Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Barry for his questions and the points he made. On the recategorisation issue, some people are obsessed with the wrong subject matter. It is not about the numbers and the list, rather about the solutions. Having 10,000 families and people in emergency accommodation, such as hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, is not politically sensitive for me. I find it morally abhorrent. I would feel the same about 9,000, 6,000, 5,000 or 4,000 individuals and families living in emergency accommodation. The charges the Deputy has laid against me are very unfair, but let us forget that for a moment. Let us talk about solutions. The 10,000 families and individuals affected do not tell us anything that 9,500 would not be able to tell us, namely that we have a crisis and want to find homes for people.

The two reports we have give us clarity around the different challenges we face and the different categories of people who are in emergency accommodation. The solution is not as straightforward as building houses or finding homes for people to move into. From reading the two reports, it is clear the situation is more complex than that. People have long-term support needs, are unsure about their status or need other care and supports which they feel they will not get in the private market. I understand that.

The categorisation survey will explain how each of the categories in the report is being cared for and in what kind of accommodation. There is no third report. The survey was meant to be part of the DRHE report, but it was not finished in time and I did not want to delay the DRHE report because I wanted to publish it before the committee sessions, something I was quite clear about. I hoped it would be completed. In terms of the timescale, it is almost complete and we will have it in the few weeks. The Deputy may regard the recess as involving him being out of the gap but the Government continues to work every week even when the Dáil is not sitting. I will continue to work on these challenges on behalf of the Government and people I represent in government to try to solve these problems.

As I said, recategorisation is not the opinion of my Department. It was agreed between local authorities and my Department when we discovered what was happening around section 10 funding. The Deputy is misrepresenting Brendan Kenny. Section 10 funding is for emergency accommodation, but as I said at the beginning of the year at the second housing summit prevention and being innovative are key. Section 10 funding has been used to put people into homes where they are at no risk of falling into emergency accommodation or being tenanted. They have their own front doors and keys and will be safe and secure.

The Deputy is focusing on the wrong issue. There is no evidence on his side that anything inappropriate has happened, other than us trying to get a better and truer picture of the people we need to help so we know how to help them. It has been admitted by Sinn Féin that a recategorisation error occurred. Around 1,000 people have been able to use the transfer list since the introduction of HAP. It has been rolled out in Dublin for a year, and many people have moved from HAP into secure social housing. We want to do more than that. The main reason people have come from the private rental sector, as outlined in the report, was the sale of a house. That speaks to another of my concerns, namely rental properties exiting the rental sector and being lost to renters, something which will only decrease the supply of rental accommodation. Some of the current proposals would see a further flight of landlords from the market. We need to encourage more landlords into the market. It is a separate area, but all of these things are related.

The report also tells us that the majority of people who came out of the private rental sector did not give a reason as to why. We need to drill into those figures. Again, it speaks to the need for better and more detailed reporting which, if we want it to be accurate, will take time.