Mr. Colm Ward:

I will respond to a couple of the points and allow the representatives from the Department to follow up in respect of the homeless figures.

In relation to Labre Park, it is not in the south Dublin area. I am familiar with the challenges and I know that Dublin City Council brought in Cena, an approved housing body, to engage in in-depth consultation with the families there to try to come up with a redevelopment solution that the families will buy into and believe in. We have replicated that in south Dublin with some success. We have received strong, positive feedback from families on that engagement on the design, facilities, playgrounds and access routes into developments. We hope to see some projects flow from that through to the redevelopment Part VIII stage. Notwithstanding the historical issues with Labre Park, I believe there is a good, strong pathway forward that will address it. We are seeing it and replicating it in south Dublin.

As regards transient sites for the Dublin region, all the Dublin local authorities in the current Traveller accommodation programme have stated they want to meet the permanent housing need immediately. We will continue to focus on a suitable location for transient sites. In that Traveller-led consultation that I spoke about, we raised the proposition of having transient sites located adjacent to the development of permanent sites where there is space available. That was rejected. We also earmarked a historic site on the boundary between south Dublin and Dublin city as a potential transient site as well, but that did not progress because of challenges with families in respect getting agreement on it. It is something we will continue to look at. We have made the commitment that permanent accommodation has to be our initial priority.

In terms of Part V, the 10% social housing requirement is still there. It does not change our parameters. We have delivered some Traveller accommodation through Part V. We are looking to do something similar in the Adamstown strategic development zone, which would deliver Traveller accommodation in an integrated fashion in a strategic development zone. This would reflect the innovation that was referred to earlier. I will hand over to the representatives of the Department in respect of the homeless issue.