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

Before I move on to the two reports, I will make a final comment on the homeless numbers and urge the Department to consider the proposal I raise. It is clear from all of the evidence that there is no longer the consensus or agreement among the different sectors that was presented previously. The best course of action would be for the Department to convene the homeless consultative committee and those involved in the data subgroup to agree unequivocally on what methodology will be used in future. It should then retrospectively apply this methodology to ensure that, to address Professor O'Sullivan's concern regarding confidence in the data, whatever figures are produced are consistent with what was in place in the past. To this end, it should avail of the expertise of the Central Statistics Office. In my view, the CSO should, as has been done in respect of the number of home completions, produce the data on homelessness in the future. That is the best way to end this controversy, which is what all of us want. If the Department were to convene such a meeting, many of us who have been critical of it and the Minister would welcome that decision and we could try to resolve this issue. I urge the Department to take that course of action.

On the two reports, I have a series of questions, which I will fly through quickly. I will start where Deputy O'Dowd ended, with homeless deaths and the recent death of a homeless person in Dublin city centre. Something that concerns me about some of the public commentary - not from anybody in this room - following such deaths is that it somehow apportions part of the blame to the individual who had died and his or her failure to access emergency services, whether because of mental health issues, addiction or other reasons. It highlights a failing or weakness in the emergency accommodation system when people who have chronic addictions or have come out of addiction through recovery and others who have mental issues do not feel able, comfortable or safe accessing some of the emergency accommodation available. The number of deaths among rough sleepers appears to be increasing, although it is difficult to know whether this is because such deaths are being reported more often as a result of the homelessness crisis. I want to know what more can be done to ensure that those who are most difficult to reach or have the most complex needs can be brought into a form of emergency accommodation in which they feel safe and are not left out on the streets to die. That is the first question.

The second relates to my increasing concern at the refusal to provide emergency accommodation to people who present to local authorities. This has always been an issue and we have raised it previously. When a person has a notice to quit, it is a straightforward situation. He or she can present and the notice to quit suffices. Where it is a case of a relationship or family breakdown, however, it is too discretionary. Many of the front-line staff in the local authorities are first class in trying to assess these situations.

It is impossible, however, for a front-line staff worker in the DRHE or a council to manage to balance the tiny level of availability of emergency accommodation with the large number of presentations. Is the Department and the DRHE examining the issue of people who present and are refused? What can we do about that? In that context, for those who are accepted, is there any willingness to review self-accommodation as a way for vulnerable low income families to try to access emergency accommodation? Most of us on the committee have said repeatedly that it is an appalling way to provide emergency accommodation. If it is not being reviewed, can it be?

Turning to some of the data in the two reports, I ask repeatedly if we can get accurate information on the time that people spend in emergency accommodation. I hear some Government figures telling us how quick the turnaround time for people in the hubs is, but they are not telling us the total amount of time that family has spent in emergency accommodation from night to night through to licence and into the hub. The DRHE provides information to Dublin City Council and we get that from the councillors. I would like to see that information provided State-wide to give us a sense of how long families are presenting.

The table refers to 801 exits. I ask whomever would like to confirm this if these are all exits from emergency accommodation. Two groups of people are counted. One group comprises people in emergency accommodation who, through various supporting mechanisms, get out of emergency accommodation. The other group comprises people in tenancies that have an end point but who, through preventative measures, such as providing homeless HAP before the tenancy comes to an end, are prevented from becoming homeless. At what point will we be able to get accurate figures to us how many people have left emergency accommodation - which is the meaning of the word "exit" - and how many people have been prevented from becoming homeless through homeless HAP? That is a good intervention from my perspective.

In regard to the detail of the reports, both of them referred to HAP and various issues with it. We had a detailed discussion of one of those issues previously. That is the disincentive for people to exit emergency accommodation into HAP because they fear losing time on the housing list. I am blue in the face saying this. South Dublin County Council has solved this problem. When a person goes on the HAP transfer list there, he or she has exactly the same access to the housing list as he or she had the day before. He or she loses nothing. That works easily when there is choice-based letting but it is much more complicated when there is not.

Why is it not possible, however, to state that it is now a policy objective of the Department to ensure that nobody loses anything when he or she goes into HAP? Whatever the mechanics of allowing people to continue accessing the mainstream housing list, I do not care if they not counted in the homeless figures. I can go to the HAP figures and add them myself. Families are being asked to make impossible choices. They might have been 11 years on the list. Then they go into emergency accommodation and are being asked to add an unknown number of years to the list for permanent council accommodation because of the way the HAP system operates. My understanding is that the Department has no objection to what I am proposing. Surely it can be progressed in a way that I think solves that problem.

On HAP and the intercounty issues, Ms Gleeson and I have spoken about this, often when I am advocating for people. I do not oppose the proposal but will that create additional pressures and problems? Almost 2,000 homeless HAPs have been generated this year through the DRHE and the local authorities in Dublin. That is a lot of homeless HAPs. If we start providing homeless HAPs in the commuter belt counties, at that rate of payment, that is going to push up rents in those areas. That will, in turn, make it much more difficult for the good people of Louth, Wicklow, Meath or Kildare to get rental accommodation in their own areas. There may be surplus accommodation but it will have a perverse or negative impact on rent prices. How do we avoid that?

I am willing to look at anything that gets families out of emergency accommodation but there is now a hierarchy for landlords in my own constituency. They know they get more from a homeless HAP tenant than from a standard HAP tenant. It is influencing the market levels of what HAP landlords are willing to take in Dublin. How do we deal with that? On the interagency report, to reopen the thorny issue we debated at some length when the report came out, there is that famous line in the report which reads: "Given the need to minimise the number of families in emergency accommodation, it also needs to be considered whether it is appropriate for the State to provide emergency accommodation to households who are unwilling to consider HAP, where HAP may offer an appropriate solution for that household".

In retrospect, was it a mistake to write that sentence in that way, given the disincentives with HAP? Can we get confirmation that, whatever the intention of that sentence because we had an argument about that, there is no intention to action that in the way that many of us feared? I refer to people losing their homeless priority, if they have such a thing, because of the issues with HAP? There was also another line in the interagency report which concerned me greatly. It was in respect of non-Irish and non-EU citizens. The assumption was that the majority of those would not have status. There is no evidence, however, to support that.

I am interested because there has been commentary, some of it very ill-informed, about whether there are people in the emergency accommodation system who do not have legal status to remain and do not, therefore, have the legal right to access homeless services. Where are those people going to end up? I would like some accurate information for the committee on the status of that group of people. I would also like to confirm that nobody will be denied access to homeless services because of a status-related issue.

I agree with Ms Gleeson on the single person units. I am a full supporter of every single new unit and I know that Ms Hurley and her team work very hard with the local authorities to increase those units. One of the frustrations is that in much of the new social housing being developed, there is an under-provision of one bedroom units. In Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council, the two areas in which I know the lists the best, one third of the total housing list, by household, is single persons. One third of the new units being developed are not single units. What is going on? Is it that the Department is prioritising family units?

Is it because of the focus on and the urgency of family homelessness that there is a prioritisation of family units? Why are we not ensuring that the roll-out of the new builds is somehow consistent with the level of need in the housing lists? That is not against any particular unit. Are the targets being agreed with local authorities not matched against the level of need? In some senses, if we provided more one-bed units, we could also encourage greater levels of downsizing. Some good projects are coming online in a number of local authorities.

Professor O'Sullivan mentioned the loss of 9,000 or 10,000 rental units. That is a big concern. He and the RTB have highlighted it. We do not know the reasons but many of us can assume. The Chairman is right. We have a significant rate of buy-to-let mortgages in mortgage distress. We have others who may not be in mortgage distress but they may no longer be in negative equity and, either under pressure from the banks or from their own choice, they are selling voluntarily. What policy tools could be put in place to try to get a proper read of what is going on? How could that also be prevented?

I agreed with Deputy O'Dowd completely. The vacant possession notices to quit are now a problem. That is particularly the case where buy-to-let landlords bought those properties by availing of a tax break. I suspect but do not know - I have many cases similar to those mentioned by Deputy O'Dowd - that often when the residents gets the vacant possession notice to quit for a member of the landlord's family that if the property was revisited in three months' time, the family member will not be living there. It will be rented out to someone else. The new powers of the RTB will be helpful but of no consequence to the families who lose out.