A CALL went out from the Council requesting that the government allow the recording of the numbers of deaths from homelessness in Limerick City.
Speaking at December’s meeting of the Metropolitan District, Aontú councillor Sarah Beasley pointed to the shocking reality of only Dublin City Council recording deaths among people experiencing homelessness.
“In 2023, 56 people died homeless in Dublin, and by 2024, 40 people had already died, including, tragically, a child under 17. These are not just statistics. These are individuals with families, stories and lives cut tragically short,” Cllr Beasley told Council members.
The City North representative questioned how the government claims to be addressing homelessness when it doesn’t record how many people are dying because of it.
“The absence of recording creates a dangerous invisibility. People are dying without their deaths being acknowledged or the circumstances investigated. Recording these deaths is the absolute minimum requirement for a compassionate society that values all citizens,” she said.
“Every person who dies while homeless deserves to have their death acknowledged and investigated.
“Their families deserve answers. Recording deaths ensure accountability from service providers and identify system failures and highlights where intervention is desperately needed. It also allows us to learn from tragedies and prevent further deaths.”
Cllr Beasley said that housing policy, homeless services, mental health supports, and addiction services should all be informed by accurate data on outcomes, including deaths.
“Without this data, we’re making policy decisions in the dark,” she said. “We cannot continue to ignore the deaths of the most vulnerable people in society simply because we choose not to count them. Recording homeless deaths in Limerick would honour those we have lost and inform better policies and prevent further tragedies,” she insisted.
Independent councillor Maria Donoghue supported the proposal, saying: “I didn’t realise that we didn’t count our dead in our homeless community, and I think it’s terrible. We all deserve dignity, all of us.”
“We can only improve a situation when we have a figure, when we have a metric around what the situation is, and without these numbers, we cannot go upwards or downwards. We don’t know where we stand.”