for two years.
Although the system was reformed in 2006 to provide supplementary welfare payments to those who have worked previously, and officials have been given some discretion in deciding on applications, support groups claim the condition partly explains the increase in homeless figures.
"While community welfare officers have been given discretion, discretion isn't really enough because some of them exercise it in a parsimonious way. That's why so many people end up getting stuck in homelessness," said Tony Geoghegan, chief executive of Merchants Quay Ireland, which provides services to homeless people and drug users.
Those who do not satisfy the criteria for the habitual residence condition are also denied access to some emergency and long-term housing, said Noel Sherry of Focus Ireland. "So what happens to them next? What happens to them, more and more, is that they turn to friends and sleep on sofas, but sooner or later that stretches itself and they're getting closer and closer to hitting the street."
Some 50-60 per cent of those who avail of the breakfast service run by Merchants Quay each morning are foreign nationals, but the organisation is also seeing a cross-over into drug use, with increasing numbers of foreigners visiting its needle exchange.