Tánaiste Simon Harris has landed in hot water in recent weeks after comments linking homelessness to immigration.
The Fine Gael leader told The Irish Times in an interview published on the last day of 2025 that a “significant number” of people in emergency accommodation for homelessness “don’t have a housing right in Ireland”.
Opposition politicians called for Harris to withdraw the comments, with Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin arguing that conflating homelessness and immigration was “dishonest” and “dangerous”.
It is accurate to say that there has been a rise in the number of people entering homeless services in Ireland after gaining refugee status and leaving direct provision. Meanwhile, about half of the 11,675 homeless adults in emergency accommodation in November were not Irish nationals.
However, people with refugee status do have a right to access housing supports, as do foreign nationals in Ireland on work permits and others meeting certain criteria.
Homelessness organisations have disputed Harris’s suggestion there are a “significant number” of people in emergency accommodation who do not have a right to housing in Ireland.
On Monday, Dublin City Council passed a motion rejecting Harris’s claim that a significant number presenting as homeless do not have a housing right.
One councillor, Malachy Steenson, an Independent anti-immigration politician who denies being on the far right, said during the meeting: “For once, I actually agree with the Tánaiste.”
An examination of key contributions made by Harris on immigration since the start of 2024 shows he consistently highlighted the benefits of immigration, spoke of the need for a “fair and firm” system and criticised the far right.
But his interventions have also evolved, sometimes encompassing the impact on housing, particularly homelessness and concern that the number of migrants coming to Ireland are too high.
While this may mirror trends, it has also left Harris open to Opposition criticism including a claim of “dog-whistling” to the far right.
Harris staunchly defends speaking about such issues, saying the debate cannot be left to “the political extremes”.
So what has he said about immigration in recent years?
In January 2024 the then-minister for higher education told the Dáil that on an “economic level” Ireland needs immigration and “we need to make the case for that”. He pushed back against “far-right language”, saying: “Ireland’s not full. Ireland is not only for the Irish.”
Harris became Fine Gael leader in March 2024 and told his party’s ardfheis that Ireland needed a “fair and firm” immigration system and spoke of plans to sign up to the European Union’s Migration and Asylum Pact.
Later that month, as taoiseach, Harris told a Dáil debate on the pact: “Ireland benefits from immigration.
“There is no disguising that inward migration and the scale of increase is posing challenges for communities and societies across Ireland,” he said.
“Communities have often been pitted against migrants” but the “key thing” was “not to try to divide” but to “actually put a more sustained system in place”, he added.
“By shying away from difficult discussions”, that ground “just gets ceded to extremists” who are then allowed to “misshape” the debate.
“Politicians of the centre must not shirk our responsibilities. We have a duty to engage with people on the realities we are facing.”
In September 2024 he made comments clearly linking rising immigration to homelessness.
He told the Sunday Times that “homelessness numbers are heavily impacted by the fact we are seeing many people seek protection in our country” and “many people come from abroad hoping to have a new future in Ireland”.
Immigration has “many pluses, but it has had a challenge there”, he said.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy argued at the time that Harris’s comments were “dangerous”.
Then-minister for housing Darragh O’Brien backed Harris’s position, acknowledging immigration was “a factor” contributing to the number of homeless people in emergency accommodation.
Harris faced renewed criticism over remarks on immigration in October 2025 when he told reporters: “Our migration numbers are too high, and the system is not built to deal with such large numbers.”
“Immigration is a good thing in Ireland,” he said, and “we benefit from immigration”, citing workers in the health service and many parts of the economy.
His comments sparked Opposition criticism including the “dog-whistling” claim.
In his recent end-of-year interview with The Irish Times Harris said he was “shut down” over his remarks and he felt claims he was touting a dog-whistling style of politics were “bizarre”.
In the Dáil in November Harris said: “It is a statement of fact that our population has grown at a very fast rate” and “for every 10,000 people who come into our country, roughly 3,000 more homes are needed”.
Harris added that migration needed to be planned for and “we need to have a mature discussion about what is an appropriate level of migration”.
He is not alone among Government politicians linking immigration to housing and homelessness. Taoiseach Micheál Martin told The Irish Times recently that people who have sought international protection in Ireland are beginning to become a “significant factor in the growth of homelessness”.
However, it is Harris who has become a lightning rod for Opposition criticism for his comments.
The Tánaiste’s spokesman said Harris’s position on migration has been “consistent”, saying the State needed a “firm, fair and humane” system that “recognises the economic and social benefits of migration” and “challenges racism and extremism”.
His remarks “reflect the reality that higher levels of inward migration – across all categories – place additional strain on an already constrained housing system”, he said.
“Acknowledging that reality is not about blaming migrants. It is about being honest with people and ensuring we can maintain public confidence in a fair and compassionate system. Avoiding difficult truths only creates space for extremists to exploit fear and misinformation.”
The spokesman said Harris’s comments on homelessness reflect public figures showing an increasing number of people in emergency accommodation – “some of whom do not have an automatic entitlement to social housing supports”, including “certain categories” of non-European Economic Area nationals.
He said the Tánaiste “rejects any attempt by far-right or anti-immigration activists to misrepresent his comments”.
Earlier this month, amid the criticism over his latest comments, Harris took to online platform Substack to write,about how it should be possible to discuss “an interlinkage between the housing crisis, population growth and migration” “as a means to finding policy solutions”.
The post was headed: “Politicians of the centre cannot shirk the migration debate. I certainly won’t”, signalling it will not be his last word on the issue.