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

I have several questions on homelessness and social housing. I raised the issue previously of the monthly report and the numbers of people that the Department is reporting as homeless. The figures that come from the Department go through the pathway accommodation and support system funded through the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. We know that currently approximately 390 families have stamp 4 visas and are in direct provision. These people are on social housing waiting lists and full-time social welfare payments. They are effectively using direct provision as a form of emergency accommodation. The same applies to the figures from Tusla for domestic violence, refuge and step-down accommodation. This is accommodation for homeless adults and children as well. We do not have the 2016 figures but the figures for 2015 indicate almost 2,000 adults and almost 3,000 children are involved. There has to be a way for the Department to lead a conversation with Tusla and the Department of Justice and Equality to provide, on a quarterly basis, accurate figures of the number of adults and children who are homeless and in emergency accommodation funded by all three Departments. I urge the Minister to look at that as something that he could tackle quickly.

The major news item today is the announcement by the Minister that the deadline in Rebuilding Ireland to get families out of hotels by the end of this month has been missed. I am not surprised by that. It was patently clear for some time that the deadline was not going to be met because of the lack of supply of housing.

My question on this, however, is specific. The commitment on page 17 of Rebuilding Ireland was not to move families from hotels into other forms of emergency accommodation even if that other emergency accommodation is of a better quality. The key action on page 17 is explicit. Families were to be moved out and into two other types of housing: rapid builds and the Housing Agency initiatives. At what point did the Department change that target from being one to move those families out of hotels into permanent housing to being one to move some into permanent housing and others into emergency accommodation? At the end of the month the Department will notify families about where they are going. How many will remain in emergency accommodation after they are moved out of the hotels?

I am also concerned by some of the media reports on the hub. This will be a Topical Issue debate on this with the Minister. I have a specific question about it. At what stage did that premises get its certification of completion? My understanding is that a premises cannot be occupied legally until it gets its certificate of completion validated by Dublin City Council. Did it have its fire certificates and its disability access certificates certified by Dublin City Council? I am not looking for general assurances that it was fire safety compliant. I want to know if it met the legal requirements of the B-CAR system before the families that recently spent the night there moved in, albeit it for one night. I would also like to know who is the assigned certifier for that premises?

Will the Minister give us an update on Housing First and the number of tenancies that have been delivered to date? I have three quick questions on the social housing end. I do not want to get into a row about the figure of 10,000 in the pipeline because I know that we will not agree on it. Of the 10,000 units that the Minister is saying are in the pipeline, I would like to know how many have commenced the Part 8 process. For how many of those has the Part 8 proposal been published? For me, the pipeline does not start until the Part 8 proposal is published.

I am very concerned about what I am hearing from a number of local authorities inside and outside of Dublin county around the ongoing problem of the approval process. We discussed this with Mr. John McCarthy and others before. However, I am hearing that there is no improvement in the length of time between passing Part 8 and construction work starting. It is incredibly frustrating to elected members who pass Part 8 proposals to council officials. I would like us to return to that matter to see how long it is now actually taking from Part 8 approval to commencement and then to tenanting.

My last question concerns joint ventures. The Minister mentioned four. I am hearing worrying signals from at least one of the possible locations in Dublin city in terms of the market not coming back with viable alternatives. I am also hearing worrying things in terms of whether there will be any affordable units delivered and, in particular, in terms of Dublin, if there will be any affordable units. I would like more information on that. If the affordability cannot be guaranteed, I am urging the new Minister, as I did with his predecessor, to consider allowing, at least in one instance, a local authority to pilot a fully funded, council-led, mixed tenure estate on public land. Many of us have argued from the start that that would be a better and more cost-effective and sensible way from a housing management point of view of delivering those. I urge the Minister to consider that and ask for his responses.