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29th March 2018
08:20am BST
A family who have been living in emergency accommodation in a Dublin hotel have received bed bug bites and say that the room is filthy, reports The Journal.
With latest figures showing that there are now 1,739 families with 3,755 children living in state-funded emergency accommodation in Ireland, the homeless crisis has reached an all-time high.
The Journal report that one woman has been living in a hotel in north Dublin with her two sons ages eight and 11 after becoming homeless six weeks ago.
They had been renting in Dundrum for 10 years but had to move when the landlord said he needed the property for a family member. She said that she tried 400 rental properties before presenting as homeless but could not find anywhere priced within the Housing Assistance Payment.
Since becoming homeless, the woman has not been able to work at her part-time childcare job as she has had to mind her children.
“It was filthy, absolutely filthy,” the woman told The Journal.
“When we moved in… there were cigarette burns on the sheet through to the mattress, so the sheets hadn’t been changed – there was a big stain on them and there was someone else’s hair on them."
The family recently had to visit their doctor as they received bed bug bites from the hotel room.
One of the woman's sons requires specialist treatment for a Sensory Deficiency Disorder and now has to travel to and from Dundrum and north Dublin to school and his occupational therapist.
People Before Profit TD for Dun Laoghaire Richard Boyd Barrett is now advocating on behalf on the woman and her family to find a suitable home.
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