Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Just so I am clear, in addition to the testimony we heard earlier, I can testify directly to the committee that I deal with cases from a number of local authorities where people who do not have a social housing eligibility but do have an emergency accommodation need are at times initially refused. We have to fight the refusal and eventually we might have it overturned. People may come to us after they have been excluded. That includes people born in the island of Ireland whose incomes are just above the threshold for social housing but, because of the crisis in the private rental sector, they end up with a notice of termination, are unable to find an alternative private rental and present as homeless. In fact, in one of the Dublin local authorities some of those people have been written to by the local authority telling them that because they do not have a social housing application filed, they have to leave the emergency accommodation.

There is then a fight and a battle but that is important for the committee to know.

There is confusion in the public domain, so I think this is important. We have the figure of 40% of households in emergency accommodation being from the EU, EEA or a third country from the last monthly homeless report. That is not the same 40% as the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive's review from November of last year when it looked at people in emergency accommodation in Dublin on that particular night and at how many of them had an active social housing file. While the figure was 40%, the DRHE report was very clear that many of those people were in the process of applying or their applications were being considered, etc. For the sake of clarity, it would be useful to make it clear that those two figures of 40% are not the same thing. Is that correct?