Ms Mary Hurley:

I will come back in with a couple of points and I will deal with Deputy's question first. I will also address the place finder service, which the Deputy has raised in the House a number of times. The place finder service is relevant to the search for units for people. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, operates a shared place finder service across Dublin's council areas. There has always been a place finder service reaching out from the DRHE and working with the contact point in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. We met the DRHE this week and one of the options we are considering as we try to ramp up our prevention efforts is the possibility of locating satellite place finder offices in the other three local authorities. The Deputy is correct that there is nothing like having people on the ground to find places. We have supplemented the teams in the various Dublin regions and Ms Keenan and her team have been trying to find places also. There always has been a place finding service operated through the DRHE and it is a shared service. It has been able to facilitate the rent supplement uplifts and the homeless HAP. That is done through that process.

We saw last week how families were finding it very difficult to find accommodation. Where HAP is not yielding rental units at a particular point in time, there are a number of things we do. One is the inter-authority movement where we try to facilitate people in other HAP local authority areas. We also try to secure extra units through another form of accommodation such as long-term leasing. It is a mix of measures to try to accommodate people within the various different delivery mechanisms. Dún Laoghaire is probably the most challenging of all the local authority areas with regard to HAP because of the price ranges for properties. We work closely with Ms Catherine Keenan, director of housing, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on this. It is very challenging when a HAP unit is not available but we find alternative solutions.

Unfortunately, some people end up in emergency accommodation. We try to work them out through the HAP place finder. If there is a gap where we do not get accommodation, we try to get it as quickly as possible.

I refer to the figures of 50,000 and 87,000. Members have concerns about HAP, which they have set out on a number of occasions in the House. In the Dún Laoghaire area, there is a target of 1,544 homes to be built, acquired or leased up to 2021. We expect about 70% of them to be built. Then there is long-term leasing, which comprises contracts of up to 25 years. The contracts we have range between ten and 25 years. We are now putting in place a lot of 25-year contracts, which give people security. Separate from the HAP element, there is the build and lease acquisition element of the 50,000. We have been working with Ms Keenan and the team on trying to accelerate delivery there. We are seeing some good projects being delivered in Dún Laoghaire with George's Place opening up next week.

It is all about acceleration. We know that we need to accelerate more, and we are saying to local authorities that the targets are a minimum. Where they can do more, the Minister has made clear that the funding will be available, and we will support local authorities on delivery. Our new housing delivery office is working closely with local authorities. For us, it is all about homes and getting people into them. We will continue to try to do that. We will continue to try to make HAP as flexible as we can, and to put in place whatever supports we can to bring in units. That will involve increasing the place finder service in the DRHE. We need more people in there now. We have put additional resources in over the past number of months, but we will continue to add to them. It is important to get the right skill set in there. We need people who know what they are looking for and can get out there and do it quickly. There is a body of work under way there, and we will continue that.