Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I feel that I should be in the Seanad voting against the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's Judicial Appointments Bill but I will not do so. I welcome the Minister, Ms Hurley and Mr. Kelly to this meeting. The reports are very interesting although I have not read them in great detail. There is a lot of meat in them and a lot to glean and learn from them. However, it is very disappointing to see that there are still substantial numbers of people in emergency accommodation in hotels. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Coveney, was exceptionally ambitious and I always admire a brave politician who sets down statistics, figures and objectives to achieve but it is exceptionally disappointing to see the number of people who are going back to hotel rooms at night and calling them home. It is really unacceptable and I do not know how the Minister and his officials can stand over it. I do not understand why it is taking so long to solve this problem. That was one the key priorities of the previous Minister. If one looks at all of the press releases that have come from the Department and all of the speeches we have heard in these Houses, the main point was that we would get people and families out of hotels. While it is true, as Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out, that a hotel room is preferable to nothing, this was one of the key objectives of the Government and it has not been achieved. We must keep the focus on this issue.

According to the homelessness reports for April, there were 5,963 adults in emergency accommodation, comprising 1,712 families with 3,689 dependants. I accept what the Minister has said about many of those individuals having complex needs but we must face the challenge and address their needs. A number of issues are highlighted in the reports but we must not lose sight of the fact that the figure itself is huge. Where can we find comfort in terms of how we can cut those figures? They are staggering and must be addressed. We have a housing crisis and a change in Minister is not going to change that situation. We have to work together, pool our resources and knowledge and support those providing front-line services who are trying to deliver. I do not doubt the motives of anyone in here. Everyone in here, of all parties and none, is absolutely committed to addressing the homelessness issue, as well as the problems with regard to social and affordable housing. In reality, there are lots of people who would like to purchase a house but cannot afford to do so. They are also on our social housing lists.

I am aware that the Department wrote to the local authorities earlier this year seeking details on accommodation categories being recorded for the individuals and families in emergency accommodation in their areas. The Minister has said that the work is ongoing and that the survey being conducted is not yet complete. It would be very helpful for this committee to get a copy of that survey when it is complete. We need to see the data from the Department's survey as well as the feedback from local authorities. That will help us to understand better the complexities of the problem and the challenges that lie ahead. That information is critical and I would ask that the correspondence and feedback from the survey be forwarded to the committee as soon as it becomes available.

The Minister will be appointing a new chairman to the board of the National Oversight and Audit Committee, NOAC, in the coming weeks. That organisation has done a lot of oversight work on figures and statistics relating to the local authorities but it could do a lot more if it had more resources. Given that a new chairman will be appointed soon, perhaps now is the time to look at that. Would there be value in having an oversight body such as NOAC to set certain criteria, examine the data set and scrutinise the figures in detail prior to them being published? An awful lot of the debate now is centring on statistics and figures rather than on the delivery of homes for people. So much of the debate in the Dáil, Seanad and at this committee has focused on the figures, the length of time people have been waiting and so forth. Too much expertise and knowledge is being tied up in this area. We need to use the resources we have to focus on providing homes for people because that is the bottom line. I have no hang up about who owns those homes or who has built them; I just want homes for people. I would ask the Minister to examine whether there is a role for NOAC in examining and validating the figures. The figures must be credible and independently validated in order for people to believe them. I await the Minister's reply to that question and would ask again that the aforementioned survey results be forwarded to this committee as soon as it is complete. I ask for a report on the data requested by the Minister from the local authorities as soon as possible.