Sinn Féin, Labour and the Social Democrats have called on Tánaiste Simon Harris to withdraw remarks he made allegedly linking homelessness to immigration.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Mr Harris said a “significant number” of people in emergency accommodation for homelessness “don’t have a housing right in Ireland”.

Mr Harris claimed he was “shut down” when he said in November that Ireland’s “migration numbers are too high” as he doubled down on comments linking immigration to the high rate of homelessness.

“A lot of people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, or certainly some people who are in emergency homeless accommodation, don’t have a housing right in Ireland,” he said.

Eoin Ó Broin, the Sinn Féin spokesman on housing, said the remarks were an attempt to link “rising levels of homelessness to rising levels of immigration into the country.

“His comments are dishonest and dangerous, and I am calling on him to withdraw them immediately,” he said.

“The Tánaiste’s comments are a new low in the Government’s deliberate policy trying to displace blame for the housing and homelessness crisis on to others. But this time he has been caught out.

“To access emergency homeless accommodation, you must be legally resident in the State. People applying for international protection or recipients of temporary protection are accommodated through IPAS, not homeless services.

“This has been confirmed by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. Their statement to the Irish Times flatly contradicts the Tánaiste’s remarks,” the Dublin Mid-West TD said.

“Conflating the issues of homelessness and immigration is not only dishonest – it is dangerous. As we have seen in the past, it puts front-line homeless services workers at risk from far-right elements and has resulted in arson attacks on buildings earmarked for accommodating people experiencing homelessness.”

Labour’s housing spokesman Conor Sheehan also criticised the Tánaiste’s comments.

“He should withdraw it and also know better; to have the Tánaiste make such misleading statements at a time when things are so febrile in relation to immigration is unhelpful and dangerous.”

Labour Party councillor Darragh Moriarty said he has submitted a motion on the comments to be debated at Dublin City Council next month.

The motion calls on the council to reject the Tánaiste’s claims and condemn his “blatant efforts to scapegoat and demonise migrants for his Government’s decade and a half of failure to meaningfully address the housing and homelessness crisis.”

The Social Democrats spokesman on housing Rory Hearne accused Mr Harris of “trying to deflect from his Government’s housing failures”.

Mr Hearne said evictions by landlords from the private rental sector is the main cause of families being made homeless. “Why doesn’t Mr Harris call out the real cause – landlord evictions, rather than blaming victims of Government housing policy failures?”

He said Mr Harris has been in the last Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil governments that “reneged on their commitment to hold a referendum on a right to housing. It’s ironic he now cites housing as a right to try divide those in need of a home.”

It is understood that representatives of the Local Government Management Agency gave a presentation to a Cabinet sub-committee on housing earlier this month during which they outlined the increase in the number of people from outside the EU who are presenting as homeless.

The briefing said that people from outside the EU presenting as homeless had increased significantly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of non-EU people in homelessness rising from 971 in January of 2022 to 3,114 in June of 2025.

The briefing said that people from outside the European Economic Area accounted for 27 per cent of homeless households by June of 2025. Ministers had been told at the meeting that people arriving from abroad were starting to impact homeless numbers.